Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction (10 Minutes)

Jab 1: There is only one time of the year a person should buy Gefilte Fish.

My homiletics professors would kill me for starting my sermon with a story about Gefilte Fish but I am going to start my sermon talking about Gefilte Fish.

Why? Gefilte Fish might just be the perfect analogy for a sermon about not opting out until it is time to come out.

Think about it.

Gefilte Fish is a product that 98% of the people who walk by it have know idea what kind of fish is a Gefilte Fish.

They would believe you if you told them it was a freshwater Jewish fish.

It sits awkwardly on the shelf next to other items like Matza, Matzo Meal, Grape Juice, Candles and of coarse the Asian food section at HEB.

It just seems out of place and it stays in its place until the right time.

At just the right time, right before Passover, someone will come and grab a bottle of this white-fish mixture and serve it as a garnish at their Passover table.

It stays, unique, set-apart, different, until just the right time and at the right time it comes out.

Jab 2: Relatable story about not opting out and being the hope someone else needed.

When I was seven years old my parents sent me to camp.

I was supposed to go with a friend but at the last minute, my friend got sick and could not go.

So I had to go to camp alone and all I wanted to do was to leave.

Jab 3: Real life is not like summer camp.

Real life is not like summer camp.

Real life is not as kind, nice or easy.

Real life is filled with situations where summer camp becomes that office I have to go, with those people I have to work, with that boss I wish I did not have.

Real life is going to that school with those people who judge me, bully me, or use me.

Real life is coming home to a less than functional home.

Real life is when your children don’t bounce back from that addiction, do come home pregnant, end up committing a crime that will cost everyone in your family.

Real life is when your children don’t bounce back from that addiction, do come home pregnant, end up committing a crime that will cost everyone in your family.

Real life is driving a friend of mine 3 hours to visit his dying grandma only to have a well-to-do tap my friend on the should as we stood at the Valet for my truck and say, “Excuse me young man could you go get my car,” because he is Hispanic.

Real life always tests your grit.

Real life will test your sticking power.

Real life has a way of making you look for greener pastures, for country living, for escape, for vacation, for retirement, anything but real life.

But the escape is usually a complicated path of heartbreak and regret.

The ancient philosopher Seneca wisely said: “No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity.

For he is not permitted to prove himself.”

Winston Churchill in his tongue cheek Brittish style said, “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.”

יֵשׁ נָאֶה דוֹרֵשׁ וְנָאֶה מְקַיֵּם

אֵוִן אְדִם סִידִךָ בסִעוּדָה יָמַפִסִידָת

Real life can challenge you, push you, squeeze you, make you feel like you are drowning in oceans deep, crawling out of desert wide, locked down ready to tap out but you don’t have to tap out, you don’t have to drown, because we have a reason to not tap out.

Because we know if God is for us, who can be against us.

If he who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how shall we not endure as it is written, “For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

But in all these things, in all of real life, we are more than conquerors!

e’vin e’deem see’dee’cha v’see’oo’dah ya’ma’phee’see’dat “A person does not prepare a meal to ruin it.”

In the book of Revelation, the city of man is gold on the outside but inside it is full of demons, darkness, and death.

And as important a topic as that is, that is now what I am talking about today.

What I am talking about is not opting out of Babylon until it is time to come out.

Let me be even more clear.

Believers in the book of Revelation will not op out of influencing Babylon until there is a command to “come out.”

This is important because most believers would rather flee the evil city, head for the country, go to the vineyard than stay put and stay the coarse.

The rabbis use a great expression אֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ to describe the city of man, Babylon, it means “it’s inside is not like it’s outside.”

In the book of Revelation, the city of man is gold on the outside but inside it is full of demons, darkness, and death.

Babylon is the ultimate and final city but to one degree or another every major city is a copy of or foreshadows this coming great city of Babylon.

But everyone of us, especially here in Houston, Texas are facing a Babylon of our own.

On the outside your business may boast great revenues, be traded publically on Wall-Street, or hitting it big on NASDAQ but you know אֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ “its inside is not like its outside.”

And it would be easier to leave and go to that other company than stick it out:

Right Hook: If I have done my job today, then I hope to convince you that we like these believers in the future must not tap out, or throw in the towel when it comes to our mission to our city.

So we are going to look to look at the draw of the city, the grit of the exiles in the city, and the gift of the exiles to the city.

Ha-Foke-Bah

Ha-Foke-Bah

De-Cola-Bah

אֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ

Ha-Foke-Bah

Ha-Foke-Bah

Mashiach Bah

Turn-it and turn-it, everything you need is in it.

Turn-it and turn-it, the Messiah is in it.

Let’s read together:

The Draw of the City

We are exiles awaiting the establishment of our City.

There is a dangerous idea that floats around much of popular Christian thinking and messianic Judaism and has to do with location.

Location matters.

Location, Location, Location.

Much popular preaching says that the faithful and few are headed to either a cloud in the sky or a garden by a river.

We are not going heading in the direction of cloud or garden but to the new Jerusalem that has a garden with it.

We are destined for eternal city life.

If you don’t like the city, you will not like eternity.

The Drift of the City.

If you flip to the end of the book, after judgments are made, rewards are given out, it says

We are going to an eternal city and if you believe in Yeshua you already are a member of that city.

Passport is issued, your condo is built.

You are here as an exile but you are headed to the city God has prepared for all His faithful ones:

The city is not man’s invention it was God’s invention.

I do think the Garden of Eden was designed to become a central city.

The city is key to the rest of life that’s the reason why you will find that as the city goes so goes the region, or the country does it.

Or recent history tells us that here in Houston.

When Enron collapsed it did not just impact the city, it impacted all the suburbs attached to the city.

When the World Trade Centers collapsed on 9/11 and New York was brought to a standstill it virtually crippled our economic strength.

The City Draws out of the Human Heart what is already there

The city draws out of the human heart the darkness that is already there.

We read in these passengers that Kings commit immorality with her.

That is a way of saying they traded favors with one another in an illicit fashion.

The merchants of the earth mourned at her fall because it made then powerful, wealthy, influential beyond their wildest dreams.

The passengers on their ships weeped at her downfall because this city promised a future for human kind.

If you are chasing power, the city will give it to you.

Chasing casual sex, find it on every corner.

Chasing influence, you got it.

Chasing an escape from reality, you can find it.

There is a great line in the movie “The Highwaymen” which is about the two Texas Rangers who tracked and killed Bonnie and Clide Barrow.

In a pivotal scene in the movie, Clide’s father says that he was not an evil child but one day he stole a chicken and from that moment on the law was watching him and that is what mad a criminal.

After Hammer tells the story about he became an Officer of the Law instead of a Pastor he looks at Henry Barrow and says, “Do you ever think there was something in Henry that caused him to steal that chicken in the first place.”

Whatever philosophy has the city, whatever spirit has the city by the throat, that’s what its people will tolerate to lesser or greater degrees.

I think that is why John describes the charachter of Babylon the Great in Revelation as a high paid prostitute adorned in amazing clothing.

She is no girl being traded on the sex slave trade, she wants to do this, she enjoys the power, influence, and control she yields over all her clients.

In the book of Revelation, Babylon the Great, is the city that is influencing the rest of the world.

Her influence is so great that at a certain point Satan becomes jealous of the city and will topple it .

This is what makes the city the epicenter of God’s mission.

What happens in the city changes everything else.

I read an article not to long ago that said about 1.8% of the population is Jewish in the United States.