Sermon Tone Analysis

SR

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

John Muir:

John Muir:

Yosemite: by far the grandest of all the special temples of nature I was ever permitted to enter.

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.

Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.

The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail.

Wow.

To have a “mountain top experience.”

Nature’s peace, fresh wind, scenic view, filled with energy, cares falling like autumn leaves.

However, life is not always a “MTE.”

There are plenty of low moments.

In student organizations we talk about sharing “pits and cherries” or “pows and wows.”

That’s a realistic picture of how life really works.

Cherry/pit, Rose/thorn.

The highs and lows are often embedded and intertwined, experienced in compressed moments in the daily flow of normal life.

What are some strategies to tackle the highs and lows?

What are some great mountains in scripture?

Take a buddy: Yosemite experience with Ray!

What are some great mountains in scripture?

Mt.

Moriah: .

Place of testing of the man of great faith--Abraham who lead his only son Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him.

7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

Yet when the reached the place, Abraham bound his son and reached for the knife, and God called out “Abraham, Abraham!”

And there are other mountain top experiences like Mt. Sinai

Mt Sinai: .

Place where God said: 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.

Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you[a] will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’

So those are just a couple examples in scripture of sacred geography.

The mountain is a place of testing and rewarded faith.The mountain is a place of great victory, where God’s enemies are thwarted, where God’s faithfulness to his promises are shown.

It’s a place where God dwells and commands.

When Moses comes down from the Mountain he has to wear a veil because his face was radiant and frightened the Israelites.

In our lives too, the mountaintop is a destination, a moment to take beautiful photos and look out in triumph.

Hiked to Nevada Falls.

2,500 ft.

climb.

Spent some time looking out and reveling in what I had accomplished.

But you don’t live there, don’t spend lots of time there.

On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay the first to climb Mount Everest, spent only about 15 minutes on the summit which is only the size of a small room.

So in life anyway, the peak of the mountain seems like a small geographical area compared to a long, broad, low valley.

The space to celebrate your accomplishments seems limited in time and size compared to everyday life in the valley.

Valleys in scripture:

Valley of Eshkol,

Moses sent some men to spy out the land of Canaan.

Check it out.

Who lives there?

Do they lives in towns?

Fortified cities? What’s the soil like?

When they reached the Valley of Eshkol,[a] they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes.

Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs.

24 That place was called the Valley of Eshkol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut off there

It’s a great land!

Flowing with milk and honey!

Awesome fruit!

Check out these grapes!

And Caleb said let’s go for it!

But some of the men that spied out the land said, “oh no!

The people are too strong, the land devours all who explore it.

We can’t do it.

Then all the people complained and grumbled.

“If only we had died in Egypt”!

Let’s choose a new leader.

Let’s go back to Egypt! God gets pretty mad about all of this, but Moses and Aaron plead for God to relent and he does.

But in :

Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, 22 not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times— 23 not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors.

No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.

Valley of Achor:

The Lord wins a stunning victory in Jericho, and moves on to the little city of AI.

Sends some spies who return saying, “piece of cake.”

Don’t even send the whole army.

Just a few people live there.

But the men of AI routed the Israelites, and the people’s hearts melted in fear.

The Israelite leaders discovered that there had been disobedience among God’s people and this is why they were defeated.

Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor[f] ever since.

Achor means “trouble.”

Valley of Trouble.

So some valleys in scripture are witness to idol worship, pagan gods, foreign religion, sin, disobedience, faithlessness, complaining/grumbling against God, God’s anger.

In contrast with the MTE, we seem to spend quite a lot of time in the valley.

It’s a low place, a place of struggle.

Sometimes it seems hard to climb out of the valley.

We look up at those great mountains and wish we were up there on top.

On top of El Capitan, or Half Dome, or Glacier Point or Mt.