Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

My daughter is married to Michael Dilley and they have smooth flow of picking Miley from school.

Before they got married Emily and Miley were still living at home w/ us.

Miley has always been very confident in herself, which we’ve encouraged, but sometimes she’s a little to confident.

One day we were coming home, and Miley was telling me about her day.

She was saying that she raced a few of her friends at school that day and she beat all of them.

She proceeds to tell me “ Papa, I’m so fast I would beat your butt so bad!”

I tell her “Girl, you better be careful.

You’ve never even seen your papa run.

How would you know if you can beat me.”

Miley, “Because your old, and I’m fast!” “ I bet I you all my easter candy that I’ll beat your butt in a race.”

Tj “Oh hunny I would rethink your bet.” “All of it?”

Miley “Oh yeah it’ll be easy.”

Tj “ you shouldn’t bet anyway its a bad practice to use, especially when you don’t have any idea how it could turn out.

It’s better to work hard when you know what you’re going to get as a result.

You can get more of what you want by working hard.”

Miley Papa your scared I’m going to kick your butt!” Tj “Ok, (Pulls over into NLT parking lot) But when I smoke you, you won’t get to even sniff the candy wrappers.

I’m taking every bit of candy you have, even the loose ones.”

We get out of the car and here’s what happens...

So many of us are like Miley was in this specific situation.

We misplace our faith.

We tell ourselves, if we’re culturally kind, pray at least one time a week & are good spouses, kids, parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles, neighbors, classmates, etc. We’ve got this faith thing own lock.

We see constant examples throughout scripture where men and women think they have reached a place of having it all together.

Jesus commands them to elevate their ideology of holiness.

We even see Jesus being tempted by satan in the wilderness in

Luke 4:1-8 “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.

And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.

And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ” Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan!

For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’

”” “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.

And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.

And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

We see that so many times in scripture when Jesus is addressed w/ a question, temptations, etc. that he elevated to faith in God’s words.

By doing that he’s leading us to do the same to have faith, not in our own abilities, morality, honesty, or opinion, but to go to him when navigating through this race.

It can be a challenge, to have that mindset of GO TO GOD FIRST, when we live an era in time where it’s you can do it all by yourself.

But we can’t win all by ourselves.

Not this race.

So we’re going to talk about 3 keys to getting this Dub in the race to Eternity w/ God.

Race by Faith.

Let’s read Hebrews 12:1-3 “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”

In reality we are in a race for our eternity.

This is not a race to see who’s most moral, who knows the most theological truths, a race to see who even comes to church most.

This about building as deep and meaningful relationship w/ Jesus as possible this side of heaven.

Or putting as much distance between us and him as possible.

No in b/w, even if you feel like you want to have a mediocre relationship w/ him.

He doesn’t want that.

I could make light of it and just say we should be good Christians and read our bibles pray everyday and you’ll grow.

That statement would be true.

But here’s the problem w/ leaving it there, Eternity is real, which means the Race is real.

If the prize is eternity w/ God, the loss is eternity away from him.

I don’t want that.

Neither does he; John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

How many of you guys have ever watched people race in a track meet?

Whether its High School?

College?

Olympics?

It’s a pretty easy competition.

Either you’re the fast in your heat or your not.

Depending on the event there isn’t really a strategy, when you hear the gun shot to start the race you run til you get to the finish line.

And your biggest fear is maybe the person in the lanes next to you have either not trained as hard as you, or their natural skill level.

Well the Christian walk is not like that.

What Peter says in 1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a track meet where there is a Lion running along side the participants.

Neither have I.

But when I see passages w/ imagery like this, it tells couple things, it tells me that the race we are in is more like the Hunger Games, where the enemy is out to kill us, steal every thing that could bring us closer to God, & destroy every part of our lives as believers.

Which is why we can’t treat the process of sanctification like self-help seminar notes.

Where if we follow these rules and give 4 payments of $79.99, follow the Golden rule and teach others to do the same that we’ll get our gold star in heaven.

The reason why Jesus was born lived human life did ministry died resurrected.

Was so that we could have the perfect standard to go by.

We look at Hebrews 12:1-5 “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;” We see that we’re to follow his example!

One of the things he did was he raced by faith.

Race w/ purpose.

The second thing he did was raced w/ purpose.

Some of the things we see that have gone viral in the last 5 years are videos where kids are participating in a sport and they see a parent and get distracted.

They might see a butterfly or some fresh dirt they can play in and don’t complete a play because they werent focused and were distarcted .

It went viral because it was relatable w/ most of our kids at one time or another.

But it’s relatable by more than just that.

Jesus’ time on earth was meant to atone for our sins, justify us, sanctify us, and set the stage for the world to be a testimony of his love for us.

Our purpose is to know God and make him known.

We are all born w/ different skill sets, interests, life experiences, but those things are not our purpose.

Jesus lives to complete his purpose, as we are to follow his example.

Paul says in

Colossians 1:16 “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

All things were created through Him and for Him.”

All of Creation and throughout history is meant to speak to us as a reminder of how big of a deal his sacrifice is.

There’s motivation in our lying hearts, our cheating hearts, our murdering(hate filled) hearts that cries out for something to bridge the distance b/w us and the Father to be united w/ him.

God is perfect in all of his ways, his wrath has no flaw in it because he’s the sinless judge, he is mighty to save which is why he sent his son as the sacrifice, to be that bridge that is so needed!

That with every sinful action, we are begging for someone to rescue us from sin, and he did it!

1 Timothy 2:5-7 “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle—I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”

I like the way in the message it says 1 Timothy 2:4-7 that there’s one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free.

Our purpose in everything is to do what we’ve been skilled to do, for an opportunity to glorify God to everyone around us.

The same way that the trees waving in the wind, how beautiful flowers are, the majestic mountains, the colors of the sky SHOUT to his Glory!