Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

Ever been surprised and disappointed all at the same time?

It’s happened many times in my life, but none were more shocking than the time I was about 10 or 11 years old.

I was hot and thirsty.

I’d been out playing or riding my bike, you know, one of those with the long banana seat and the handle bars that came up to meet you?

Well, I came running into the house, in a hurry and looking for a glass of tea.

I spied a glass on the counter with tea in it.

There wasn’t a lot in it and even though I hadn’t poured it and had not idea who’d been drinking it, I grabbed it and began to drink.

I immediately knew something was wrong.

What hit my tongue was not cool, sweet tea, but something warm, slimy and very bitter.

I immediately began to spit and sputter and thought I was going to throw up.

That’s how nasty it was.

You see, my mom had cooked up a few slices of bacon and had poured off the grease into the cup to be used to season beans or something and I, thinking it was tea, had just wolfed down a cup of bacon grease.

I’ll never forget the surprise and shock of that moment.

Disappointed?

You better believe it.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the world and I suffered nothing other than a temporary spike in my cholesterol, but other disappointments aren’t so easily resolved.

I remember in the move, Braveheart, which I have seen a number of times on TV, Mel Gibson’s character who is leading the mean seeking freedom for Scotland from England suffers a dibilitating disappointment.

He has a leader in Scotland whom he thinks has become his ally and whom he is depending on for support.

Without him knowing it, this ally betrays him and joins forces with England.

In the middle of the battle when Gibson’s character is expecting support from his friend, he gets none and has to fight alone.

In the heat of the battle, thinking his friend just hasn’t shown up he is attacking a lone rider on a horse.

He cannot see who the rider is because he has on a helmet.

But finally he catches him and throws him to the ground.

In the middle of mortal, hand-to-hand combat, he removes the rider’s helmet and there he discovers that his enemy is the very man who he thought was his friend.

He is so shattered by that discovery that he just sits down on the battlefield in shock, unable to move and has to be carried to safety by his own men.

That scene has been repeated on many a spiritual battlefield.

In the heat of spiritual warfare, because we are often expecting the wrong thing from God, we turn around and we think that we discover that the one who was supposed to be our ally is really fighting against us and it destroys us.

It so destroys our confidence till, like Gibson’s character, we sit down on the battlefield, devastated.

I just heard of a dear friend of mine in ministry.

He suffered a severe brain problem and was in a coma for many days.

Now he has come out of it, but he has been told by his doctors that many of his disabilities like his speech problems and his paralysis are not going to get any better and depression has set in.

The other day he said, “I don’t understand this.

All I wanted to do was to serve God.”

NEED

Now, maybe you haven’t suffered physical paralysis, but you have been through the very same emotion that my friend did.

You are suffering!

It may be an economic crisis in your life.

You never thought you’d be in the position you’re in right now.

You know that people may look at you and think, “Well, he must be a poor manager,” but you know in your heart of hearts that, while you may not have done everything correctly, you really tried to do your best, but it still wasn’t good enough.

And now you’re facing ruin and you really can’t understand it.

You used to think that God was in control, but now you’re not so sure.

If he was, why would this happen.

All you wanted to do was to serve God.

It may be a marital crisis in your life.

You got married and you and your husband or wife really loved one another.

But the non-stop jobs, the busy kids, and the just the everyday grind of life slowly squeezed the intimacy right out of your relationship till now you feel like you’re living with a stranger.

You may have already talked about or even completed a divorce and you are devastated.

You believed that marriage was a forever thing and you can’t understand why God allowed this in your life.

Is He really in control?

All you ever wanted to do was serve Him.

It may be your health.

The diagnosis came back positive.

The MRI wasn’t kind and the doctor was concerned.

More tests confirmed the worst, and now you’re shocked.

You thought you were drinking tea, but you’ve had a taste of something so bitter that you’re gagging on it and you wonder where God is.

All you ever wanted to do was to serve Him?

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned your issue, but I bet you if we took a pole in this room today, there are some disappointed people here.

You expected one thing from God, but you’ve received something else entirely.

Why do we get so disappointed in God?

PROBLEM

Well, I think that at least part of the problem is that we create a lot of false expectations in many people.

It comes from our society and it even comes from some in the church.

Let me show you what I mean.

PIC

This is a book by Paul Zane Pilzer.

It’s entitled God Wants You to Be Rich.

Pilzer tells you in that book how and why God wants you to be rich in every possible way – in health, love and peace of mind, as well as material possessions.

He argues that every individual’s success promotes the good of overall society, because wealth begets wealth.

Now picture yourself, having just lost your job, or your business, or your home reading that, as a believer, God wants you rich.

I don’t know about you, but my first question would be, “Well, if God wants me rich, and I’m poor, then God is either powerless, or I am clueless.

I must not know God very well if He wants me rich because I surely haven’t tapped into the wealth yet.

An article in Charisma magazine said it like this:

God wants to pour out His love to you as He did to those I have mentioned.

He does not want you to be broken, beat-up and sick!

He wants to demonstrate that He is a God of power and might and that there is nothing too hard for Him.In his third epistle, John says, "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers" (v.

2).

Notice the use of the term "beloved."

Jesus wants you to know He loves youI believe God wants you to "prosper in all things"-to have enough money to meet all your needs, a decent car, a nice home and good health.

You can appropriate these things as you learn to prosper in your soul by meditating on the Word of God.

There’s only one problem with these ideas: They’re really not at all biblical.

Not really.

Paul wrote in 2 Tim.

3:12 that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

Notice, he didn’t say you might, or it could happen, he said YOU WILL! That’s pretty clear.

No reason to whine; no reason to complain, and there’s certainly no reason to be shocked.

If you’re a believer, you WILL suffer.

Period!

And it wasn’t just Paul, Jesus echoed as much in John 16 when He told the disciples, “In the world YOU WILL HAVE tribulation.

Again, not you could, or it might happen, YOU WILL HAVE it.

And Jesus went on to say in Luke 14: 26-27

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.

27 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

Now folks, that’s pretty clear.

If it were the only time Jesus said something like that, that would be enough.

But its not.

Over and over again He tells His disciples to get ready because the hammer of persecution and suffering WILL fall.

Which just brings me to the book I want to introduce to you today.

BACKGROUND

Today we begin a walk through the epistle of 1 Peter.

This book addresses a group of people who were sipping a little bacon grease of their own.