Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Recap
We are finishing our message from last week entitled Life Ordinarily.
This will be our last message from our series Unhindered for a little bit as next week I want to turn everything towards our Easter Celebration.
As I’ve said, our theme is Unhindered.
Our scripture for the year is
Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave for a purpose.
It wasn’t just about a cool show
Lazarus had things to do - God was going to get the glory for those things.
My Brothers and sisters, God wants to get the glory for what he does in your life
And he wants to be glorified in the lives of those around you.
For that to happen - As in the case with Lazarus, they need to be set free.
And we the church are the very element that he wants to use to do that.
But we are also in need of being freed.
Jesus came to do that - tells us to give us a resurrected life
Not just in eternity, but to live a new life now
And then tells us that he came to show us the way to walk in the truth to experience this wonderful and abundant or full life.
And what we’ve been looking at is how those characteristics or traits of life take place in us as God’s people - DAILY
We said that it had to do with being salt and light
and for that to happen, we need to be careful that we don’t integrate with the world’s views and lifestyles around us.
That we need to stand firm in the truth of God’s word and live it boldly
And when asked how we do that, Jesus taught a wonderful message about the spiritual attitudes that we are supposed to be living in daily.
What I’ve been calling the BE Attitudes.
They are a step by step progression of life that guarantees the believer victory.
First we have to become poor in spirit or spiritually bankrupt outside of Christ
That he is our everything.
- We need to admit that we need a savior
Second - We have to learn to spiritually mourn - to spiritually weep over our spiritual condition with out the life and Spirit of Christ living in us.
To weep over that which separates us from God
To seek God’s comfort and forgiveness
These two things bring death to our human and fleshly pride and arrogance and our independence from God.
And Jesus says they bring us to a place of living humbly or meek - which is where we find ourselves today
Blessed are the Meek
Those who are humble, those who live life preferring others above themselves
Those who are looking to bring out the best in others.
Those who aren’t overly concerned about their lives or where they stand in the pecking order on this earth.
It’s a hard place to get to isn’t it?
Poor in Spirit and spiritually mourning
We said that Meekness isn’t weekness - It’s really how God empowers a person.
And so Meekness gives us victory over the flesh
It’s the ground that the Fruit of the Spirit grow in
It’s the soil of discipline
Paul says I have to crucify the flesh daily
Today I want to look at the second part of this verse - the victory over the flesh and this earth
The Meek will Inherit the Earth
I told you last week that Jesus was quoting scripture when he said this
It’s found in
Last week I jumped ahead of myself and shared a couple of verses that seemed out of place.
That is if you didn’t know where I was headed with all of this.
I shared about Peter in Prison where the men who put him there want to just dismiss him and let him walk out the back door - And Paul steps up and says no, they did this to us, let them deal with it publicly.
If they are releasing us, then let them do it in front of everyone.
- Didn’t seem very meek did it?
But it was
I shared about Jesus turning over the tables in the temple - May not have seemed to be done in the spirit of meekness, but it was.
We looked at Jesus before the High Priest when they had arrested him and slapped him and he says, why have you slapped me?
What right do you have to do so?
The Bible tells us that he was like a meek lamb being led to the slaughter - sure doens’t seem that way to me?
But it was
Let me set this up with some history.
Some old American Western history.
Has anyone ever heard of Black Bart?
When you said his name any time between 1875 and 1883 it struck fear in the hearts of every stage coach driver.
It struck frustration on the face of every law officer
and it probably put a smile and some jealousy on every little boy who roamed the prairies playing guns or cops and robbers.
Black Bart - No one ever saw his face - he used a hood to hide it
There were not observable pictures of him in the Post Office or the saloon
The law officers couldn’t track him down, no matter how close they ever seemed to him
And He never fired a shot or took a hostage.
His weapon was his reputation and his ammunition was intimidation
He terrorized the Wells Fargo Stage Line for 13 years showing up, and robbing 29 different stage coach crews.
Why do I share that today?
Because like Black Bart
Satan is the Father of Fear
Fear - We all have to deal with it
Hospital visits, places of danger, middle of the night imaginations, job interviews
This enemy takes our courage, and gives us knees that shake and hands that tremble
We have the fear of death, fear of failure.
Some are afraid of God, the dark, and other people.
A legend from India tells about a mouse who was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat.
That resolved his fear … until he met a dog, so the magician changed him into a dog.
The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger—so, once again, the magician changed him into what he feared.
But when the tiger came complaining that he had met a hunter, the magician refused to help.
“I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse.”
We battle fear by putting in a bigger and louder alarm system
WE build higher and stronger walls, install stronger locks in our steel doors
We guard our hearts from people who we think might hurt us
We buy a bigger gun, our nation expands it’s military
But does it help?
Does it alleviate the fear?
Maybe for a time until we see the next news article or hear the next story.
I said it in last weeks message - Courage is inwardly produced.
It’s not something that we can just put on.
It happens because of who we already are inside
What we miss when we read the beatitudes is what Jesus is saying that the meek will be courageous.
They shall inherit the earth.
No longer will the fears and intrepidations of the earth dominate them, but through Jesus Christ, we will dominate the earth.
Jesus is the Father of Courage
Think about what he does with 12 men
They weren’t special.
They were people who lived next to people
They had fears, they had problems
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