Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro: Recommitment in 80’s youth ministry.

As a child of the 80’s my experience in youth groups included lots of camps experiences with our music, emotion stirring, and weak theology and biblical teaching.

I didn’t know it at the time, but these ingredients were a big problem for the church and they are one reason the church struggles today.

Many churches today literally replicate that youth group emotional rollercoaster or loud music, dim lights, and weak preaching all to tantalize the emotions.

One product of that emotional pyramid scheme was the time of recommittment.

It was that time, particularly in youth groups at the end of a long day at camp or church retreat, after you had been fighting with your friends over boys/girls all day, playing in the hot sun during your recreation time, that you were exhausted, pumped full of carbs and sugar from the evening meal.

Then you were ushered in to a hot auditorium, where they jam loud music, deliver a hot plate of emotional preaching with little bibilical foundation, and then send you to small groups.

In this experience, imagine now its 10 oclock at night and all the elements exist for the emotions to be running on a defcon 5 levels.

Its a perfect time for the youth pastor to give a time of response and watch the emotions erupt like Mt St Helens.

I watched night after night the same people confessing, recommitting to walk with God only to do it again, and again and again.

I am not trying to criminalize this experience but I don’t think that is healthy recommitment to the Lord.

It represents more theatrics and less about true works of the Spirit to generate change.

I don’t doubt that the Lord used those moments throughout the 80’s to truly bring people to repentance, but the church and particularly ministry to students was in a precarious state in those days.

But renewing your commitment to the Lord is not a bad thing, just remove all the smoke machines, low level lighting, and mood music.

Renewal is about understanding that grace has been provided in our weaknesses and renewal in the Lord requires action on our part!

Grace has been provided

One theme of God’s revelation of himself is the beauty of his grace.

Grace is that unmerited love of God that he extends to humanity not based on their works, but based on his sovereign choice to love whom he chooses to love.

The unconditional nature of God’s gracious love is what sets the One True God of the bible apart from all other gods.

In a powerful declaration of his own nature, he states,

This is how the Jews were to understand God as was taught to them by their leader Moses at Sinai and passing down that truth to generation upon generation.

They did not just learn intellectually about that grace from the Lord but they experienced physically in God’s love for them in spite of their sin.

His provision and care was an act of his grace.

His leadership and guidance through the wilderness was an act of grace.

His power displayed over the Egyptian oppressors was an act of his grace.

They did not deserve to be pursued, delivered, fed, protected, and blessed but God gracious gave to them without measure.

This grace is the foundation of the covenants that He made with his people.

Ezra stated this similar truth about God’s character in Nehemiah 9:17

Human nature reveals that sin is bound up in every fiber of our being and as human beings, we will fail God.

We will forsake him just as Israel did, just as Adam and Eve did.

We will forsake him and yet He will show love for his people continually and for eternity.

This is the essence of his loving covenantal grace.

The Jews knew of the availability of God’s grace as we can see in chapters 9-10.

You don’t enter into a time of confession of sin and repentance if you are unaware that the grace of God is available.

They know the reality of God’s grace and therefore, in their remorse over sin, the go to him like a child who has willfully sinned and yet know that the love of their parents is real and availabile.

May we look to Christ as the church and know that God’s love for his people is real.

Let us not forget that his grace is present and sufficient to cover the multitude of sins.

You and I need this understanding as we live day to day in the trenches of the human experience.

When I go backpacking…one major rule to consider on a two or three day trip is “know where a water source is located.”

If you can’t get to water and fill up, you can get yourself in alot of trouble.

You can’t just frolick carefree in the woods without considering the ramifications of such poor planning.

Knowing the location and distance of a drinkable water source is key to survival.

God’s grace is that water source for our Christian life.

Our journey is rough as we climb through the thick brush and slog through the deep mire of a depraved society.

You will get off course and you will make mistakes that dishonor the Lord.

But knowing that God’s grace is sufficient and its location is the person of Christ is the key to faithfulness to the end.

He never leaves you nor forsakes you.

Paul knew this reality when he battled the persecutions and hardships of ministry.

In 2 Corinthians, he writes to the church in Corinth about his difficulties and his need for God’s grace.

Paul mentions a “thorn in the flesh” which is widely interpreted to mean many things.

I think Paul is referring to a person who tormented and persecuted him and his ministry efforts.

He calls this person a “ANGELOS SATANAS” which translates to a “messenger (or demon) from Satan.”

But Paul’s response to affliction is powerful,

Friend, God’s grace is sufficient for your weaknesses in hardships and persecutions and struggles with a sinful world full of temptations.

When you understand the grace we find in Christ, then you will rest in him in struggles.

Simply put, I was an enemy of God, dead and sin and lost in my own rebellious heart against the Lord.

But God in his grace and love, chose to save me, not because of what I accomplished but solely by his love and perfect plan.

I know that Jesus lived a perfect life in my place, obeying the law in every respect.

He did this because I could never attain perfect righteousness before God.

Then he willingly died on the cross, offering the necessary sacrifice to atone for my sin.

His blood, as both God and man was the only acceptable sacrifice able to cover my past, present and future sin and rescue from sins dominion and God’s wrath.

On the cross, he bore the wrath of God that was planned for me because of my rebellion.

He bore it all in my place so it could passover me.

Then on the third day, he rose victoriously, just as I also will rise victorious daily against my struggle with sin and in the end, I will rise victoriously from the grave to a life eternally with him.

This is my story of grace and it is the same for you if you believe and trust in Jesus and rest in his grace!

His grace sets the stage for you to live a life like the Jews in our passage today, who humbly confess their failures and renew their covenant with God.

Three questions for you?

Do you treasure God’s grace?

Is the grace of God the source of joy that moves you day by day along your Christian journey, even in hardships and failures?

Is the grace of God a greater treasure that earthly trivialities?

If God’s grace is a treasure, do you live in holiness BECAUSE OF THAT GRACE?

Is God’s grace like the snooze button on your alarm?

It allows you just a little longer to linger in warm places of sin that you don’t belong?

Renewal requires action

As I said, God’s grace sets the stage for repentance because we understand the character of God to be patient with our sin, we understand his love to overcome our failures and we understand his forgiveness to wash us clean of all unrighteousness.

Therefore, God’s grace allows us the opportunity to turn from sin and turn back to the Lord.

Chapter 9-10 is the chapter of repentance for Israel…really 8-9 leads to this.

The Law is repositioned in the community of God’s people as the highest priority in their lives.

All month, the 7th month they spent celebrating God and his word.

That time before the word leads to repentance.

Repentance is turning away from sin and turning back to the Lord.

Turning away from sin and turning back to the Lord requires action on the part of those in covenant with God.

Chapter 9, if you remember is the honest and beautiful confession of sin before the Lord.

They lay it out bare before God as to all the historical failures they committed against God as His people.

Their prayer includes two important aspect to any confession:

Confession of God’s good character and rule

Confession of our failures against his character and rule

What comes next is the verse 9:38, which is where we left off a few weeks ago when I stopped to explain in detail the covenants of the Bible.

Now what transpires here is the people reflect back on their failures as a people and they act with change.

The law of Moses has now instructed them as to how to live among the nations and they are committing again to live that way.

We have the same language that we just studied where the Jews “cut a covenant” but it really a one-sided covenant made with God based upon the existing covenant that was made with the Lord at Sinai.

Look at Nehemiah 10:29

As they reference the law of God given by Moses, then they are entering again into the covenant established at Sinai.

This is a renewal of the covenant.

It is interesting that only the people are renewing this covenant because they are the covenant breakers.

God never speaks in this reaffirming because he is not in covenant violation.

Notice that they “enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law.”

They are acknowledging that if they did not fulfill the obligations of obedience in the covenant, then God would curse them.

This curse would be the judgement from the Lord on their disobedience.

The people of Israel had a clear picture of God’s judgement because of their sin.