Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

As a new Christian many years ago I was on an awesome ride!

Discovering the truth of God and excitement for living with him was great.

I was like a sponge.

Many people spoke into my life over those years, words of encouragement and words of prophesy.

I just wanted to serve God, but I wasn’t sure how or what.

I got married, had kids, a more responsible job … and life started to take over a bit.

I was still faithfully turning up but in hindsight I was starting to drift.

I started to press God … “what do you want with my life?”, what direction do I follow?

and consistently got no answer.

This came to a head when my kids started to resist coming to church and resulted in us taking a break from it.

My passion and engagement started to die off.

My prayer life was almost exclusively “What do you want with me God?”.

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Many of us are without a way forward, and many of us had a God given dream, a vision, and made plans for our lives.

Some of them prophetic words that inject a fresh excitement and passion, but sometimes the things we see and seek seem to get further away, One step forward and two back.

Hope isn’t rising … hope is fading!

Take a moment … what dreams and visions have you had that are fading or faded?

… what has Covid robbed you of?

Are you sitting there without a purpose?

Have you resigned into retirement before your time?

How many times have you been running the race only to get the wind knocked out of your sails?

Proverbs 29:18 KJV - Where there is no vision, the people perish

What does the bible say?

The bible is full of stories … jam packed!

Stories from different cultures, different times and different places.

But the beauty of the bible is that when you step back to get a birds-eye view is that you start to see the same pattern in different stories over and over again.

These people were human beings, like we’re human beings.

The context was different, but the feelings and prinicipals are the same:

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Joseph (of technicolour dream-coat fame) had a dream … people would bow down before him.

In the story he finds himself betrayed by his brothers, sold to slavery.

But he starts to climb the heirarchical ladder, has authority in Potiphar’s house (an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard).

Hope is rising, but Potiphar’s wife falsly accuses him and he’s back in a dungeon.

Have people falsely accused you?

Moses spent 40 years in exile after killing an Egyptian, then hope rises when he speaks with God in the burning bush.

But when he told Phaoroh to let his people go, he refused and increased the hardship on the Israelites each time.

When they finally were released, Pharaoh persued them with an army!

Like Moses demanding of Pharaoh, are you continually hitting a brick wall?

Job had a great life and family, we know the story that it was all taken away from him.

He lost his servants, livestock which was his livlihood, his children and his health.

What’s more those that were close to him told him that it was his fault when it wasn’t.

What have you lost?

How is your health?

Let’s zoom out from the individual stories and look at the nation of Israel.

God chose them to be his people, he promised them blessings and a promised land.

Time and time again throughout the old testament, Israel complained, made idols like the golden calf, altars to baal and ashera poles; they rebelled, rejected God as their king and as a result found themselved exiled from the promised land.

Scattered amongst the nations, and the temple , the very hotspot and symbol of God’s presence with them was destroyed.

Are you rebelling?

What idols are you worshipping?

These are just a handfull of examples … this pattern repeats itself over and over again.

Let’s read how these stories end … what happened to these people because this will teach us how God works in our lives.

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We left Joseph in the dungeon … now he’s working for Pharaoh …

Joseph was knocked back time and time again, but the dream that God had given to Joseph was fulfilled in spectacular style!

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We left Moses leading Israel out of Egypt but being persued by one of the most feared armies in the region … The sea had parted and Israel had crossed on dry ground ...

Moses waited 40 years in exile, then was continually frustrated, but finally fulfilled his mission of leading his people out of Egypt and onto the promised land, and later on is hailed as the greatest prophet in Israel’s history.

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We left Job with nothing, not even his health ...

Job 42:10–12 (ESV)

And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends.

And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.

Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house.

And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him.

And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.

And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.

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We left the story with the people of Israel scattered in exile with the temple of God destroyed:

An example of God restoring Israel from the most unlikely source!

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For me, my first day back in church was here at theBarn after 4 years.

I’d made a deal with God that he would give me a direction if I came … and he did.

As clearly as he’s ever spoken to me he dropped the word “Leadership” in my spirit.

The following months felt as I did as a new Christian, new energy, hope and focus.

These stories illustrate how God works, we might not get sold to slavery, or get exiled but

there are modern equivalents that we face.

God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

The context might be different but his methods remain the same.

The cross and the empty tomb

Let’s move to the new testament where this pattern continues in the ultimate climax to the whole biblical story, that of the death and resurrection of Jesus!

The Messiah was foretold in prophecy of coming to rule and reign, he was welcomed by the people on Palm Sunday as a king, “Hosannah” they cried.

Yet on Good Friday, those that believed and followed him saw him falsly accused, beaten, mocked and hung to die in torture.

The very image of defeat and death.

His followers must have felt as if it couldn’t have been worse than this?

But true to the biblical pattern, in the ultimate expression of God’s power and victory, Jesus rises from the dead after 3 days, to a new resurrection body.

The old has gone, the new is here.

Are you in the metaphorical 3 days?

Are you in day 1 … shock and disbelief, or day 3, depressed resignation?

Have hope, have faith.

God’s best is coming … Sunday resurrection is coming for you and me!

Joel 2:25 “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.”

1 Peter 5:10 “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

15 - 20 minutes - 13??

Gospel if inspired to do so

How do we continue where hope is low?

I have 6 practical suggestions on how we can behave whilst we wait ...

1. Consume God’s Word

We need to cling to the bible … God’s Word.

Romans 10:17 “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Joshua 1:8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

I’m a big fan of The Bible Project on YouTube and they have a series on Wisdom.

It teaches us that the biblical idea of wisdom is like living along the grain of life.

If you’ve ever tried to plane a piece of wood against the grain, it’s messy and it splinters.

But with the grain it’s smooth.

Pay attention to the patterns and apply them to your life.