Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Busyness.

In a world where one pandemic is thankfully decreasing, another one is on the climb and claiming victim after victim.

More and more people find themselves busier than they have ever been and it can be difficult to find the sole culprit to our problem.

A couple of years ago Pew Research released some statistics regarding just how busy students are nowadays.

73% of parents with school age children said that their child is at least involved in 1 sport.

Sports are great as they teach you skills like communication, discipline, and dedication.

They also help you form friendships and make memories that can last a lifetime.

Sports are also demanding in terms of time as there is next to no offseason nowadays.

60% of parents polled said that their children are involved in either a children’s ministry or youth group

54% said that their children are involved in drama, choir, band, art, or theater

53% said that their children volunteer in some capacity throughout the week

These are good things!

Sports are good.

Music is great as studies share that it can boost intelligence!

Volunteering is a great practice.

Being involved as a child or youth in your local church is fantastic as you grow in your faith, learn more about Jesus Christ, and build relationships with others.

There are other things that demand our time, though.

Work, chores, family commitments, activities, appointments, homework, and so many more!

We’re busier today than we have been in any other period in human history.

We stay busy with tasks and whenever we aren’t busy we often find something to do in order to keep our brains occupied through our phones, tablets, Tv’s, or toys.

Maybe this is just a fact of life and it doesn’t seem that concerning to you… Here’s how the poll concluded: 31% of parents feel as though they are always rushed (anyone else feel that way?) while over half of the remaining 69% said that they feel rushed sometimes.

For those 2/3 of parents, they said that they are tempted to see parenting as tiresome and stressful and less likely to view parenting as enjoyable.

Parents aren’t the only ones who are busy - kids are busy too.

There is a correlation between busyness and forgetfulness.

Our brains are funny when it comes to forgetting things, too!

I have a friend who can tell you every US President and the dates that they served in office but this friend routinely forgot to do his homework for a ministry class.

Our brains are funny!

We remember things that may not matter all that much in the moment and we forget things that we need to know and do.

One of the things that can often go forgotten is our time with the Lord.

We have our hands full with all of these other things that we simply don’t have room for the Creator of our life.

Anyone else feeling a little convicted this morning or is it just me?

We train ourselves in so many areas of life - athletics, jobs, relationships, hobbies… Yet, we can fail to train ourselves in our walk with the Lord as 1 Timothy instructs us to do.

Maybe you’re here today and you don’t have a walk with the Lord - today you need to start walking after Him.

Maybe you’re here and you’re a follower of Jesus but you’re struggling with time management in your walk - join the club!

Today we’re going to look at what is expected of us as disciples of Jesus Christ.

He wants us to spend time with Him!

He wants us to bring our concerns to Him.

He wants us to trust in Him.

He wants us to be changed by Him.

Let’s continue through the Sermon on the Mount this morning and see what God promises His disciples!

The Prayer of a Disciple (7)

Each day we are bombarded with things trying to get our attention and devotion.

Again, we are all busy with so many things!

Sadly, one of the most important things in our lives that can be quickly pushed to the back-burner is our time spent with God in prayer.

Prayer is important!

While prayer is not us commanding God around like a genie, prayer changes lives as God changes our heart and even our circumstances.

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has spent a good chunk of time talking about how we are supposed to pray, who we are supposed to pray for, and why prayer matters.

He’s told us to pray for enemies and to be careful about being a hypocrite when we pray.

He’s instructed us to pray for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done in our lives.

Now, in chapter 7, Jesus tells us why prayer matters.

Prayer matters because God longs to give us good things.

In verse 7 there are 3 commands: Ask, Seek, and Knock.

You see 3 sentences in this verse with these words being the start of each sentence.

This is purposeful as it spells an acronym that we all need to remember: ASK.

Whenever a child has a question and his mom is nearby, he will ask her the question.

Whenever the mom is not nearby, he will seek to find her and ask.

Whenever she is on the other side of a door or in the car, he will knock and ask the question.

Again, these are imperative commands, not suggestions to do whenever times are convenient.

This is Jesus telling us to act with urgency - to come to God with boldness because we have an open invitation through what Jesus has done in our place

In any and all situation, we can have assurance that God is with us - even if we find ourselves knocking and seeking in prayer for a long period of time.

We can rest assured that He hears us and that He will answer us.

So what must we do?

We must first ask.

Have you ever met someone who never asked questions?

This often happens for a variety of reasons: maybe the person is shy, maybe they don’t want to be made fun of for asking a silly question, maybe the question has already been asked and they simply forgot already!

Or, on the other hand, the person won’t ask a question because they think that they already know the answer.

Has that ever been you?

You think you have it all figured out and you don’t ask for help only to realize that you needed help all along?

This is each of us at some point in our lives.

We need help - that’s not a bad thing to admit!

The reason that so many people fail to pray and fail to repent and place their faith in Christ is because they believe that they already have all the answers.

They’re already a good person.

They don’t need help.

They definitely don’t need to be saved.

I have it all figured out… Or so our friend says.

But the Bible tells us that we don’t have it all figured out.

The Bible says that we do need help.

The Bible says that we are sinners who need a Savior.

So what must we do first?

We must ask for help.

We must first acknowledge the truth of Scripture that we need Jesus.

A disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ will admit this and, now, must come before the Father with openness and sincerity make their requests known to Him.

The Bible is clear here - God delights in answering our prayers but He doesn’t always answer them in the way that we think He will.

We don’t pray passive prayers, we pray active ones and we expect our God to answer!

So what happens whenever there is no answer?

If you’re in the Christian life just to get things from God, whenever you seem to get nothing, you’re probably going to pack your bags and call it quits.

I’ve seen many people leave the church behind whenever persecution first knocked on the person’s doorstep.

Christianity isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme and God isn’t your genie in a bottle to make you happy and healthy.

He’s bigger than that.

Whenever we pray and our prayers aren’t answered, we inspect our prayer.

Is it self-saturated or is it Christ-saturated?

Is it self-glorifying or is it Christ-exalting?

Am I asking for something that I want or am I asking for something for the glory of God?

As we ask these types of questions we look to James 4 to see what’s really going on.

You don’t have because you don’t ask… You ask and don’t receive because you ask with the wrong motives…

Pray - don’t ever fail to ask God something on your heart!

As you pray, make sure that you are praying with the right motives.

Are you praying for something that goes against God’s Word?

That’s a wrong motive.