Sermon Tone Analysis

Can You Say the “*H*” Word?

New Hope Baptist Church

9~/23 & 10~/28, 2007

9:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.

 

*Text:*

Judges 12:4-6

1 Pet.

1:15-16

 

*Introduction: *

* *

By way of introduction, Judges Chapters 11 and 12 tell the story of Jephthah, the son of Gilead’s night of pleasure with a whore.

Gilead took the boy home to live with his wife and his other, legitimate sons.

The Bible says that Jephthah was a mighty warrior, so he must have grown up strong, good-looking and capable.

This naturally appalled his half brothers, so they put him out of the house to deny him any part of their inheritance.

Later, they came into some trouble and the idol gods they had been serving could not help them, so they went and found Jephthah and promised him total leadership of the people if he would return and fight the Ammonites.

He returned and they beat the Ammonites but in turn made an enemy of the tribe of Ephraim because they weren’t invited to the melee.

Isn’t that the way it is many times?

No matter what you do or how you do it, you just can’t please everybody.

That’s why it is important and necessary to try and please God alone because with man, somebody is always going to complain.

I’m not going to stop here, but I know that’s why Jesus said, “I always do what The *Father* tells me”.

There is no winning with man.

Somebody is always going to be indifferent.

Somebody is always going to pick a fight about your suggestion, or how you say a thing, or how you do a thing, or just about anything.

Just do it God’s way and let people fight with Him!

The Ephraimites picked a fight that they couldn’t win; so many of them tried to escape.

In order to get away, they had to cross the Jordan and Jephthah and his men had it covered.

So, when a man from Ephraim tried to cross, he was asked to say “*Shibboleth*”.

Because the dialect of their tongue was different, they could not say the “*H*” in the word and so they pronounced it as “*Sibboleth*”.

The meaning of the word, ‘shibboleth’ has evolved from this account.

It is now used to describe a word or custom or practice that would distinguish one group of people from another and to identify individuals as either members of the group or imposters.

In other words, *how* you say *what* you say distinguishes you from one group or another.

We use this pattern to distinguish people all the time, don’t we?  Have you ever met a person of the opposite sex, and thought, man they are fine and I like what I see, only to have them open their mouths and speak, and all of your premonitions fade away?

Sometimes it’s better to let a person *think* you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

From the text today, we find a picture of someone who had the cards of life stacked against him; someone whom the world today would give odds of being a total failure, a malevolent person of society.

We can see a person who would be voted in high school as someone most likely to be a menace to society and die before his time.

Taking into account both Scripture texts, I want to lift three things, three aspects of life we experience; First, ‘*A regretful life’**; *second, ‘*A redeemed life’;* and third, ‘*A rewarding life’.*

*A Regretful Life:*

    All of us have some things in our lives that we would call regretful, either from natural occurrences or by another’s action.

*    *Sometimes, the value of a person is determined in mathematical terms; they are considered like algebra problems so that their total worth as a person is the sum of the parts of their lives.

Like an algebra problem, if there is a negative value found anywhere in the equation, the sum total must be, by definition, negative.

I can see a bit of validity in that way of thinking, for our Lord Himself said that if a man falters on one point of the Law, he is guilty of breaking all.

Praise God we are not judged by the Law.

There is a paradox though, as many Christians today have adopted this way of attaching value to each other in the church.

We put our guards up and value our imaginary territory, based solely on perceived knowledge about others.

Most times when we read something into another person’s character, we are really responding to our own negative traits and character flaws that we *project* onto others.

Truth be told, the real culprit is the same as in the Judges text.

The real culprit is greed.

*Greed*, wanting more than you need; *greed*, wanting more than you can accommodate; not just wanting more, but wanting all; not just wanting all that belongs to you but some or all of what belongs to others.

*Greed*!

*Greed* is like an octopus; it has many tentacles.

*Greed* reaches far and long and wide and can take on many different facets.

In the Judges text we find greed showing up as *jealousy* and *envy*.

Even though Jephthah and his brothers had different mothers, they had the same father.

The father no doubt was willing and able to provide the same care, the same resources, the same advantages to Jephthah as to his other sons, but greed, in the form of jealousy and envy, stopped it.

They knew that there was enough inheritance to go around, but remember the Bible says that Jephthah was a mighty warrior.

He was strong and capable; he was independent; he was promising in his demeanor and character and therefore a threat to them.

Their greed caused more regret in Jephthah’s life.

Not totally unlike us today, right?

Even though we all have the same Father who is willing to supply the same benefits to all of His children, much dissention and unrest within the church today seems to stem from this pair, jealousy and envy.

Not only are they the most used tools of discontent; they are also the most likely overlooked root to many ails in the church today.

People dislike others for no justifiable reason; people tear down others without just cause; people set up circumstances to cause failure just to bring malcontent on others, when all the while its jealousy and envy that has pushed them on.

Sometimes regret is caused by others.

Regret by Others:

People will put you out and put you down when you act like you are strong willed and different from them and their intents.

As long as you fall into the same rut with everyone else, as long as you talk about the same people; find fault with the same things; complain about the same programs, you will be tolerated, for a while.

It’s unfortunate that we can find these maladies in the church, but we also see them almost everyday in the world; people are just hard to deal with these days.

Jealousy and envy, greed and all of its’ clusters in the workplace, in our relationships and friendships and in our day to day dealings in the world.

But it’s most hurtful when we have to endure it in our homes from our family and those we are taught that we can trust.

In our personal homes or our church homes, jealousy and envy can be devastating to an individual.

These things can lead to a regretful life, things caused by another.

Not only can regret be *caused* *by* others, there is also a regret that has been inherited *from* others.

Regret from Others: 

    I don’t care what kind of spoon was in your mouth at birth; it could have been silver or wood; gold or cement; platinum or paper; bronze or wood; you could have been born into wealth or poverty; on eastside or Westside; on either side of the tracks or in between; to one parent or two; loving parents or monsters; an only child or one of many; I can make a case today that no matter the condition or circumstance you were born into, you came here in a regretful state.

This regret has nothing to do with possessions or lack of them.

The Bible says in Romans 3:9-10 that all have sinned; there is none righteous, not one.

No matter where we’ve come from, we all have a regretful past life in that we came here being formed in sin and shaped in iniquity.

*A Redeemed Life:*

 But a regretful past is just that.

Past!

Too many times a *regretful past* keeps Christians from fully experiencing a *Redeemed life*.

The problem is that the world has conditioned you to believe that because you had to succumb to and endure regretful situations, your future, and your entire life must, by definition, also be negative.

Some of you came from abusive homes; some of you suffered abuse in your childhoods and took wrong turns and made wrong decisions that landed you in regretful situations and places; some have been cast out and put down and treated like aliens among family and friends, but the operative words are ‘have been’.

But I want to assure you that you don’t have to continue with a negative attitude about yourself.

You don’t have to live in silent pain that has been inflicted on you by others; you don’t have to succumb to and remain in a fallen state or remain regretful.

The thing you must know about the past is that it leaves a distinct trail in your mind, and it will lure you there, back to the past, if you are not careful.

You don’t believe me?

If I was to talk to any one of you right now, and compliment you on your dress or your shoes or your suit, but go on to say that your hairstyle is not becoming, you will hear the compliment but in the days and weeks to come you will only remember the complaint.

The past leaves a trail, and the trail can only take you back to the past.

The trail can only cause you to backtrack and become stuck in an area of regretful-ness and hamper you from growing and moving ahead.

Don’t be distracted by issues from the past.

Look forward, look ahead like Paul and forget those things that are behind, and the trail will soon vanish in the wind.

We all have some regretful life areas, but we can all experience a Redeemed Life.

Have you ever been redeemed?

I know we all want to say yes, that Christ has redeemed us, but outside of that experience, have you ever been redeemed?

I remember when I was in Jr. High school I was rather quiet and non-assuming.

There was always somebody who wanted to take me on to make themselves look bigger, rougher, and bolder and worth involvement within the inner circles.

One day a friend and I were walking home.

We decided to take a shorter route which necessitated passing through a rather rough area.

It seemed like we were going to make it through when all of a sudden a girl came out of this house and stepped down in front of us.

She was rough looking and she immediately decided to pick on me.

Well, I was quiet but I didn’t easily back down.

She decided not to take me on but said that she would get somebody named Lahana to deal with me.

Now, I was really dismayed and I felt like my heart had split my chest open.