Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ /John 14:1-13/

* *

*/ “Do not let your hearts be troubled./*/

Trust in Goda; trust also in me.

2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; *if it were not so, I would have told you.*

I am going there to prepare a place for you.

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

4 *You know the way* to the place where I am going.”

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

7 If you really knew me, you would knowa my Father as well.

From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?

*Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father*.

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?

The words I say to you are not just my own.

Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.

He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.

14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.(John

14) /[1]

 

What medicine do you give a “troubled heart”?

When a person is heartsick it is a terrible thing.

There is a vital muscle there that keeps us alive physically, spiritually, emotionally, socially.

It is incredibly strong and at the same time, incredibly fragile.

The “heart” of a person can be tender or oversensitive to slights.

It can be easily given to take offense at the words and actions of others.

Some have mean spirited natures that are unforgiving and judgmental.

Others are distant and cool.

They withdraw to avoid hurt.

They refuse to become involved in anything.

They have had a bad experience and are trying to put it behind them and so they feel that the distance that they create means that they are dealing with the hurt when it is only an indication that they are still being controlled by the negative past.

Some are fearful and timid, others hopeless and perpetually hurting.

Did you find yourself somewhere in that list?

I’m not describing something unfamiliar to us just cataloguing the common response patterns of people who choose to face life in their own wisdom and strength independent of God.

What are your troubles today?

What are the things that “disturb” your heart?

I repeat Christ’s words today spoken to calm the troubled hearts of the disciples as they contemplated the loss of their teacher.

I repeat them as spiritual admonition personally for us as if they were spoken directly to us.

They are for our encouragement and your peace today.

*/ “Do not let your hearts be troubled./*/

Trust in Goda; trust also in me.

2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; *if it were not so, I would have told you.*/

 

·         */God’s provisions are for the journey/*.

They are not meant to remove the journey from the journey or to make life into anything else but what life is.

You see you can’t go camping at the Delta.

It takes the camp out of camping.

I understand that a stay at a 5 star hotel is the definition that some people have of camping.

*/Sixteen Steps to Build a Campfire/*

 

1.

Split dead limb into fragments and shave one fragment into slivers.

2. Bandage left thumb.

3. Chop other fragments into smaller fragments

4. Bandage left foot.

5. Make structure of slivers (include those embedded in hand)

6.

Light Match

7. Light Match

8. Repeat "a Scout is cheerful" and light match.

9. Apply match to slivers, add wood fragments, and blow gently into base of fire.

10.

Apply burn ointment to nose.

11.

When fire is burning, collect more wood.

12. Upon discovering that fire has gone out while out searching for more wood, soak wood from can labeled "kerosene."

13.

Treat face and arms for second-degree burns.

14.

Relabel can to read "gasoline."

15.

When fire is burning well, add all remaining firewood.

16.

When thunder storm has passed, repeat steps.

·         */From a spiritual perspective,  life is a lot like camping/*.

It’s a lot more like trying to build a fire with wet wood and then it is using a remote control to ignite a propane fireplace.

It seems to me that we devote a lot more of our time and energies keeping warm and dry and feeding our faces.

·         */You see things “camping” that you never see otherwise/.

*If you want life to be a succession of stays in a 5 star hotel you’ll miss this perspective.

The real scenery is often found off the well beaten trails.

There are those who despair of the struggle that life presents because they have an unreal expectation.

They want it to be pain-free.

They want to walk on level ground, stone and stumble free.

They want to stay young forever.

They don’t want death to knock on their door.

They don’t care what other doors it knocks on as long as it is someone else’s.

They don’t get bitter or question God at the tragic losses of other people or the misfortune that others suffer.

They don’t really care so much about the way that God treats the world as they do about their own welfare.

If they were really concerned about the hungry or the homeless they would stop blaming God and feed someone or offer a person a place to stay for the night.

When things go askew for them though, that is another matter.

They question God, get bitter and run away.

I remember one man in a former church.

I felt that he was a person who understood life from a spiritual perspective.

He got mad at God and stopped coming to church because he was praying for a different job and he didn’t get it.

*Get over it!*

So life doesn’t go as you wish it went.

This is the journey not the destination.

·         */When God looked for a chosen people, he found tent-dwellers/*, people who could pull up stakes quickly and move.

He found Abraham and the first thing that he did was to relocate him.

He didn’t look for city dwellers, people who exist to support the city.

It’s hard to get out of the city at times and harder to get the city out of you.

He looked for people who were able to carry their home on their backs.

And the record of his choosing and dealing with those people was the record of their journey to a promised land.

In type we are those people of faith that God is still leading through this place to a promised land.

And like them we are always looking for a 5 star hotel or the way back to Egypt.

·         */So much of spiritual truth is geared toward “tent dwellers”, people who are willing to be moved.

It deals with the building of a person who can manage life and find it’s beauty swelling above the pain that it can bring at times./*