Sermon Tone Analysis

You know, it's kind of interesting that we're here on Memorial Day weekend, and we're talking about heroes from the Bible, and that we've given our Volunteer of the Year award to one of our heroes in our church.

I wanted to just tell you as we begin our conversation this morning, just about kind of what my day looked like yesterday morning…three heroes that I encountered.

About two and a half years ago there was a local pastor in our community, and I was running from one building to the other in our last facility.

I was in a rush, and I was running out, and I looked out in the parking lot, and I saw this pastor who doesn't attend our church, and I was kind of surprised to see him parking, so I walked over there to say hello to him.

As I was saying 'hi,' he went over to the passenger side and opened up the door, and he helped this lady come out of the door.

She was an elderly lady, and he said, "I just want to introduce you to her.

She is part of the local homeless ministry at Winterhaven, and she called my church and said that she would like to be picked up.

She looked up in the phone book and found our church and asked for a ride.

So I went and picked her up."

I kind of just realized that he was kind of looking at me in the eyes hoping that I was going to read between the lines.

He said, "I kind of realized that she may probably fit in a little better at your church than mine."

I said, "Well…sure."

So I walked over to Linda and I welcomed her.

And just as I was talking to Linda and getting acquainted with her, Norma McKellip, our Volunteer of the Year, was walking by.

I said, "Linda, I want to introduce you to Norma.

She teaches the Sabbath School here at our church."

Norma said, "Sure, I'll take you over to our Sabbath School."

And over the last two and a half years Norma has been picking Linda up every week and bringing her to church.

In the end stages of her cancer, she was doing her laundry for her, and taking her to her appointments.

Yesterday was one of the bizarre funerals that I have done in the last 12 years, and I was very, very grateful that one of our church members, Norma was right there at that funeral to help me during that time.

So Norma, I just want to thank you for being one of our heroes here in our church.

I really appreciate it, and appreciate your ministry.

Then after that I drove over to a hospice in Rockville, and I visited somebody in our church community who is dying at the last stages of cancer, and as I was this close to her and I was praying with her and reading Scripture and just hugging and kissing her as she was sharing her last breaths with me.

I kind of just realized just the heroic things that she had done in her own life.

Victoria is her name.

There she was sitting in a hospice, dying and passing away by herself, and the rich life that she had lived also.

I hopped in my car and drove over to Suburban Hospital and met with one of the young people in our church who is an Iraqi veteran…had just come back from a tour of duty about five months ago and was in a horrible accident.

As I was praying with him I couldn't help but to think about the heroes in our church who continue to love on people in this church community who are often forgotten.

So I just want to say thank you to our church members for making this church a place where everybody can belong, and that God sees no differences.

He just sees wonderful human vessels, and I just appreciate the ministry of our congregation.

Well as we begin in the middle of our sermon series called Heroes, we're examining the life of Moses.

The life of Moses is filled with stories of triumph and tragedy.

Moses allows us to see a superhuman side of heroes while also looking at the low points of a leader as well.

You know the local news and the national media are consumed with focusing on the failures of leaders.

It's not very often that you hear about leaders and what good things that they are doing.

We only find out the news of when a leader has fallen, when a leader has messed up.

We look into the expose of their life to see how they can be chastised and publicly discredited for making decisions.

A couple of people in the news recently were Lord John Brown, the CEO of BP, British Petroleum, who recently stepped down from being the CEO because of moral failure that he had made.

President Bush has been criticized for his decisions regarding the war in Iraq.

As we look at different leaders we realize that very often, we only criticize what we disagree with them rather than looking and focusing on the good things they've been able to do.

The definition of a leader is somebody who has a following.

You follow me?

Or has the ability to influence others.

The definition of a follower is somebody who agrees with a leader or moves in the same direction of a leader.

There are a lot of followers who don't agree with the leader, but they are still moving in unison with the leader.

Often it is just because we just kind of move in the same direction; we're following the crowd without realizing whether or not this was somebody we should follow or who we should take seriously.

You see it's a careful balance between the leader and the follower.

It requires trust.

It requires vision, and it requires a sense of cooperation.

When we were living in Southern California, my wife and I would go to the beach as often as we could.

We would hit the beaches, and one of the things that I always enjoyed doing was going on bike rides on the beach.

So I would go to Rej and say, "Hey, why don't we rent some bikes and go biking."

My wife would always say, "You know I hate biking.

It's just too much…it's already hot out here, and I don't want to get any sweater."

And I would say, "Why don't we rent tandem bikes?"

Now guys, it's with a lady.

It's all good, okay?

You know, my wife was worried that if I were to say today that I really enjoyed tandem biking that you guys would lose some respect for me.

So I have to say that I did it because of her.

So when you are on a tandem bike…you know what a tandem bike is, right?

There are two people on the bike, and there are all these wheels and there are two seats and that requires great, great cooperation from the person who is in the front and from the person who is sitting in the back.

Well I would always be in the front, and I would usually always do most of the pedaling if my wife would just kind of look around and you know, handle on there.

One of the biggest complaints that Rej would have was that when I went over bumps or humps on the sidewalk I never gave her a warning.

Since she couldn't see above me because I am taller than her, and since she couldn't see around me because I'm wider than her, she would start complaining.

So I would sit in the front and start steering and what would happen was I would have to tell her, "Oh, there's a bump coming."

Or, "I'm going to be turning and making a right turn very quickly because there's a trash can in front of me."

Or, "I'm going to be slowing down, hold on tight!"

But often times there were times when I just didn't tell her, and that was when it caused a lot of problems.

Well you see, just like tandem bicycling, leadership and followers have to be in tandem with each other.

The leader needs to be the one who is looking out ahead and looking at the vision and knowing where their head is, but they also need to be communicating and telling their followers what they are seeing.

The leader needs to be also the one who is doing a lot of the pedaling in the front, but the leader has to be able to give directions and be communicating, telling the follower what is going on in the future.

Otherwise you're not working in cooperation.

Well, what happens when you're not in cooperation?

What happens when a leader fails to lead, and what happens when a follower decides not to move in the right direction?

You see, we're all leaders and follower in this room.

If you are a parent, you are the leader of your home.

If you work in an office, you have some followers who you are leading.

If you are working in the office, you may be the follower who may be following the boss, or the person in charge.

But every one of us are followers or leaders in some way.

Every one of us has a place in our lifetime where we need to make a decision whether or not we want to continue to lead or whether or not we want to continue to follow.

Take a look at Hebrews, chapter 13.

I have to tell you, in this sermon series that we're preaching, you have to really bring your Bibles with you, okay?

Hebrews, chapter 13, it says in verse 7, /"Remember your leaders who spoke the Word of God to you.

Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."/

You know, this is a pretty high, tall order to be a leader.

It says, /"Remember your leaders who spoke the Word of God to you and consider the outcome of their life and imitate their faith."/

So leader…you know when people read these passages of Scripture, they think very often that the Bible is only talking about pastoral leadership.

When the writer of Hebrews was writing this passage there weren't pastors that existed at that time.

So what it is saying is that if we are followers of Jesus, we are automatically leaders of the Christian faith.

So what that means is that in every way that we lead, we need to lead in a way that people are able to imitate our own faith.

What does that mean for parents?

What does that mean for school teachers?

What does that mean for nurses?

What does that mean for leaders and followers in our congregation?

Are we leading in such a way that it will allow others to imitate the way that we act?

We often talk about modeling leadership.

We model leadership so that other people can see how it is done, so they can imitate our actions.

So let's take a look at this passage of Scripture in Exodus, chapter 32, /"When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, 'Come, make us gods who will go before us.

As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.' Aaron answered them, 'Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.'/