Sermon Tone Analysis

In Order to have a Godly New Year, We Must Purify Ourselves.

Moral Purity

Sexual Purity

Spiritual Purity

properly prepared

Proper Preparation

qadosh - setting aside for the use of God

One morning went out to start car to go to church.

Flat tire.

Lucky I had a spare.

Changed tire quickly and on way.

Didn’t think to drop spare off to be fixed.

“I’ll get around to it.”

Within five days went out to car to go to school.

Another flat.

Only this time no spare!

Had to roll it to nearest station and wait while it was fixed.

When something breaks, fix it now.

Don’t wait until you need it and then don’t have it!

Repentance

Confession

Obedience

The Lay Leaders Led Out

The Levites led out

The Levites and the Priest should have been keeping the Temple clean the whole time - Repentance

The priests lagged behind

Too many ministers are like the signposts on country roads; they hold out their hands and point the way, but never walk the road themselves.

They, like the posts, still stand where they always did.

God deliver us from being signposts on the road to heaven, and not going there ourselves!

How do we prepare properly?

Moral Purity

On the corporate level, ethical purity is mandatory if we are to experience the full blessing of God.

George Mueller of Bristol, England, a man known for his prayers of faith and his mighty influence on others, set forth seven statements of ethical commitment.

How would modern Christian organizations fare under the light of these guidelines, as quoted by Catherine Marshall in Beyond Our Selves?

1.

No funds would ever be solicited.

No facts and figures concerning needs were to be revealed by the workers in the orphanage to anyone, except to God in prayer.

2. No debts would ever be incurred.

3.

No money contributed for a specific purpose would ever be used for another purpose.

4. All accounts would be audited annually by professional auditors.

5.

No ego-pandering by publication of donor’s names, with the amount of their gifts, would be allowed; each donor would be thanked privately.

6.

No “names” of prominent or titled persons would be sought for the board or to advertise the institution.

7. The success of the institution would be measured not by the numbers served or by the amounts of money taken in, but by God’s blessing on the work, which Mueller expected to be in proportion to the time spent in prayer.

Leading the Way by Paul Borthwick, Navpress, 1989, p. 116

If we would make it evident that our conversion is sound, we must loathe and hate sin from the heart.

RICHARD SIBBES

Sexual Purity

Spiritual Purity

I read Kent Hughes’ Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome:

1. Are we being desensitized by the present evil world?

Do things that once shocked us now pass us by with little notice?

Have our sexual ethics slackened?

2.

Where do our minds wander when we have no duties to perform?

3. What are we reading?

Are there books or magazines or files in our libraries that we want no one else to see?

4. What are we renting at the local video stores?

How many hours do we spend watching TV?

How many adulteries did we watch last week?

How many murders?

How many did we watch with our children?

5. How many chapters of the Bible did we read last week?

If we would make it evident that our conversion is sound, we must loathe and hate sin from the heart.

RICHARD SIBBES

In Order to have Godly New Year, We Must Take Out the Garbage

In Order to have a Godly New Year, We Must Revive Our Worship

In Order to have a Godly New Year, We Must Revive Our Worship

The priests alone were responsible for going into the inner part (sanctuary) of the temple, that is, the most holy place, where the ark was kept (3:8–13; cf.

Lev 10:18)

True biblical worship so satisfies our total personality that we don’t have to shop around for man-made substitutes.

William Temple made this clear in his masterful definition of worship:

For worship is the submission of all our nature to God.

It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

The Integrity Crisis by Warren W. Wiersbe, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991, p. 119

In Order to have Godly New Year, We Must Take Out the Garbage

Took Out Everything Unclean

Took to the Garbage Dump

From Chapter 15 on, the Kidron Valley was the place for the disposal of idols

After we have taken out the garbage, we can come near to God (v.

31)

Restored the Things that Were Defiled

2 Chronicles 29

In Order to have a Godly New Year, We Must Revive Our Worship

According to the Word of God

“At the command of the king by the words of the Lord”

The priests alone were responsible for going into the inner part (sanctuary) of the temple, that is, the most holy place, where the ark was kept (3:8–13; cf.

Lev 10:18)

In Record Time

It only took them 16 days

True biblical worship so satisfies our total personality that we don’t have to shop around for man-made substitutes.

William Temple made this clear in his masterful definition of worship:

For worship is the submission of all our nature to God.

It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

The Integrity Crisis by Warren W. Wiersbe, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991, p. 119