Sermon Tone Analysis

Pre-sermon Plug: The Gatherings

We have chosen to have a laid-back approach to small groups.

We will jumpstart our small groups at the start of our next sermon series.

On October 7. Series title:

“Where Character is King: and the Christian Walk”

We will jumpstart it with the gathering at my house for Filipino Food Fest.

I’m already preparing my gluten and egg rolls.

Mrs. Gina Wallace and the rest of our Filipino Auburn Church members and friends are pretty sure we will be able to feed everybody.

Come to my house and we will focus on MPT—mingling, praying, and testimonies.

I will demonstrate how we can use the Sermon Handout to lead in a simple and easy testimony time, which I am hoping you will carry out in your own small group.

We will keep our small groups laid-back.

I want you to start your small group on your own.

If you wish your small group to be

Now, let us pray.

Prayer

Compose a short prayer here

A Reading of

Moses has totally blended in

Been in Midian 40 years.

More than enough time to blend in.

Acculturated.

He speaks Midianite now—just about as good as a native-born.

Just about.

His Egyptian accent betrays him from time to time.

Like how Patsy Cook’s twangy vowels betray her southern roots.

Or how Joe Warda’s throaty gutturals betray his Assyrian roots.

Moses has stopped dreaming in Egyptian.

Sleep-talking in Egyptian.

That’s a tell-tale sign that you’ve acculturated —if you ask me.

Years ago, Julie would wake me up in the middle of the night:

“Honey, wake up, wake up! You’re having a nightmare.”

“Huh, huh, what, what?”

I wake up, drool dripping down the left side of my cheek (I like sleeping on my left side—or on my belly).

"You were talking in your sleep again.”

“I was?

What was I saying?”

“I don’t know.

You were talking in your native tongue.”

“I was?

Which one?”

“How should I know!

It’s not English.”

“Oh! Must be Tinguian.”

“It doesn’t sound Tagalog to me.”

So I go back to sleep.

And go right back to my dream.

Have you ever had this happen to you?

And my wife and I would go at it again.

And my wife and I go at it again.

"Honey, you’re talking in your sleep again.”

“Was I speaking in English this time?”

“Nope!”

“When will I ever dream in English?”

40 years

And accepted his fate: an obscure, insignificant, wandering shepherd.

In 40 years.

Forty years?

Forty years.

[Pause]

“It’ been forty years,” Moses says to himself.

“Ah, what could have been, had my kinsmen rallied around me. Ohh, well.

No regrets.

I am at peace with my life.”

Moses’ assimilation to his second life is complete.

His father-in-law Jethro many years ago had turned over the family business to him.

And it has thrived.

Best wool anywhere in Midian.

Best tasting feta cheese.

He’s done well as a businessman these 40 years.

Even if his job is never-ending.

Long hours.

Countless days and nights away from the wife and kids.

Is enough time to accept his new fate.

An obscure, insignificant, wandering shepherd.

His dream of rallying the Israelites to rise up and break their shackles by force, has receded into the back roads, by the rivers of his memory, that keeps it ever gentle on his mind—as Glenn Campbell might say.

His daydream of ministry recedes into the back roads of his mind, by the rivers of his memory, ever gentle on his mind with the passing of time.

Swallowed up by forty years of faded memory.

An obscure, insignificant, wandering desert shepherd.

His grandiose dream of rallying the Israelites to rise up and break their shackles through murder and mayhem if necessary, has receded into the back roads by the rivers of his memory, that keeps it ever gentle on his mind—as Glenn Campbell might say.

All memories end up faded, gentle, and grey with the passing of time.

Gentle

Benign

But God does not fade away with the passing of time.

The heart of a leader is a slow-burning fire, steadily waiting for an opportunity serve.

Faded

So your wilderness is your very life itself.

Where you live, work, study, play.

This is where vocation meets calling.

You wait patiently, faithfully discharging your present duties where you are.

For wilderness time is not wasted time.

Wilderness time is training time.

And the little things in your daily life are the venues of your boot camp.

Grey

(Every person puts in time in the wilderness)

with the passing of years.

So Moses takes off

His dream of ministry swallowed up by forty years of faded memory.

But you just never know how and when God comes calling

You must put in time in the wilderness where God molds you through the mundane and the ordinary.

Often unbeknownst to you.