Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture: James 1:22-25

 

! 1.

A Haze In The Mirror – (deceiving ourselves)

 

/- When you can’t see the forest for the trees/

 

James says: “Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves.”

It is a curious thing that our refusal to live by what we understand will cause us spiritual blindness.

Any other information in the world we can accept without having it demand something of us but the gospel seems to be different.

God doesn’t seem to be looking for our agreement – he will be satisfied with nothing short of everything that we are and everything that we have laid in surrender before Him.

Blinded by the light that we refuse to walk in.

All the information in the world will not save a person.

If we are waiting for sufficient information then that day may never come.

I think that our degree of openness to walk in the light determines the light that we have.

People who talk about prayer but never pray.

People who say tithing is right but never tithe.

People who want to belong to the church but never attend.

People who say the Bible is God's Word to man but never read it.

People who criticize others for things they do themselves.

People who stay away from church for trivial reasons and sing, "Oh, How I Love Jesus."

People who continue in sin all their lives but expect to go to heaven.

-- Church Bulletin Bits

!

Does something in your life need to change?

Here are four realizations that can help you in making important choices in your life:

 

1  The Step of Honest Humility: I don't know the answer.

Long journeys and big decisions start with the words I don't know.

When confronted with God's truth, it's human nature to feel  inadequate.

If you can admit this to yourself and to God, the words I don't know can free you rather than panic or defeat you.

Instead of turning inward and relying on yourself for answers, you can turn to God and rely on Him for the understanding, direction, and strength to move ahead.

You will experience the blessing of humility.

Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (1 Peter 5:5).

2  The Step of Joyful Obedience: I will do what God says.

Once you admit you don't have all the answers, the door to receiving new understanding, opportunity, and direction for yourself will open.

Understanding that God loves you unconditionally gives you the ability to obey God.

The question of what to do with the rest of your life, facing you now or waiting somewhere down the road, can be filled with anxiety and unknowing.

When you come to that turning point, God is ready to show you the way - if you will acknowledge that your life belongs to Him.

He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil.

1:6).

3  The Step of True Identity: I know who God made me to be.

Obeying God means belonging to God.

In Him is your security, familiarity, and trust.

When you depend on God, He will    reveal your inner strengths, gifts, and talents to you, the makeup of your true identity.

4  The Step of Destiny: Ultimately, my life belongs to God.

Whatever you have been given in life does not belong to you.

You are a steward who's been commanded to share what you have with those who have not.

If you make the choice to live your life for the Lord, He will reveal to you the impact you made for Him.

It may be years before you understand, but that is one of the faithful blessings of God: to show you how you fit into His kingdom.

! 2.   A Glance In The Mirror – (depriving ourselves)

 

-          /When you don’t remember what a tree looks like?/

 

/“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror [24] and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”/

Most of us have memory problems when it comes to our spiritual experience.

Even with life in general we may flatter ourselves just a bit too much.

We forget about some of the most important things.

/Events and circumstances awaken our religion, as though there were no need to pray to God except in illness and sorrow.

As soon as affairs take a turn for the better and the danger is past, our devotion vanishes; the most we think of doing is to thank God for the successful end of our troubles; after a short act of gratitude we forget him and think of nothing but our pleasures.

The necessities and accidents of life form the main subject and the actuating motive of the prayers of the ordinary Christian./

/ /

/Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803)/

 

ü      We forget about the vows that we took when we stood at the altar promising to love and to “*/cherish/*”.

It was there then all the emotion of new love and the prospects of a life to be lived together.

All of that uncluttered by the everyday responsibilities that cause us to neglect the greatest assets that we have in this life.

ü      We forget about the desperate prayers that we breathe to God when the answer comes and we skip away like 9 of the 10 cleansed lepers, caught up in our good fortune.

We quickly forget the “very good God” who answered that prayer because he saw the fear and distress in your heart.

Even though he has assured us a thousand times that He would never leave or forsake us, we quickly forget when we see the wind and the waves.

ü      We forget about the health that we have enjoyed this day, the small blessings that are priceless by their absence in someone else’s life.

Merely by thought we will our legs over the side of the bed onto the cold floor and the sensations of a new day assault our bodies.

We have done many things already this day unconscious of the benevolent hand of God that allows us this great privilege of life.

We have opened our eyes and actually seen – where many blind eyes have opened this day already without altering the permanent blackness that surrounds them 24~/7.

ü      We forget about the miracle of birth and the gift of God that children are when they try us and usher us to the very brink of our ability to be patient and understanding.

We forget that they are not us and although we know ourselves to a degree, we do not know our children to the same degree.

We forget how immature that we were at their age and how we were irresponsible at times but we have come through it and even overcome.

We forget that we are put here in a unique position because we are the only people in the world capable of loving these children unconditionally.

We can look at their darker sides and still love them.

That is our job and our responsibility and the only thing that we can do like no one else.

There are those times as well when our children must be released to the hand of their heavenly father – when all that we might do does no good and we wonder where we went wrong and what we might have done better – let me remind you dear ones that a miracle of God is in order and only He can do the supernatural thing.

Only God can change a human heart.

Give them back to God, don’t forget that they came from Him in the beginning.

ü      We forget quickly how much it cost Christ to forgive us of the sinful tendency in our hearts to go counter to His will in our daily lives.

We forget what we were like when we were younger in the faith or before we came to faith at all.

We forget how long it took us to grasp particular truth and fully apply it in our lives.

We display that bad memory when we look in judgment upon another brother or sister in the Lord

 

It was his understanding of what I have called a PDI principle that made John Bunyan the great man of God we know him to be.

In his spiritual autobiography he modeled the repentant lifestyle with these comments:

 

I find to this day 7 abominations in my heart:

 

1)     inclinings to unbelief

2)     suddenly to forget the love and mercy that Christ manifesteth

3)     a leaning to the works of the law

4)     wanderings and coldness in prayer

5)     to forget to watch for that I pray for

6)     apt to murmur because I have no more, and yet ready to abuse what I have

7)     I can do none of these things which God commands me, but my corruptions will thrust in themselves; when I do good, evil is present with me.

n      Grace Abounding, From Rebuilding Your Broken World, by Gordon MacDonald

 

ü      We forget about the pain that our bad decisions have brought us.

We forget that hasty words cut deep and scar forever.

We forget about times like these today when we sit in a sanctuary and contemplate during a sermon the Word of God and His providential will for our lives.

Occasionally in these types of settings, God moves in a mighty way, He speaks to hearts and perhaps about things that have nothing to do with the specific nature of a verse or a point in the sermon – but He speaks – most likely He is busy doing just that – right now.

When I say that */today is the day of salvation/* we silently respond – “I know”.

Let me tell you something about that my friend – as soon as you turn away from the mirror, your memory will fail you.

An hour after this message is over there will be some of you who will not be able to tell another human being what in the world I was preaching about this morning.

Do you know why?

It is because God’s Word is meant to be immediately acted upon.

We learn it truly when we do it.

James says that the man who does not act upon the word goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

It’s a mere glance in the word that we take every Sunday morning.

Because we are most always on our way somewhere else.