Sermon Transcript Tone Analysis

Boy, those kids, you know, Jesus said, unless you have faith like a kid, like a child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Also reminds me of Art Linkletter in Kids Say the Darndest Things.

But I'm an old person.

I know about Art Linkletter, and I can tell a lot of you others know, too, about that.

So, did anybody go to work this past week, besides me?

Really?

I was the only one?

Ah, you don't have to raise hands.

I know you're not supposed to do that in a Lutheran service.

But, you know, really, what I'm getting at when I asked you about, well, how was work, really, the question is, what did you get out of work today?

Right?

You come home, and maybe somebody at home asks.

Or anybody here married?

You know, I can ask the same thing.

How your marriage going?

In other words, what I'm really wondering about is what are you getting out of your marriage?

What's marriage doing for you?

Anybody here retired?

Well, of course.

So how's your retirement going?

In other words - thumbs up?

Okay.

So what are you getting out of it?

I bet you could share some things about that.

What about worship?

You know what happens if there's somebody you know, somebody the family who isn't here with you now, but you go home and maybe they might ask "Well, how was church today?"

I think what maybe they're really getting at is so, what did you get out of church?

What was in it for you?

So, you know, you think about it.

So, with regards to work, retirement, marriage, worship - my retirement, my marriage, my work, my worship.

Me worship.

Well, that is what the Apostle Paul discovered as he worked and was present and got to know the Christians, the the Corinthian Christians and their assembly as worshippers.

There were those who were getting a lot out of worship in Corinth because the the Spirit had endowed them with these special gifts - especially, Paul mentioned, some had this gift of being able to speak in tongues - but that wasn't everybody in the congregation.

So imagine that - there are those after a worship service who are like, "Oh boy.

Wow, did I get a lot out of church today!"

And the rest were saying, "I didn't get a thing out of it.

I didn't understand what was going on.

It wasn't for me at all."

You know, this is what Paul - and he confronted this many times, not only in Corinth, but in Rome, we'll mention that in a moment - but to the Corinthians, he says to each is given the Spirit for the common good.

Do you hear what Paul is saying?

He's saying, yeah, some have these special gifts of tongue and interpretation and have great faith and such, but it all is intended to serve, not the individual solely, but for the common good of all.

Again, he says, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue or interpretation.

Let all things be done for building up... me?

No.

For building up the church.

The church.

And as I mentioned a moment ago, it wasn't only in Corinth.

It was in Rome, too, because in Romans, Paul had to remind them: so then, let us pursue what makes peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Not me upbuilding.

But mutual upbuilding.

The key word there is "mutual," that shared, common, reciprocal building-up one another, as being at the heart of why they were called to come together to worship the one, true God.

One God, three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right?

Boy, throughout my public ministry - beginning in Iowa and in Wisconsin and elsewhere - I can't tell you how many times with regards to the Lord's Supper, I've heard it said, you know, that's really nobody's business as to whether I'm welcomed up here or not.

It's just between God and me.

What do you think about that?

Now, Luther did say that the two most important words in the Lord's Supper was "for you," you know, so that we can appreciate the personal nature of what's happening when we come to be at the Lord's table.

But yeah, we also refer to this as what?

Holy Me-union, right?

That's Holy Me-union.

It's just between God and me.

Pastor - it's none of his business whether I should be up there or not.

It shouldn't be the business or concern of the elders or anybody else.

If I want to go up there, I can go up there.

It's Holy Me-union.

No, it's not.

It's Holy Communion.

My dad was an English teacher.

I learned all about English, whether I wanted to or not.

And I know that com is a prefix.

That means "with" think of words that start with com besides communion.

Commune.

Commemorate.

Communication.

That's not "me, myself and I" kind of thinking there.

We were - Genesis teaches us - we were created for me, myself and I, we were created for Community.

For Fellowship.

That's what this is all about.

It's for me, sinful me, like Isaiah said.

Woah is me, for I don't know if I dare come forward, because I am a man, a pastor of unclean lips.

But then here for you, Chris, for the forgiveness of your sins, as well as the person to your right, and the person to the left and all the others that come up and commune with you, that hopefully also share with you one faith, one Lord, realizing they, too, are sinners with unclean lips who need what you need: the whole community.

The forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ.

You know, the other thing, too, about Christianity, understood properly and in light of all other religions.

And, you know, in the hospital, I rub shoulders with Hindus and Buddhists and athiests and agnostics and Muslims and such.

And there's a lot of Catholics and Lutherans there, too.

But in every other religion apart from Christianity, when it comes to worship, the worshipers are expected to come together to serve their God, or their leaders, or whatever they refer to as "God."

But in Christianity, in true, Bible-based Christianity, worship is always viewed as God's.

It's God gathering us together, bringing us together so that He can serve us.

You know, grace.

God's riches at Christ's command.

Now, our German forefathers and foremothers, they had a word - our German Lutheran ones - for worship.

It was Gottesdienst.

Good old draconian, German language.

Anybody know German here?

How do they say I love you?

Ich liebe dich.

I'm real German, so.

And I tell you what, growing up as a kid in Minnesota, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a lot of times, worship felt like it's "Gottesdienst!"

You know?

It's Gottesdienst, "God's service" is what that means.

God's worshipping gathering.