Sermon Tone Analysis

! Introduction

Thanks for inviting me to share from God’s Word this evening.

It is a special thing for me to speak in this building.

The first time I ever had a chance to speak from this stage, I  was so overcome with stage fright that I stood here and said nothing.

It was the Christmas program and I was 2 years old.

I will try to make up for that tonight.

My wife and I attended the Refreshing Winds seminar last January and learned a lot about the things we have been trying to do this evening.

We went home and attempted to do some of them in our home church in Manitou.

A number of years ago, we realized that we needed to do something about our worship services.

At the time, we had a simple goal and that was to design worship services that would be more meaningful.

We did not have a lot of skills or ideas, but we tried and learned.

The ideas we learned at the seminar and practiced here today were very helpful.

They make a lot of sense in terms of what worship is and also in terms of what will help people worship.

I appreciate the focus on coming into the presence of God, hearing from God, giving thanks to God and then going out into the world with the sending of God.

Planning worship services is something that makes us think and demands a response.

When you do the laundry, you don’t come out and say, “Oh, that was a good laundry session.”

When we worship, we recognize that we have certain desires and goals and we sense an inner response.

We have all raised the question, “how did you like the worship service” and heard either the criticism, “I didn’t feel anything” or “I got nothing out of that service” or perhaps we were encouraged by the response, “I was moved.”

But all of this begs the question, “what is supposed to happen in a worship service?”

Are we trying to help people feel something, or learn something, or respond to something?

What is the goal of worship?

I would like to address my comments primarily to those planning worship because I suspect that many of you here are those who do this.

If you are not, please translate what you hear to the point of view of a participant in worship.

! I. What is our desire for others?

!! A. Frustration

                This whole question of what worship is to  do is intensified in the season which is upon us.

We are just around the corner from Christmas.

Already, stores and television commercials have reminded us of that fact.

I have to confess that I have a love~/hate relationship with Christmas.

I love the cookies and the Christmas cake, the feeling of Christmas and the joy of getting together with family.

I love to go to church, particularly on Christmas eve and Christmas day.

I remember well how it felt on the Christmases when we lived in The Pas and our church had no service on Christmas eve.

It just didn’t seem right

At the same time, I find it very difficult to get excited about planning worship services and especially sermons for Christmas.

I don’t know how it is for music leaders, but I suspect that there is tremendous pressure to produce something that is meaningful, nostalgic and powerful.

The plethora of new Christmas music that is sent out in August or September tells me that there is a struggle to make the Christmas celebrations meaningful.

You try to call choir practices and everyone has so much else happening that they only make it to a few practices.

You want to make it special and yet you know you haven’t got the resources to do what the mega-church down the street is doing.

You plan for a Christmas day service and only a handful of people show up.

For me it is the most difficult time of the year to preach.

This year, those who preach regularly will need to preach 4 advent messages, Christmas day, Boxing day and probably one or two banquets.

What can you say from Luke 2 and Matthew 2 that has not already been said?

When you multiply that over the years, the problem only intensifies.

Are you looking forward to this?

What are your aspirations as you plan for worship over the next month?

Do we only wish that people will be happy?

That they will feel something?

That they will enjoy our productions?

!! B. Opportunity

                I remember reading prayer letters from Gordon and Gwen Nickel when they were in Pakistan.

They lived in a culture that did not celebrate Christmas, but knew that the west made a big deal out of Christmas.

They were allowed to celebrate and through the “cultural” celebrations they had a tremendous opportunity to proclaim Christ at Christmas.

How exciting in that context to plan for Christmas services.

I wish it was more like that rather than the over sold, under meaning celebration we have.

There is a house down the street from where we live that already has Christmas lights up and the glow from the house can be seen more than a block away.

These people want to celebrate, but I suspect the meaning of the celebration is only in the celebration because they had the same glow coming from their house at Halloween.

The only difference is that it was orange That is our context and that is the culture to whom we need to plan for Christmas worship.

And yet, perhaps there is a greater opportunity than we think.

I just finished reading a biography of Malcolm Muggeridge who at a time when he was still an agnostic wrote,

“Two thousand years have passed of Church and King

And vast has been the flow of blood and speech,

But brothers do we know the simplest thing

He died to teach?”

I wonder if perhaps Muggeridge hasn’t got something here?

We know the facts of Christmas, but do we really know what it all means?

We know the details of the Christmas story, but how do those details impact us?

We try to teach all the different aspects of what God has done, but how is our own relationship to God?

We teach people about Christ, but do we teach them to know Christ?

One of the passages which we read in the worship time was from Ephesians 1.

In this passage, Paul prays for the Ephesian believers and his prayer, in verse 17 is “that you may know him better.”

It was not that they did not know Christ.

In fact, in 1:1-14 he has just written a catalogue of the wonder and glory of what they have in Christ and then has said in verse 15, “I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus.”

Yet, he says that his prayer for them is that they will know Him better.

What was already present, he desires will be strengthened.

Is this our desire for the people we lead?

I invite you to think about what goal you have in mind as you plan for worship services.

Does the passion Paul had for the Ephesians give us a helpful direction?

The most significant first step in planning worship is to know where we are headed.

Is it our goal to help people know God in Christ not merely as a matter of mental assent, but also of emotional assent?

Do we desire to lead them not merely to a greater knowledge, but to a deeply personal and intimate relationship.

If that is our goal, it will make a great difference in our attitude about planning worship, whether at Christmas or any time.

! II.

What can we do about it?

Of course having a goal is an important first step, but not the last step.

The further question we then ask is, “how can we bring it about?”

As I thought about this goal, I began to think about all the ways in which we could help people to know Christ.

What words could be said?

What songs could be sung?

But then I went back to the text and it suddenly struck me that Paul does not discuss any of these things.

Instead, as Paul expresses his passion that people know God better, what he does do is pray.

As we seek to lead people into a closer relationship with God during this Christmas season, perhaps this ought to be our starting point as well.

!! A. Pray For Opened Eyes Of The Heart

!!! 1.Pattern Of This Prayer.

Notice the text, and see that Paul repeats the mention of prayer twice.

He says in verse 17, ”I keep asking” and then in Vs. 18 – “I pray.”

Whenever anything is repeated in the Bible, we need to take note.

It is important.

The prayer in both cases has a similar direction.

Both times the word “that” indicates a direction and in both prayers, that direction is “that you may know.”

What intrigues me, however, is the specific request.