Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Introduction
When was the last time you laid in the grass and just watched bugs?
Doesn’t happen today, does it?
Instead, we are busy with screens, consumed by social media, and fiddling with phones.
But don’t you remember when you were a child and summers was picking through emerald lawns looking at rolly-pollies, listening to the sound of cecadas, and watching the flitting of a hummingbird on a hollyhock?
Perhaps we need more observation of the world.
That is how previous generations learned about life, not from school books or teachers but from the greatest teacher, the creator who led you into his workshop to show you the tiny wonders of life.
When we see the world and how it works, we witness how God set the pattern for all life, including our own.
It was something Solomon knew because wisdom is acquired, not assumed.
He directs us back to that green grass to get insights from insects, specifically, the ant.
Discussion
Illustration
About 500 years before Christ a blind beggar walked the dusty streets of Galatia.
We know him because of his storytelling talent.
In told, he told about 750 fables.
Aesop is his name and his fables used talking animals to make moral points.
It says something about Galatian intelligence.
One of his stories was one of a grasshopper who wasted time dancing with friends.
Time wiled away with the hop of tomorrow.
He chided the ant who worked feverishly.
“Take it easy.
Have some fun.”
But the ant refused.
When winter came, the ant had a storehouse of food while the jovial grasshopper shivered.
For Aesop, the lesson was simple.
Work today, eat tomorrow.
About 400 years before, another man saw the same thing, but this one was not telling tales but teaching lessons.
His name was Solomon.
Solomon spoke about 900 proverbs designed to train his son and all who would rule both a nation and their lives.
One of them was similar but preceded Aesop.
It is found in Proverbs 6.
“Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.
How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
(Proverbs 6:6–11, ESV)
He noticed something about the frantic ant.
It would travel distances relative to is size which were unfathomable.
Each had a morsel of food headed for the ant hill.
Each crumb ensured his future survival.
Solomon watched more than ants.
He watched men and hoped they could see themselves in the ant and his labor.
He knew of the sluggards, who were always preparing to get ready to do something sometime.
They seemed to be tired so they would nap and “get to it later.”
And he watched the sluggards who believed time was on their side go to through the streets in rags.
For unlike the ant, they had not mad ready.
Principle
But Solomon does not build a mental ant farm to entertain children.
Instead, he is serious about life.
In the ant, he saw the great principles of life and the danger we all bear.
We have a curious relationship with tomorrow.
We believe it will be there when we need it or want it.
We have plenty of time for doing what we must one day but we do what we want today.
Jesus knew that.
He saw a man who mirrors the modern.
He trusts that tomorrow will be available.
In Luke 12, he tells the story of a rich man.
He apparently is either diligent or lucky for he has great agricultural success.
Large silos replace small vats to store the excess of his life.
And yet, we get them impression that he doesn’t think much about his spirit.
There is plenty of time for that…later.
But then comes the turn.
God comes to him and breaks the solace of his satisfaction: “But God said to him, ‘Fool!
This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (Luke 12:20, ESV)
When Margaret Mitchell wrote her tome of the antebellum south in Gone with the Wind, she put int he mouth of the deluded Scarlett O’Hara something we all say.
“Fiddle-dee-dee.
I will think of that tomorrow.”
This idea that tomorrow will be available comes with another piece.
It will be different and better.
And it is not connected to today.
Miracles happen.
Luck changes.
Genies pop of clocks to give us what we want.
Why do people find themselves overweight?
Because they think tomorrow they will be svelte without effort.
People say they want to retire but 70% of Americans cannot live a year off of what they save.
What are they thinking?
There’s going to be something magical tomorrow and I don’t have to do anything today.
This great disconnect is what the ant teaches.
Two principles come from his ambling through the grass with his future on his back.
The first is:
Whatever you do today creates your tomorrow
The student who studies today can face the test on finals week with confidence.
Someone has rightfully observed, “our bodies are apt to be our autobiographies.”
But the second principle is similar:
Whatever you are tomorrow is a reflection of your today
We say many things about out lives.
We say we want a secure retirement but we don’t save money.
And tomorrow reflects that daily action.
We say we want to know the Bible better.
But if you don’t do read it now, you won’t know it tomorrow.
We say we want people to love us and care for us and yet, today we are selfish.
No one wants to care for us because of how badly we treated them today.
Harry Chapin sang a song written by his wife called Cats in the Cradle.
In the song it describes a man so busy that he has no time for his son.
When he is old and has time, his son has no time for him.
It ends in a sorrowful lyric:
And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
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