Sermon Tone Analysis
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I’ve been reading the book of Jeremiah for the last couple weeks.
The book begins with the prophet sent to warn an adulteress people of the coming judgment of their sins.
The children of Israel had been worshipping foreign gods and Nebuchadnezzar was the agent God would use to impose judgment on his adulteress children.
When I read the word adulteress, it was as if my heart had been pierced.
I knew the story.
This was a pattern for Israel.
They did this again and again.
So why would that one word “adulteress” have such a sting?
Then, last week in service, Pastor used the same word.
She said it in passing at the end of her message.
“When things and events and circumstances became more important than the time we spend with God, our relationship with Him has an adulteress.
We become unfaithful to God.”
Oh sure, we still believe in God.
We still come to church and pay our tithes.
We still pray.
BUT at the same time our worship is no longer acceptable.
It’s tainted because of the adulteress in our relationship with God.
This morning I want to talk about “Reckless Faith”.
Back in the 80’s there was a song called “I believe”.
Dolly Parton sang it, Frank Sinatra sang it.
They even sang it in churches.
It started with the words,
“I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a candle glows…”
You remember the song?
The intent of the songwriter was to say that he could see God’s hand at work all around him and that there was always hope.
It’s a good thing.
Right?
BUT raindrops do not contain flower seeds.
And God did not place candles in people’s homes to light up the night.
He put the moon & stars in the sky.
When we confess things that are not scriptural we exhibit reckless faith.
Did you know that faith can be harmful?
What you believe in can lead to destruction.
Reckless faith leads to superstition.
Before I get ahead of myself, let’s look at the faith road.
We know that the road of faith is a narrow road.
Turn to Matt 7:13-14,
13 “Enter through the narrow gate.
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
On either side of the road we have a ditch.
One ditch we call fundamentalism and the other we call liberalism.
In both ditches we find reckless faith.
On the fundamentalist side we have the sects that handle snakes, don’t allow women to cut their hair or wear pants…those sorts of things.
On the liberal side we have Unity churches that don’t care what religion you practice, because God loves everyone.
So you come to church and worship Buddha and I’ll come to church and worship Jesus and God will sort it all out.
Reckless faith?
In both ditches we find people relying on their own preference for how they practice their faith.
They measure what is right or wrong by their feelings, education, fantasies.
Some rely on inner voices or a human leader to tell them what to believe.
Some just practice a tradition.
“My grandparents believed this, my parents believed this, I believe this, I’m raising my children to believe this.”
That’s as foolish as driving along the shoulder of the road when traffic is backed up.
You’re just speeding along without any regard for what’s causing the tie-up.
There might be construction ahead and the median may come to an abrupt end.
Or maybe there’s an accident ahead and injured people lying in the median your racing along.
Reckless faith?
If we get out of the ditches and back on the road.
Where do we want to be? Ideally in the middle.
But in truth where are we?
If we’re honest, most of us would probably say closer to the fundamentalist ditch than the liberal ditch and proud of it.
Besides we’re not /in/ the ditch.
We’re not fanatics.
No we’re not in the ditch.
But we in the church do from time to time get close enough to look inside.
And sometimes some ditch dirt looks pretty appealing; we may even try some on for a while.
Like looking down the mountain side or over the side of the bridge your driving on.
How close can you get without falling off?
How do we stay away from the ditch and get back to a balanced trip down the faith road?
The first answer to reckless faith is sound doctrine.
Is what you believe Biblical?
Can you back up what you believe with the word?
And I’m not talking about with just one verse, or one phrase either.
Scripture is easily twisted and those who twist scripture are ditch dwellers – stay away from them or they will suck you in.
Open your Bibles to 1 Tim 4:1
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
Jump down to verse 7
7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.
Flip over to 2 Tim 4:2
2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.
3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
And back to 1 Tim 6:3
3 If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing.
Sound doctrine refutes reckless faith.
I’ve shared with you before that I was part of a large revival ministry back in the 90’s.
This was back during the days of the Brownsville Outpouring and Toronto Blessing.
The church we were attending caught the fire and held revival meetings 7 days a week for 6 weeks before I joined the ministry team.
I was in training for 2 months before I was allowed to pray for someone.
By that time, they had the order of service orchestrated like a 3 act play.
Act 1 was praise and worship – and it was awesome with professional musicians and singers.
Act 2 was preaching.
Sometimes a guest revivalist, but most times it was the pastor.
He would whip the congregation up so much that when you got to
Act 3 the prayer ministry, people would literally run to the alter for prayer.
The reason in took 2 months of preparation before you could be on the prayer team is because you had to prove your faithfulness.
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