Sermon Tone Analysis
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How many of you have a fence in your yard?
What is the purpose of fences?
Keep people out
Keep animals out
Keep animals in
Keep people from “looking in”
Every culture has sin.
Although, sometimes the people in that culture do not see it.
How many of you know the song “Amazing Grace?”
How many of you love that song?
How man of you just appreciate how lyrically awesome that song is and how it must have been written from someone with such an amazing heart for God?
John Newton, who wrote the song didn’t always have a heart for God, however.
Newton was a slave trafficker in his early life.
It is believe that he wrote the song in 1772.
However, just 20 years prior he was a slave trafficker.
In fact, between 1750-1754, he captain 3 slave trade voyages.
Newton had his conversion experience during a sever storm on the sea in 1748.
So, for another 6 years he was still trafficking slaves even having been saved.
The question I have is how?
How can a made have a miraculous conversions and still take part in what he was?
To be fair, some sources say that after his conversion he was kinder to the slaves and treated them a bit more humanly, but he still was trading them....
I think the answer is quite simple, yet, scary:
Sins of Culture
Slavery was something that was accepted as normal in the 1700’s.
When you grow up with a culture says something is normal or even right, it is difficult to go against the grain.
Newton knew to some level that slavery was wrong, but it was still a challenge for to embrace the idea fully when that was so heaving engrained in who he was.
The story does get a bit better.
After he could no longer traffic slaves in 1754, he became one of the leading voices against slavery.
He would go on to write “Thought Upon the Africa Slave Trade” supporting the abolitionist movement.
In his writings he would describe the inhumane conditions that slaves would under go.
He would fight for the freedom of slaves.
He would pen “Amazing Grace” and several other works.
You see, Newton was confused by the sin of his culture until God would reveal His truth to Him that all men, really are, created equally.
This leads us to the question of the sins of our society...
What sins do we have in our culture that are against the will of God?
Well, there are probable many: including abortion.
But, there is one sin that is often overlooked and ignored...
The authors of the book argue that the most ignored sin of our culture is:
Individualism
We grew up in a country that fought for individual freedom and individual rights.
It’s so entrenched in our upbringing.
We want things to be the way that we want them.
The way that most benefits us.
We like to be able to order our hamburger the way that we want it.
The authors write “At a writers’ conference, Leonard Sweet referenced the Nintendo motion sensor video game, pointing out that we are so individualistic that we now use two I’s to spell we (as in “Wii”).
- Steve DeNeff and David Drury
This individualism spills over into the church as well.
We like for our worship to be the way that we want.
We pray by ourselves and read scripture by ourselves.
Now, those of us here this morning are a little closer to the goal of community by being here this morning.
But, we still have some issues.
We often leave church thinking about whether or not we “got something out of the service” before we consider whether it was beneficial to the church as a whole or not.
We want it to be the way that we want it to be.
But this is not simply the problem with the church, its a reflection of our culture as a whole.
It is how we have grown up.
According to research presented in the book: “In 1974, nearly one-fourth of Americans visited their neighbor several times a week.
By 1994, that figure had dropped to 16 percent, and there was shocking increase in the number of people who had “never spent and evening with their neighbor” - from one in 5 to nearly one in three, a 41 percent increase.”
Another story i the book is about a Lady named Adele.
Adele was a 73 year old lady who had lots of help with things.
She had someone mow her yard for her and collect her mail for her.
She had seemingly great neighbors who cared about her.
Only problem is they never checked on her.
In fact, she died and no one even knew it.
It wasn’t until the police forced their way into her home that they discovered that she had been dead for four years and no one knew.
You see, we are a culture that looks out for ourselves.
We are individualistic.
If you look at older houses you will notice that many of them have large front porches and not much behind the house.
If you look at newer houses you will notice that many of them have small front porches and larger back porches.
And, many are surrounded by privacy fences.
I have listened to people who are a bit older than myself who talk about Sundays as they were growing up.
They talk about how after church they would always go to someone’s house to share a meal.
What has happened, even in the church?
We have become individualistic.
We are not alone, however.
As we read in the scripture this morning, the disciples were in the same boat.
As Jesus was explaining what was going to happen to Him, a couple of the disciples were more worried about sitting next to Jesus.
They were concerned with themselves and their own position.
Jesus takes what they were arguing about and turns it on its head.
in:
and Jesus says to them
He takes their selfish concerns and turns it to something more.
He takes what they view as a position of status and compares it to that of a servant.
Those who want to be first, must be a servant.
It’s not about their position anymore than it is about their focus.
He is teaching them that it’s not all about them.
It’s about others.
You want to be the greatest?
Good, then serve other people.
You are the most important....Good!
Then serve others!
Shift from yourself to others.
They had to learn to shift from:
Me to We
From my own status to serving others.
From my own wants and needs to the wants and needs of the body.
We see this idea towards the end of our reading.
The concern of the John (and presumably) the other disciples, hence the word “we,” was that people who were not with them were driving out demons.
This mindset is called the “sectarian spirit.”
It is this idea of sects....my sect is more important than others.
These other people were doing things in the name of Jesus, but they were not “of them.”
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