Sermon Tone Analysis

Lifting weights....my hands just aren’t’ strong enough to hold the weight.

Have you ever thought about you hand?

The way it’s made

Thumbs

Pick up all sorts of things

Without thumbs, your hands would be really limited.

Opposing forces

Tension is important…in the tension things are held in place

Building card houses....requires the tension of the cards.

Most of us don’t like tension.

Often times we approach tension as a problem to be solved.

But when we simply resolve tension without ever really addressing it, do we really solve the problem?

Tension isn’t a problem to be solved, but a reality of lived.

When your kids cried because they wanted more potato chips, but it was getting close to supper time…what’s best for them?

To live in the tension of hunger for a few more minutes.

When we have a friend who has a drinking or drug problem and they come to you broke and desperate for money....what’s best for them? to deal with the reality of their situation, or for you to give them $20 so they are happy for the next few hours?

A lot of times we approach tension as something to solve…or avoid…when in reality tensions are unavoidable.

We just need to figure out how to live in the midst of them…to manage them.

They are also a reality to true faith.

Tension is a reality of true faith.

What I love about the UMC is that we have been a denomination for centuries that has sought to live in the tensions of being humans here on earth and children of God at the same time.

Many people who join the UMC ask about our doctrine…like I have friend who is a pastor in the PCA and they have set of doctrinal statements that explain exactly what they believe.

The Westminster Catechism, Statements of faith, and scriptural proofs.

There are a few different ones.

If you agree with them, if you can sign your name saying you believe them, you can join their church.

People ask, what are ours?

Do we have anything like that?

Simple answer…no.

We profess the creeds.

We have some statements in our constitution about the founding beliefs of our denomination, but that’s it.

In fact, there are actually no doctrines or beliefs that belong exclusively to United Methodists.

We emphasize certain beliefs, absolutely, but there is nothing that we as United Methodists affirm that are not also believed by other Christians.

Think about why…Wesley started what came to be the UMC as a renewal movement in the COE.

He wasn’t starting a new denomination.

He was gathering faithful members of the COE in order to see them take claim to a bold and vibrant faith.

His desire was to see holiness sweep across the nation of England.

He believed their doctrine was fine, it was that people weren’t living it out.

He sought to shake people out of lukewarm Christianity.

He wanted to set the people’s hearts afire for Jesus.

He knew this was a problem for the church because he had once been a lukewarm Christian.

And Wesley knew that getting the people on fire was about getting them to understand and live into the tensions holiness brings about in a faith filled spiritual life.

We as UMs emphasize 4 areas of tension that I would like for us to look at today as we look to get a grasp on what it means to be a UM.

First, when it comes to faith in Jesus, is it a matter of the head or of the heart?

Faith: Head or Heart

Which is faith?

Is faith a knowledge we have or is it something we feel?

Have you ever known someone who seemed to be only caught up in the passion of God.

I mean they loved God, their worship seemed genuine, they seemed to be caught up in the spirit…but when bad things happened, often times people who are all heart question if God is there.

I used to see this in youth ministry all the time.

Kids with what looked like true faith would feel God’s presence, would passionately repent and love Jesus…but let something bad happen at home, let them go too far with their girlfriend, if they made a moral mistake, they would quickly draw back from the church and their Christian friends.

They were embarrassed and ashamed and the last thing they wanted was to be around people where they would be reminded of their mistakes

But as we mature in our faith, we understand that there is some tension between the faith in our heads and the faith in our hearts.

True faith requires Head AND Heart

It can’t be all in our hearts because we get tired, we get hurt, we get beat up....where do we go when bad things come our way.

Well if you faith is only in your heart, you can only rage at God…why are you doing this to me.

But when you faith is in you head too, when you know God’s love, when you know God’s promises, when you know that you have been saved, that God is at work changing you, using everything in your life to draw you closer to him, then you can take the bad and grow from it.

But for me, the better I know who God is, the closer I am to God.

Both my head and my heart need to be engaged and working for me to understand the fullness of the grace God has in store for me.

We should want to experience God’s presence…in fact that is part of our vision that every person here would experience the presence and power of God in and through our worship…but a relationship with God is more than an experience.

We want you to know the God who loves you…not just know about him.

That happens as you spend time in his Word, in a small group with other believers, in prayer.

So we hold the head and heart dimensions of our faith in tension.

Second, we hold the belief and action dimensions of faith in tension.

What does this mean?

Faith: Beliefs or Actions

Jesus was pretty clear about this one:

True faith requires Belief AND Actions

And John Wesley started his preaching talking about this.

Wesley confronted people, asking if they were truly loving God fully and truly loving their neighbor as themselves.

And he wouldn’t let them off the hook easily, either!

He would ask…if you truly love God, how can you come to church on Sunday but then live like everybody else around you the rest of the week?

If you truly love God, how can you have essentially no prayer life and you never even crack open your Bible?

How can you truly love God if you are not daily offering your life to the Lord and His work?

How can you possibly love your neighbor as yourself when you’re not even thinking about anybody but yourself?

Wesley understood that the Christian faith was much more than a Sunday morning pastime.

To say Jesus is my Lord means something for every moment of every day.

Today, we might refer to folks like this as lukewarm Christians…Wesley had a much stronger word…he called them ‘almost Christians.’

He’d say “you believe the right things, but you sure don’t live like you believe them.”

He’d say to people, if you don’t have enough faith to get you to church, you probably don’t have enough faith to get you to heaven.

Wesley was relentless about calling people to a complete commitment to following Jesus.

Wesley would go out to churches and preach: You folks are almost Christian, but you’re not altogether Christian.

You have the right idea, you are fitting Jesus into a part of your life, you are finding space for Jesus in your life, but you aren’t letting Jesus live through you…He’s not your Lord.

Altogether Christians live every day for the Lord!

Wesley would and I would ask you....Commit your life to Christ!

There’s no time like today.

Right now, call on the name of the Lord you will be saved!

The reactions then were the reactions now.

Some people responded…YES and jumped right up to have God lead them deeper in relationship with him....but the rest were like, yea well, I”m really busy you see.

Others: I have this project going on at work.

I’k like to, but you see, I’ve been a pretty good person.

In fact, I’ve been in church my whole life.

I’m getting ready to plant;

You don’t really understand some of the mistakes I’ve made

....eventually they would run him out of town and continue to hold on to their lukewarm, powerless faith.

Some denominations teach that you can pray a prayer....or once you are baptized your relationship with God is set.

The salvation is an internal working in your soul.

We understand that we are saved to good works,

True faith…actually leads to changes in our behavior.

Faith is a belief that leads to action

Wesley believed and we as Methodists continue to emphasize that it’s not about merely believing in Jesus....but we are called to live our lives the way God wants us to....loving God with all our heart mind soul and strength....and really loving others .