Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

Ever met a childrearing expert?

No, I’m not talking about the ones you find in a grandparent’s home who, through the tears of experience, the counsel of the Scripture, and the travail of prayer have poured themselves into their children to the point that they have reaped a heritage of godly adults who have risen up and called them “blessed.”

No, I’m not talking about the legitimate experts, I’m talking about the ignorant ones.

You’ve met them.

They are those people who have never had kids and may not have even been married but who know with metaphysical certainty exactly what you should be doing with your own kids.

Someone very close to me used to be that kind of an expert.

That’s right!

He knew precisely what people were supposed to do when raising their kids and he wasn’t stingy.

He loved to share that with others and he did so . . .

regularly.

Have a child who watched too much T.V.? Here’s what you should do.

Have a kid who listened to the wrong kind of music?

Take away their CD player (ok this was a few years ago).

Have a kid with a smart mouth?

Well, then, you obviously weren’t raising them right and he could tell you what you needed to change.

That all played out pretty well until, well into his 40's, he actually got married and had a child of his own.

It’s amazing how things changed.

As his son grew up, he did something I never thought he would do.

He stopped giving advice!

Metaphysical certainty was replaced by teachable humility.

You might ask him a question, but that certainly didn’t mean he knew the answer and he might not even hazard a guess.

He was an expert no longer, but he certainly was much easier to live with!

What made the difference?

Well, it’s a principle that really works in all of life.

It even works in your spiritual life.

The principle is simply this: EXPERIENCE CHANGES PERCEPTION.

That’s right.

The things I experience change the way I view the world around me. Experience changes perception.

And, really, it changes more than perception.

In truth, the right kind of experience can materially change you.

It happened to the Psalmist in Psalm 34.

There it says

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together.

I sought the Lord, and He heard me,

And delivered me from all my fears.

They looked to Him and were radiant,

And their faces were not ashamed.

Now what is being described here is one of those life-changing experiences.

Here the psalmist calls on you and me to praise the Lord, but it is not a hum-drum, “just-because-it’s-Sunday” worship service.

No! This worship experience is life changing.

You know that because of v5.

It says that in the middle of their worship, “They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.”

When it says “they looked to Him and were radiant,” that probably looks back to Moses who used to go into the presence of Jehovah and, when he returned from that meeting, his face glowed so much that he had to wear a veil over his face so that others could look at him.

The experience of God’s presence materially changed him.

He radiated the glory of God.

The psalmist says, in essence, those who look to God will radiate . . .

they will shine.

But what does that mean, exactly?

What does it mean to say that those who look to God are radiant?

Well, it’s explained in the second part of the verse.

It says, “and their faces were not ashamed.”

The essential change is in their confidence and in their ability to trust God.

Coming into the presence of God materially changes the worshiper so that he is filled with the confidence required to absolutely trust God with the circumstances of his life.

NEED

Is that something you need?

You may hae come this morning in complete despair.

Your hanging on by a thread and you have all but given up.

What you face is so overwhelming that you are taking every anti-anxiety pill you can swallow, reading every Bible verse you can read, listening to every worship song you can pull up on your Mp-3, but nothing seems to help.

You’re on the bottom and you wonder if you’re going to make it.

You’re not even praying anymore because it all is just too much effort.

When I talk about having absolute confidence in God, it almost sounds like I’m mocking you, but at the same time, you wistfully wish you had it.

Listen!

Experience can change your confidence.

And maybe you’re here this morning and you’re not in complete despair, but you’re certainly in doubt.

You haven’t given up and you still listen to your friends talk about God’s deliverance, but all the promises and verses and well-wishing of friends can’t shake the terrible sense of dread inside.

The stray cat of worry keeps winding her way through your legs.

You’ve chased her away time after time, but she keeps coming back.

Listen.

Experience can change your confidence.

And then there are those of us who are on the other side of the coin, you might say.

We’re not in despair or doubt because we’re in deliverance.

God came through!

The diagnosis was reversed; the cure came; the child returned; the check arrived in the mail.

You’re celebrating and I am glad that you are happy, but you need to hear something about all that confidence you’re feeling right now.

If it’s the result of any circumstance in your life, be careful.

That circumstance will ultimately let you down.

Only the presence of God can give you radiance.

Experience can change your confidence.

What exactly do I mean when I say that?

Well, I want to explain it this morning by talking to you about three men in the Bible who had this experience.

I want to show you how this experience with God gave them confidence.

The first one of these men is Moses.

His experience with God gave him:

DIVISION 1: THE CONFIDENCE TO LEAD

EXPLANATION

It was an unlikely proposition.

Moses himself would have told you, in fact, he did tell God that very thing.

When God called him to lead after Moses had made such a mess of his life, He told God to call someone else.

Why?

Well, Moses attributed it to his lack of speaking ability, but that lack hadn’t stopped him when he had tried to take control back in Egypt by killing and Egyptian.

No, it wasn’t his lack of speech that stopped him, it was his lack of confidence.

He had been shattered by his failure and now all he wanted out of life was to wander aimlessly behind a pack of sheep.

You remember the story.

God turns Moses into a leader, and Moses doesn’t forget that his power and his confidence come from God.

That is clear in one particular incident in his life.

God is angry with the Children of Israel.

While He has been giving His law to Moses, they have been falling into the very worst kind of idolatry and immorality.