Sermon Tone Analysis

*The foolish heart*

In my own life since I have been my own son’s age I have been taught things from my parents.

My Mom taught me things that would help guide me, things that would keep me safe, and things that would protect me.

I have realized now, looking back, that growing up as a child most everything that I have learned I learned out of desire.

When I was hungry *I desired* food so had to learn to eat, when I was thirsty *I desired* to drink so I had to learn how to hold a cup.

When I wanted to speak I had to learn to talk, when I needed to go somewhere I had to learn how to walk.

As a child my learning came from my desires.

It’s different now though.

Now that I am grown I find that my desires change with my responsibilities and no longer am I controlled by my desires, and my personal needs, as much as I am controlled by necessities of life.

Sure I work for money, but I also work to pay bills, to pay for gas, to save for a house, to buy food etc… 

All of us in this room as we grow into this next phase of our lives are beginning to move from a childlike mindset into one of adult.

In this mindset, we shouldn’t be driven by desires or our cravings, because these , although they are childlike and immature, aren’t the same cravings because our eyes are open.

Everyone in this room somehow and someway have eaten from the apple and we have traded our innocence, out of our own desires, our own passions, for something and have been left with the guilt or shame of our actions and our desires.

We have taken things that were meant for good, stuff that was intended in our lives to be innocent, to be pure, to be holy, that which was meant as a gift, that which was meant to be a preservative in our lives and turned them into shameful, lustful, selfish desires.

It is out of our lusts we find that somewhere in our minds we can justify our actions, which come from our cravings and desires, not by what our inherent conscious or Holy Spirit is saying to us, but by the actions of people around us.

We like a child say, “well my friends are getting away with such and such so it’s ok.”

Let me give an example:  Cohabitation Statistical Facts!

* Greater rates of unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and dysfunctional relationship behavior (domestic abuse, unfaithfulness, high amounts of conflict) exist in cohabiting relationships.

* Couples living together before marriage have a greater rate of divorce than those who did not live together.

* Over one-third of all cohabiting relationships involve children.

*These children are at greater risk to be physically and~/or sexually abused*, and *they are more likely to repeat the high risk relationship behaviors of their parent(s).*

* Children of cohabitated parents often themselves will end up divorced starting a process that will repeat to their children

Research has shown that both divorce and unmarried childbearing decrease the economic well being of both children and mothers.

* Only 9% of children under six in two-parent households are poor, while 47% of those living in single-mother households live in poverty.

* More specifically, 45% of children raised by divorced mothers and 69% raised by never-married mothers live in or near poverty.

* One analysis found that nearly 80% of child poverty occurs in *broken or never-formed families*, and it concludes that more marriages could reduce poverty by as much as twenty-five percent.

Cohabiting relationships are far less stable than marriages.

Cohabiters experience less emotional and financial success and higher rates of domestic violence.

As noted before, marriages following cohabitation are more likely to end in divorce than those not preceded by cohabitation.

Over one-third of cohabiting relationships involve kids, and children living with cohabiting couples have more behavior problems and lower academic performance than children in married-couple families.

Even though marriage offers benefits that cohabitation does not, two-thirds of American teens (67%) believe that it is better to live with someone prior to marriage to determine compatibility.

The majority of teens (59%) also expect to cohabit themselves.

This is determined to be the outcome of what they have seen in their parents and not rationally understanding correctly what it is to have a healthy relationship, and marriage.

Certain relationship behaviors of some young people typically do not lead to lifelong commitment.

* Currently, 40% of young women have "hooked up" (engaged in a physical encounter with a male with no commitment attached).

* The earlier and more frequently woman who engage in sexual activities, the more prone they are to acquire an STD, get pregnant, get raped or abused, and use drugs and alcohol.

They are also less likely to marry and more prone to future infidelity and divorce.

* The *higher the frequency of relationship break-ups*, the greater chances of susceptibility to divorce in the future.

* 60% of those who have sexual relationships before marriage will cheat on their husband and wife because they have no real understanding of commitment, but rather have only an understanding of passion

Despite statistics such as these there are people in this audience that live like wild children, driven out of their passions, driven by their lusts, driven by their desire to do what is pleasing, rather then the right things and will end up another statistic.

My focus here is not on just relationships; I could pull out the statistics on drugs and go through them; however it is to show you the affects of sin and their consequences.

Has anyone ever heard of Antony Flew?

He was a world renown professor at Cambridge as well as an Atheist and humanist.

Atheist’s don’t really have an organization but if they did this man would be what you call a well known face of the organization.

Most atheists are driven by their passion for knowledge.

However, in that passion for knowledge they throw away their belief in the tricotomy of man and begin to go where the supposed evidence takes them often relying on dogmatism and reason to get there.

I find atheist, agnostics, and evolutionists funny and here is why.

They will accept any evidence that supports their theory at face value and scream their truth from the roof tops, however, when evidence is given to the contrary they will not accept it.

Well, Atheism leading advocate has know took a look at the evidence and has realized that evolution is a joke.

This man is know a bible believing Christian because he has seen the fingerprint of God through science (they now have evidence of biological machines found in bacteria that could neither be mutated or have evolved, they had a unique design in themselves and if they have a design he a summized they have to have a designer).

Now how does this tie together.

Man in his lust, his desire for knowledge had reasoned God out of the equation and because of it.

These professors have taught kids for generation a falsity.

In this falsity generations of kids have graduated college and have denied there is God.

These kids will grow up and die and go straight to hell because they have traded the evident existence of God in creation for their own fallen reason.

Let me assure you while the intellectually smug person thinks themselves to be different from the woman and man who sleep around or desires to live together.

While they reason in themselves to be better then the drug addict, or the thief, I assure you that biblically that there fate is equally as warm.

Make no mistake whether your desires take you from one bed to the next, one bar to the next or one theory to the next if you have not allowed God to shape what is to be the fruit of his image in your life than your fate will be equally in your hands.

This fate is even worse for those who think they know but are merely religious.

Religious people are people that have bought in to a school of thought often times thinking they are correct because they “do the right things.”

If you “do” 99.9% of everything right, your still not a 100% obedient.

Obedience to God is what it means to be a true Christian.

This means to be 100% obedient to the will of God in your life.

In ministry you can always tell when trouble is coming when supposed Christians draw lines in the sand about what rules they will and won’t follow.

They say I’m going to drink because, I’m going to listen to this music because, I’m going to watch this show because, I’m going to the club because, I’m going to the bar because.

But your thoughts are child like because you reason by your desires.

Foolish Christians think if they do or don’t do something they’ll have some sort of “in” with God.

But your asking the wrong question.

Have you answered the question, “What is your call.”

Most of you haven’t.

Yet you consistently put the cart before the horse and are driven by your wants rather then allowing the living God you proclaim so much shape those desires.

It’s time to stop thinking like little children and grow up in the Lord.

The bible states:

Matthew 7:21

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven

All you religious people who know so much, if you know so much, and have all the right answers then why can’t you answer the question of your call.

According to the bible, knowing the will of God seems to be an important thing.

However, no one wants to talk about the consequences of what they don’t know, but rather the exceptions of what they think they do.

Let me be clear.

You who are so full of knowledge, who bought into a school of thought rather then seeking after truth.

The more knowledge you obtain only makes you more responsible when you stand before God.

Make no mistake you will be held to a higher standard.

If your knowledge doesn’t lead you to your calling then ask yourself what you really know.

To know God is to his call.

For you I see these words.

Grace is a slingshot and not a net.

Turn your heart to God.

As a black belt in karate I would always get a chuckle out of the greenbelts in the class and here is why.

The green belt has only been karate for about a year, but as soon as a white belt walked in  there class they would run over to them and share all their knowledge about karaete to them.

They would correct their form, adjust their technique, and just act like they knew everything.

As a black belt I would sit back and laugh thinking how smug that really is.

Since in my own knowledge I know that even with all this training I am only know ready to begin learning.

However, in this room tonight some of you have all the knowledge in the world when it comes to Jesus.

Your ready to share your opinion, give advice, you have a biblical lust to absolutely share your testimony because God “has taken you out of so much.”

Yet like a women who sleeps around, a drunkard who desires a drink, or a professor who has reasoned there is no God, you have no idea what your doing or saying and have no business saying to the world, “Hey I am a Christian you should be like me.”

Check this scripture out:

*Psalm 14:1-4*

 1     The fool says in his heart,  “There is no God.”They

are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.2

The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.