Sermon Tone Analysis

*Through it All*

Praise our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping.

For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.

You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.

You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you— vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.

I will sacrifice fat animals to you and an offering of rams; I will offer bulls and goats.

/Selah/ Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me.

I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue.

If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.

Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! (Ps 66:8-20 NIV)

 

*Introduction: *This psalm is about someone who encountered hard times, but trusted God and remained faithful and true to him, in spite of the troubling times, for He knew God himself was faithful.

If we are to be counted among the faithful in the end, we must remain true when it really counts.

*I.

**Remain True Through Difficult Passages*

*[*For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.

You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.

You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.*]*

*A.

**Trusting God’s Examination under Pressure.*

~*~*~*If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace.

If he has made it bitter; drink it in communion with him.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

~~Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them.

“Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant.

These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”

(Mt 20:20-23 NIV)

 

- Peter was Told in the last chapter of the book of John that to follow Jesus would cost him his life, but he took upon himself the apostolic office, knowing that the one whom he died for had overcome the grave.

Though trial may come, God is to be trusted.

~*~*~*   Afflictions, when sanctified, make us grateful for mercies which before we treated with indifference.

We sat for half an hour in a calf's shed the other day, quite grateful for the shelter from the driving rain, yet at no other time would we have entered such a hovel.

Discontented people need a course of the bread of adversity and the water of affliction to cure them of the wretched habit of complaining.

Even things which we loathed before, we shall learn to value when in troubling circumstances.

We are not fond of lizards, and yet at Pont St.

Martin, in the Aosta valley, where the mosquitoes, flies, and insects of all sorts drove us nearly to distraction, we prized the little green fellows, and felt quite an attachment to them as they darted out their tongues and devoured our worrying enemies.

Sweet are the uses of adversity, and this among them--that it brings into proper estimation mercies which were before lightly esteemed.

-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)

 

*B.

**Trusting God’s Extension of Protection*

~*~*~*   Several months ago our family went to a swimming pool.

I was down in the deep end by the diving board swimming around, and my four-year-old, Savannah, came tottering into the shallow end of the pool.

She can't swim yet, but she wears these big orange "floaties."

She can't sink with these huge orange floaties on.

Savannah came down the steps, and as soon as she got out there in the water, she said "Daddy, I'm scared.

I want to come where you are."

I chuckled at her naivete and said, "Savannah, it's a lot deeper down here."

She said, "I don't care.

I want to be where you are."

   "Okay, come on," I said.

She began dog-paddling across the pool ... three-foot ... six-foot ... nine-foot ... 12-foot-deep water.

When she came up to me she grabbed my neck, and her look of panic gave way to relief.

Next to her father she felt secure, and it made very little difference how deep or how dangerous the water was.

-- Dave Stone, "Keep the Dust Off the Highchair," Preaching Today, Tape No. 143.

 

*C.

**Trusting God’s Exercise of Providence*

~*~*~*   Chrysostom says, the way is good if it is the way to a feast, even though it goes through a dark and miry lane.

If it goes to an execution it is not good, even though it goes through the fairest street of the city.

Non qua sed quo.

Not the way but the end is to be mainly considered.

-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)

 

*II.

**Remain True Through Dedicated Prayer*

*[*I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue.

If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.

Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!*]*

 

~*~*~*An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers....

But if he is a Christian, he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him.

But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the man who was God-that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him.

You see what is happening.

God is the thing to which he is praying-the goal he is trying to reach.

God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on-the motive power.

God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal.

So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers.

C.

S. Lewis (1898-1963)

 

*A.

**Praying with Praise*

~*~*~*Adoration is the highest form of prayer.

   Louis Cassels (1922-1974)

 

*B.

**Praying with Purity*

~*~*~*   In Bulgaria, the head movements for yes and no are just the opposite of those with which we are familiar.

A nod of the head means no.

Shaking the head from side to side means yes.

Sometimes when we are tempted we say no but mean yes.

We say no with our lips but say yes in our hearts.

~*~*~* In his book Why Prayers Are Unanswered, John Lavender retells a story about Norman Vincent Peale.

When Peale was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped into an alley, and lit up.

It didn't taste good, but it made him feel very grown up ... until he saw his father coming.

Quickly he put the cigar behind his back and tried to be casual.

Desperate to divert his father's attention, Norman pointed to a billboard advertising the circus.

"Can I go, Dad? Please, let's go when it comes to town."

His father's reply taught Norman a lesson he never forgot.

"Son," he answered quietly but firmly, "never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience."

-- Kirk Russel, DeForest, Wisconsin.

Leadership, Vol. 4, no.