Sermon Tone Analysis

A Superbowl Sermon…a week early.

Yes, I know Superbowl is next week but this message is in preparation for next week and I’m going to go ahead and get a stir started this morning… Chiefs or Eagles??? Now, I am an odd ball man - I do not care for professional football.

Love high school and college football - there is some talent and exciting games.

Professional football is like watching two dump trucks smashing into each other.

Just doesn’t have the same excitement for me.

But…whether I like it or not, there will probably be over 100 million people gathering to watch the game.

(We know there have been around 96.4 million during Covid - a 15% decrease but back up to 99.6 million last year only a 12% decrease) .

History reveals they have met 9 other times in regular season with Chief winning 5, the Eagles winning 4 AND the last three meetings (2013, 2017, 2021) has shown the Chief’s victorious.

According to current statistics, Philadelphia is predicted (50.1%) to win.

Wow.

Look at those stats.

We can break down players, yards rushing, passing yards, touchdowns, and everything we would ever want to know…about football.

Now, let’s take a look at other statistics…there are around 258 million adults in the United States, and of those approximately 70-80 million are professing evangelicals.

According to Lifeway, in 2019, 34% of Americans attended a religious service at least once or twice a month.

That fell to 31% in 2020 and 28% in 2021.

By September 2021, 98% of churches had returned to in-person worship services, according to Lifeway Research.

Yet the same study found that the average pastor saw 73% of their church members in person on Sunday mornings.

That is an improvement from early 2021 when churches were close to 60% pre-pandemic attendance, but still not at the 91% of churchgoers who said they planned to return when COVID-19 is no longer an active threat to people’s health.

So, football has a 12% decrease in viewers with a rebout of 3% watching in the last year BUT church attendance has decreased 27% with little to no rebound.

Those stats don’t make sense.

Now, this isn’t for our regular attenders or our shut ins…I’m preaching to the choir there, but I want you to take time to digest this…If you can quote from heart Jalen Hurt or Patrick Mahones stats, but can’t remember the last time you read your bible, the last time you attended Sunday School, the last time you tithed, the last time you prayed, the last time you attended church in person…then we have a problem.

Now, as I was studying for this message it hit me.

We really have three types of people we deal with in churches.

We have the team players (those who are faithful and working), we have the arm chair quarterback (those who offers advice, usually complaining or second guessing everything, but never lift a finger to make anything better), and we have the Free Agents (those who will not make any commitments and will abandon ship when something else catches their attention).

Arm Chair Quarterback

How many of you have ever heard the song “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)”?

Listen to these lyrics:

Anything you can do, I can do better

I can do any thing better than you

No, you can't, yes, I can

No, you can't, yes, I can

No, you can't, yes, I can, yes I can

Have you ever heard one of these conversations in church??? Maybe not to that extent, but we have biblical examples of people who “thought” they were experts in areas they we still ignorant about.

Jobs friends started out on the right track.

They heard of the misfortune of their friend and they went to be with him, support him, and they were quiet for 7 days and 7 nights.

But after those 7 days, wow.

They all became experts in Job’s calamity.

No one who is innocent in the eyes of God could ever be punished.

It’s ONLY those who are sinning against God that are judged and punished.

They had no idea God was allowing Job to be tested and tried as an example of faith.

Too often, we want to pass judgment in the same manner.

We may be trying to protect or preserve the “golden cow” (in other words something we make an idol in our churches).

We may be hesitant to move away from tradition and step out into a new ministry or mission field.

Or we may be quick to be critical when a new outreach flounders or fails.

All the while, not contributing to anything.

We want to look from the outside and judge others … just like Job’s friends.

We are acting as Arm Chair Quarterbacks.

I had a person early in my ministry make this comment “If you are unwilling to be part of the solution, don’t bring up all the problems”.

Kind of harsh, in some ways, but we must also remember scripture tells us we will be judged for the way we judge others and other things.

God will judge us the same way we are judging others right now.

AND we receive from other people the same kind of way we judge them.

Christ goes on to warn of this in Luke 6:41-42

We must be careful to not be complacent in our walk with God or the service to the church, and become a salty arm chair quarterback always wanting to tell of how everything should have been done - but never doing anything ourselves.

Free Agent

I love this verse.

He will never leave you nor forsake you.

But, do we pay the same respect to God as He gives to us?

I would want to confidently be able to say “yes”! but I know that is not true.

We see examples of this in the Old Testament with Israel.

Israel was the prime example of forgetting the blessings God had given them.

Pray to God for food during a long drought, Joseph had already been placed in Egypt for the preservation of the nation of Israel.

After Joseph the new Pharoah saw Israel as a threat and made them servants of Egypt.

Pray for release from bondage.

Released from slavery, witnesses the parting of the Red Sea, the destruction of their captors, complains about being brought out into the wilderness to die.

Provided with manna, quail, sweet water, taken to the Promised Land.

Told by God they could enter…sent spies over and they convinced themselves they couldn’t.

Holy Smokes Batman… it seems as though they deliberately tried to ignore the goodness of God and His provisions for their nation.

They were free-agents wandering around to whatever caught their eye.

But even though they turned from God, God would not turn from them.

God loves us so much, He will not give up on us, even though we chase everything else in this world but Him.

As we have said in the past, you may be able to bring people in with a hotdog, but they’ll leave just as quickly for a hamburger somewhere else.

Let me change course a little bit.

What is the local church?

A corporate body of like-minded believers who (should be) living the great commission in their community.

So.

Why are there so many denominations, and so many churches in such a small area?

From a quick survey, there were 23 churches with a Pennington Gap zip code.

Church of God, Methodist, Freewill Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Missionary Baptist, “First” Missionary Baptist (have you ever seen a “Second” Baptist anywhere?),

Church of the Living God, Christian Church, and I know that’s not an exhaustive list but my point is this…how many denominations are mentioned in Scripture?

NONE - all of us who accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior are Christians.

It’s because of human nature that we have denominations and multiple church sites/locations.

Remember the song I mentioned earlier “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better”???

Team Player

How many of you have heard the old saying “there’s no “I” in team”?

I have used that before, and had one smart aleck say “no but I can spell “me””.

I will step out on faith when I make this statement.

I truly believe most of the people who attend churches are good people, committed to their church.

They look out for each other, they look out for their community, they work well with others, they are team players.

In Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 we are told:

This is an important aspect of our spiritual life also - God does not intend for us to be alone in our ministry.

There is strength in numbers!

We are able to share not only the load, but lift praises during the successes and encourage one another through the trials of life.

We join together in prayer, we join together in work, and we produce more than any of us could individually.

Trying to minister alone is a lonely place to be.

It leaves us down trodden, worn out, and vulnerable.

Solomon sees this, and makes these observation: If there are two together and one falls there is another to help lift them up.

This doesn’t just mean physical falls, but spiritual stumbles also - our Christian friends can help us walk a straight path.

If travelling, two can keep each other warm - the heat from one body provides comfort to the other and vice versa.

Alone there would be the issue of carrying extra blankets, setting up a tent by yourself, and gathering firewood for extra warmth.

The final thing is looking at those who mean to do you harm.