Sermon Tone Analysis

I always wondered what it would really feel like to be someone in Oprah’s crowd, you know when she went, “You get a car and you get a car, you get a car and you get a car” to every person in the audience.

Or what would it be be the best.

Be one of those basketball players at the NBA All-Star game knowing you’re the greatest in your field.

As a pastor I try to do my best.

What makes the greatest pastor.

Right now I am once again reading through the Bible which would make I think the 4th time I have read every single word, and I spent a lot of time in prayer this week.

Some of you might hear that and say wow that’s a lot of reading and others might say only 4 times I know brother so and so who has read it 15 times.

I have baptized people, shared Jesus with people.

Seen people dramatically change by God, but what if I was the greatest?

What if it wasn’t me but you?

What would your life be like?

What if you could be the greatest, truly the one who is incredible as a Christian, a follower of Jesus.

What would you have to do for God to think of you as the greatest follower of Him?

I am part of Maximized Manhood, a group of men focused on being the best God would have us be we are reading books, praying, encouraging each other to care about our families and each other.

Bobby has been calling us to increase our faith.

what would like be like if you were God’s greatest?

Phil was sharing with us to increase our awareness of how we act on the emotion of anger.

What would your interactions with people be like if you were God’s greatest?

Each and every week at New Day, we encourage each other to take on the attitude of Christ.

What would you have to do to be the very best at it?

Last week many of us watched men who pursued being the very best football players they could be and leadership of a team that pursued being the very best.

Actually we watch two teams and these men and the women in the organizations become what they pursued.

Their pursuit was the very best and even when the Bengals didn’t win the Super Bowl they are still an excellent team.

What would you be like if you were the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

Are you pursuing that?

Are you close like the Bengals?

Is greatest in heaven what you are about?

I do believe heaven is real.

I do believe it is eternal.

Everything else in my life this week is temporary.

The job I hold.

My health, Even my relationships, even tensions of war, while everything I mention are important they are all going away including the books that will be written about this time.

Temporary all of it, but heaven is eternal, so what if, should we, pursue being the best at the eternal?

As Jesus taught, his disciples lived on his every word, he taught them about life and he taught about the eternal.

we too should hang on his every word because we just agreed we still desire the eternal today.

Whatever age, gender, wherever we are to live as followers of Jesus so we desire to live out what Jesus said, and so they asked Jesus about what it takes to get an A+ in Jesus following, what it takes to be the best, specifically they asked who does one have to be, to be the greatest.

What will Jesus say?

It’s the answer to what I have talked this whole time.

If we know who is the greatest than we will know why and we can pursue that.

Take a second and think about your answer.

Let’s get nerdy for a second.

The bible was written in English it was written in ancient Greek.

The greek word here for greatest is

may-zone which is the nominative adjective singular form of megas.

Was that nerdy enough for you.

We have an English word from it - MEGA!

Big, huge, most important!

So who is it Jesus?

Who is MEGA in the kingdom of heaven.

Is it the disciple Peter?

Is it Mary, his mom?

Someone like Patrick, who led an entire culture to turn to Jesus and set up mission outposts that took the Gospel from Celtic Ireland all over Europe> Is it maybe somebody like Billy Graham who lived with integrity and preached about Jesus to the whole world.

Who is it?

Let’s do that now.

(Find child and call them up)

Jesus called the child up and said,

Not just MEGA in heaven but entry requires the humility of a child.

Wow, I hope you played along and thought about all the ways we in church think about how much we need to do to be important to God as I asked you all those questions.

You see Children don’t know much and they don’t have much.

Kids have to learn how to do almost everything, by either copying or directly being taught.

In the days of Jesus the father was the head of the household and the ultimate police power in a child’s life.

A child in the days of Jesus would be anyone 11 and under.

5th grade and below.

The children were to bring honor to the family and depended on the family.

Just as they still do today.

Kids can be remarkable but this was as we say, “just a kid.”

Not a remarkable kid, not an incredible gifted kid, not a injured kid, just a kid.

A kid who was farming with dad.

A kid who was being a kid.

Why a kid?

Because the kid is totally humble, totally dependent on God.

You may have come to church today thinking that if you did more, believed more, fasted more, prayed more, evangelized more, gave more, prettier, smarter, something else, if you do more for God if you had it all together than God will change you.

God will answer your prayer.

God will make you whole, better, important.

Nope.

Not more.

Not more effort, not more work.

Not out of you.

Instead a willingness to accept what the work He did for you.

Know this Jesus loves you so much he can’t love you anymore.

There is nothing you can do that can change his love for you.

God cares for you so much you could never care for someone as much as he cares for you.

The child who I brought up here can not become of greater worth to their parents than they already are.

Tragically those who have lost children know better than anyone that the presence of the child, the fact they exist, is incredible.

God’s love for that child is 100 times greater than their parent’s love for them

Would you accept that Jesus truly loves you?

Right now.

God loves you.

Like a child will you rest in the fact that Jesus, your father, can be taken at His word.

He made it right.

It’s essential that all of us, with all of our sins recognize what the greatest love of our life did for us,

When I say to my child don’t worry about it, I will take care of it.

They believe me.

I am not God.

I do my best to never fail them.

But I know that my God, when he says I took care of it.

I know I can believe that.

I can act on it.

When everyone else wants you to be something, when your boss wants you to produce, when your bank wants a score, when others are screaming at your to be there for them, God says to you today, I love you.

Today, hear God loves you.