Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Prelude
Welcome
Reader’s Theater "Same Old, Same Old." by Arley K. Fadness.
Synopsis: A husband and wife argue about how to celebrate their
23rd wedding anniversary.
Alma, the wife, likes to go to the same
romantic place where they went on their honeymoon, year after
year.
George, the husband, is tired of the "same old thing" and
would rather go or do new things.
The debate is seemingly
unresolved until Alma is seen looking at a brochure titled "Tahiti" and is heard making a call to a travel agency.
This abrupt change indicates a sudden growth spurt in their relationship.
Call to Worship Psalm 119
/Your decrees are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart./
*I incline my heart to perform your statues forever, to the end.*
~*Hymn of Praise # 561 Day by Day
Invocation (the Lord’s Prayer) O loving God, author and shaper of community, you promised that where two or three are gathered, the living Christ would be among them.
Here we are — two, three and many more — families, friends, pilgrims, seekers.
Come among us, Spirit of God.
Knit us together in all our variety.
Speak a bold word to us this day, that we might be moved to respond as your beloved community.
Amen.
Gloria Patri
Our Offering to God 2On every Lord’s Day, each of you should put aside some amount of money in relation to what you have earned and save it for this offering.
1 Corinthians 16:2
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication Accept these gifts, O God, as testimonies of our love for you and our desire to serve you.
Let these offerings be an affirmation that we are bound to one another as your people.
In your generous name we pray.
Amen.
~*Hymn of Prayer # 344 Be Thou My Vision
Pastoral Prayer O holy God, great Physician, Lover of all people, we are astonished by your amazing grace.
We are captivated by your power and awed by your mercy.
In the heart of our hearts, we long to know you more deeply, to touch even the fringes of your cloak, and to know peace and healing.
We strain our ears to hear you call us daughters and sons, like so many before us.
We pray for the faith that can make us whole.
\\ And we pray for those in need of your healing this day: For the sick, for the injured and hospitalized, and for those whose illness has isolated them from their community.
Give them a spirit of healing and hope ....For the outcast, and for those whom we have cast out through our action, or inaction.
Shine a light on our prejudices, soften our hardened hearts, and transform us for loving service toward every Christ we meet ....For those who mourn and weep.
Let them stand firm in your promises, buoyed by your strength and care.
Give them the comfort and assurance that nothing can separate them from your love.
Loving God, we pray for healing and hope to reign in this world.
Where there is conflict and war, let there be peace.
Where there is hunger and poverty, let there be abundance.
Where there is distress and despair, let there be light, warm and unquenchable.
We pray to hear your words: “Follow me,”…”you are free indeed” for they are words not only of discipleship, but of assurance — that as your disciples, we will never be forsaken.
You will lead us, all of us, into unexpected places.
Give us the courage to follow you each day of our lives.
Amen.
~*Hymn of Praise # 318 Trust and Obey
Scripture Reading John 8:31-36
Message The Need To Feel That One Is Growing In Faith
"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."
After worship, a little boy told the pastor: "When I grow up, I'm going to give you some money."
"Well, thank you," the pastor replied, "but why?" "Because my daddy says you're one of the poorest preachers we've ever had."1
With the risk of this story in mind, I am pleased,
nevertheless, to bring you the fifth sermon in a series of six, dealing with the spiritual needs of Americans as discovered by George Gallup, Jr.
This morning, we focus on the need to feel that one is growing in faith.
I begin with a song by Peter Pan.
I won't grow up.
Not a penny will I pinch.
I will never grow a mustache or a fraction of an inch.
'Cause growing up is awfuller than all the awful things that ever were.
I will never grow up, never grow up,never grow up, not me!2
So sang Peter Pan ... and for some of us it is our song.
We don't want to grow up.
We do not want to face the next stage in life.
We are comfortable where we are.
In fact, we don't know why anyone would want us to change.
Like Peter Pan, we express our desire to stay just as we are.
There was a group of Peter Pans in the New Testament.
Listen to how the author of the Letter to the Hebrews feels about growing up in Christ, or more accurately, the lack of growing up in faith.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God.
You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness.
But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
-- Hebrews 5:12-14
The Peter Pans in the Letter to the Hebrews did not want to
grow up.
Here is an example of frozen spiritual development.
Here are people who have been professing Christ for years.
By this time they ought to be teachers.
They've had plenty of time, says the writer to the Hebrews, since believing in Christ, to be able to instruct others about the basics of the Gospel message - but they never left their babyhood.
I have seen 20, 30, 40, 50-year-old people who are still
lying in their baby cribs.
I have been there myself - stuck - sitting in kindergarten - a grownup, sucking on a baby bottle.
We keep taking classes in Christianity 101.
And yet according to George Gallup, Jr., there are thousands of us who actually do want to grow up.
We have the urgent need to feel that we are growing in our faith.
I know I want to grow in my faith and life.
I want to grow intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
I do want to mature and learn and expand my faith.
Ignorance is not bliss.
Immaturity is not attractive.
Peter Pan may think it's wonderful, but Wendy and her brothers, after spending time in Never-Never Land, discover differently.3
On this Lord's Day, we celebrate knowing three things: We celebrate knowing we are free.
We celebrate knowing we are free to grow.
And thirdly, we worship God knowing we are free to grow up.
~/ We rejoice knowing we are free.
We read in John's gospel, "If you continue in my word, you
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