Sermon Tone Analysis

Focus Scripture

Focus Scripture Slides for Reading

1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi,

Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died,

the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons.

4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth.

When they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi,

Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house.

May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

9 The LORD grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.”

10 They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”

11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me?

Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?

12 Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.

Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, 13 would you then wait until they were grown?

Would you then refrain from marrying?

No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the LORD has turned against me.”

she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”

16 But Ruth said,

“Do not press me to leave you

or to turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go;

where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people,

and your God my God.

My Story: Choosing to Stay

One Day You are Going to Tell a Story!

One day, maybe years from now, your are going to tell a story about this season of your life.

Will it be a story you are proud of?

Maybe this is a season you don’t want to share right now!

Maybe someone listening right now is wanting to give up, throw in the towel, leave the problems behind and start over.

In light of our scripture today, I would like to suggest to you that maybe that sounds good to you right now but it might not be the best choice or the right choice.

In order to tell the story God wants us to tell, sometimes, we have to stay when we would rather leave.

About Staying in Abuse?

About Staying in Abuse?

Now, let me make this very clear because people who are deeply conflicted and in abusive relationship might hear this and think.

“The pastor is telling me that God wants me to stay in my abusive marriage or relationship.”

Let me be very clear so there is no misunderstanding.

I am not saying that at all.

If you are in an abusive relationship, not only am I going to say staying probably isn’t the best choice for you but it probably isn’t the best choice for the person abusing you.

Even the strongest person can crumble under the weight of abuse.

In fact, I have heard it said that it is often the strongest people who often stick it out and stay in abusive relationship because they think eventually things will turn around.

One of the key tenets of Christian marriage is that there isn’t just two people who take vows of marriage.

There is a third party involved in every Christian union.

That third active party is our Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

If that sounds like a crowded marriage to you, good because it is the responsibility of every member of the body of Christ to attend to and nurture the other members of Christ’s body.

We are grafted together by story and we are grafted together through sacrament and covenant.

Yes, it is written in that God hates divorce.

And encourages us to honor our marital covenants.

But are to obey all of God’s word’s not just the ones that serve our purposes or theological arguments at the moment.

Jesus taught us how to fulfill all the laws saying the two greatest commands given to us “is to love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.”

Which means when we treat anyone with hatred, disrespect or seeking revenge, you are guilty of sin.

It doesn’t matter if you are married or not treating others with with cruelty and/or violence such that physical or spiritual injury occurs or terror due to emotional or economic threat for the sole purpose of gaining or maintaining power or having control over someone and making them submit to our will.

We are not only NOT LOVING our neighbor (our enemies) we are also NOT LOVING God.

We also do violence to the living breathing spirit of God which resides within in the creature of God’s creation.

We do violence against God’s image in the world.

To those children who might be be thinking the pastor just gave me an argument to rebel against my parents.

I would remind you that you have been commanded by God’s word to honor, respect and serve your parents in both word and dead just as a slave serves their masters.

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If we claim a Christian identity, our standards should be higher than our local government standards not equal to it or lower.

So if you are being abused or you are abusing someone, do the good, right and Christian thing.

Reach out for help and if a you are Christian believer and they look to you for help, hold them accountable for getting that help.

That is the loving thing to do for both the abuser and the abused.

That is the true and holy God image that we are called to mirror to the world as Christians.

My Story: Choosing to Stay Slide

My Story: Choosing to Stay

I have a story that I am still writing in my own life.

A story which was excruciating and required standing still in the midst of great suffering .

Up until three years ago, I couldn’t even speak about it to anyone because it was so raw and painful.

In fact, I didn’t think I would ever really know love, joy or peace ever again in my life.

It is about my relationship with the church, God’s people.

It is a story about my relationship with my God and what felt like abandonment, betrayal at a time that I needed to know God’s presence more than any other time in my life.

I have shared parts of this story with people, but only with those whom I have felt safe enough to be vulnerable over the last three years.

However, I feel that God wants me to share part of this story with you today.

So bear with me, it is not a easy story to tell nor do I believe God is finished writing it.

Many years ago, God called me to start leading home church and build a church family that would be a spiritual home to my children and whoever God ushered over our the threshold of our home.

I had recently “Stopped” working a full time job and I had also taken up the practice of praying the prayer of Jabez after reading a book by Bruce Wilkerson about this prayer.

The prayer can be found in where it is written :

Prayer of Jabez Slide

Jabez was honored more than his brothers; and his mother named him Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.”

Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!

And God granted what he asked.

I had never been very bold in my faith life but I had been feeling a crushing weight to make some changes in recent months because my children were being raised by strangers while my husband and I both held down jobs which demanded 40-60 hours or more of our week.

Leaving half of our income on the table and no foreseeable way to pay our bills has a way of drawing boldness out of the most timid of spirits.

I was making a lot of changes and each change led to another.

First, I had stopped working for a paycheck.

Second, we were broke so I had to be creative in making the money stretch so I took up a hobby of scrapbooking.

In order to pay for hobby, I started selling scrapbook supplies and when that didn’t fill my empty hours.

I started going to Women’s Bible studies and actually started learning the faith I had been raised in for the first time.

Then, I went on a spiritual retreat at the invitation of a friend and came back on fire for God.

Gary had gone on the retreat before me so by this time we are both burning bushes filled with God’s fire.

I started praying the Jabez prayer and a few weeks later I felt called to attend a conference where I heard God speaking to me directly.

I came home healed of some false idols and a heart ready to love on families and be an agent of healing for them.

Gary and I started home based study groups at a time when small groups were relatively unheard of because other churches weren’t doing them much yet.

A year or two later, we heard the call to go plant a new church in a new place.

We bought land, sold our house, moved into an apartment and built a new house designed to hold worship.

All the while, God drew people around us to help us and then later others came along side us to work alongside us believing they were also called to plant that church.

Today it is a growing, thriving new church community.

We felt so blessed.

We felt so loved by God that we sometimes felt our hearts might burst because of the abundance God had given us.