Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Safe vs. Dangerous Prayers

Safe:

Message will be deep - not intellectually but surgically?

Underlying truth: God knows you more deeply, intimately, and more completely than anyone.

(ESV)

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

5 You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

9 If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light about me be night,”

12 even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:1

God’s knowledge of you is both serious and safe.

(ESV)

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting!

Four parts to this dangerous prayer:

Search my heart.

Sometimes we are worried about someone searching because of what they might find (phone, room, mind)

natural state of the human heart

(ESV)

9 The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

9 The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

v

-26:26

supernatural state of human heart.

(ESV)

19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.

I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,

Because of the New Covenant we have a new disposition.

We have a new inclination.

We have a new ability to fight sin and even desire to do so.

But even with the new inclination there is still “remnant” sin.

There is still remnant “deceitfulness” and desperate wickedness in my soul.

I am not totally pure (boy, do I know it!).

progressive sanctification

(ESV)

18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

(ILLUST - Few days ago - local news in Panama City Beach, FL told story of Derek Fitzgerald, a Pennsylvania native who had recently completed his sixth IRONMAN race - 140.6 mile triathlon that requires extreme physical fitness.

What makes Derek’s story unique is that it had only been a few years prior that Derek was taking chemo to battle intestinal cancer and recently received a heart transplant.

Prior to his transplant, Derek had never participated in any competitive racing, but following his transplant, he began a rigorous training regimen that allowed him to gain the strength and endurance needed for the IRONMAN.

Physical reality is if someone has a heart transplant they are not immediately a body builder.

They have what they need to now work the muscles to become one)

(https://www.wjhg.com/content/sports/Cancer-survivor-heart-transplant-recipient-inspires-at-IRONMAN-Florida-564592651.htmlv)

Reveal my fears.

(ESV)

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

(NIV84)

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

The other time we see this word in Scripture is also in the Psalms where the writer is praising God for being a steadying influence in his life — when things seem shaky or when there are situations of anxiety or fear.

(ESV)

19 When the cares of my heart are many,

your consolations cheer my soul.

What do you fear?

What are you really afraid of?

1 chro 2917

Losing a job, not having enough money, spouse dying, children dying, parents dying?

Revealing my fears does two things:

Revealing my fears uncovers my true love.

You fear losing what you love having.