Sermon Tone Analysis

! Introduction

            We have chuckled every time we have driven through Kane lately.

The sign out front boldly proclaims, “The spirit lives on.”

It is evident from that saying that the people of the town realize that their town is no more.

A few buildings remain and a few families still live there, but the town is effectively gone and only the spirit lives on.

The situation is similar for many churches across the country.

In fact often it cannot even be said that the spirit lives on.

The building is still there, a few elderly ladies attend services which the minister from the next town holds once every two weeks.

A local board keeps the building in decent repair, but the life of the congregation is gone.

When Jesus warned the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:4, “you have left your first love,” he indicated a real and frightening possibility.

A church can become unhealthy and even die when it loses its passion for the Lord.

Today, we will begin to look at another of the quality characteristics which make for a healthy church.

The fourth quality characteristic we will look at is passionate spirituality.

The question which this characteristic asks is, “do the people here have a love for the Lord which is evident in all of life?” “Is there spiritual life here?”

A church can have all the programs, lots of people attending, a great building, but if the people in it are not passionate about their love for the Lord, that church is not healthy and that church will not grow.

Over the next four weeks, we will look at four aspects of passionate spirituality.

Next Sunday, being thanksgiving, we will look at the thankful attitude which can help us realize God’s goodness to us.

In two weeks, we will look at how our obedience to the Lord fits into our love for him.

In three weeks, we will look at prayer.

Today, we want to think about whether or not we really believe God and how we can grow in faith.

!

I. Practical Atheists

!! A. Many Of Us Are Atheists

            Psalm 14:1 says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

When we read this verse, we may think about people like Madeline Murray O’Hare who has pushed the atheistic agenda in the United States.

We think about people who declare loudly that there are so many logical reasons why it is evident that there is no God.

We think about those people who proclaim that if there is a God, why does he allow suffering.

To them the fact of evil in this world demonstrates that there is no God.

But do we ever think about ourselves?

Notice that the text says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message, picks up on this when he says in another book, “These kinds of atheism can be treated with appreciation and respect.

The passionately protecting atheist, sensitive to suffering, can be welcomed as a partner in a spiritual and moral struggle against evil.

His companionship is a defence against smugness.

The intellectually discriminating atheist can be accepted as an ally in sceptically rejecting all the popular, half-baked stupidities named “god” that abound in our time” …but he goes on to say, there is “Another kind of atheism… “in their hearts.”

Their atheism is never voiced and may not even be conscious, but it is lived - with a vengeance.”

Who is the atheist who says in his heart that God does not exist?

Is it not the person who may loudly proclaim belief in God, but with every action demonstrate that he or she does not believe?

Are we perhaps the atheist spoken of by the Psalmist?

What our hearts believe is evident in the way we live.

Does our living show that we believe?

A.W. Tozer says, “Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who is /above/, and his true position will be exposed.

Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time…the proof is in the choices he makes day after day throughout his life.”

!! B. Recognizing the Struggle to Believe

            If our hearts condemn us in this, we are not alone in this struggle to believe.

Abraham is identified as a great man of faith, but there were times in his life when he did not act in faith.

Twice he acted in the same faithless way.

One time, recorded in Genesis 12:10-20, Abraham went to Egypt because of a famine in the land.

When he got there, he was afraid that the king of Egypt would want to take Sarah away from him and harm him.

Abraham did not have enough faith in the promises which God had made so he told Sarah to tell the king that she was his sister.

He lied to save his own hide.

His actions were those of an atheist.

Many years later, he went to live in the territory of Abimelech, the story is found in Genesis 20:1-18.

Again he feared for his life and safety and told Sarah to say that she was his sister.

His defence at the end of the story shows what was in his heart.

He answered, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’”

He did not have enough faith in God to believe that He was looking after him.

His actions revealed that he was a practical atheist.

How often we act in the same way!

I knew a man who began to live with his unbelieving girlfriend.

We confronted him to encourage him that this was not God’s best plan for him.

He became very angry with us.

He was a Christian, but he did not have enough faith in God to believe that God’s plan for his life - not marrying an unbeliever and leaving sex until marriage - was God’s best plan for him.

He was acting like an atheist.

I knew a Christian who became addicted to VLT’s.

He did not have enough faith to believe that contentment is found in God and not in all the things that this world tempts us with.

I knew another person who was without a job for a little while.

He spent a lot of needless energy worrying about how things were going to work out.

He did not have enough faith in God to be confident that God’s plan for him was the best and would be worked out in His time.

He was questioning in his heart, “Where is God?”

I know his story well because he is me.

I have acted like an atheist.

Every meal we give thanks to God for our food.

This is right and good, but do we really believe that He has given it to us? Would we be so thankful if our pantry, freezer, wallet and bank account were empty?

Do we really believe that it is God who has supplied all our needs or do we “in our hearts” say “there is no God.?”

The sad reality is that most of us at least some of the time act as if God does not exist.

We come to church, we teach Sunday School, we sing loudly of God’s power and wisdom, but in our hearts we say, “There is no God.”

Why do we not believe?

The reason is that, like Abraham, we fear the wrong things.

We fear the power of an enemy, we fear that we will lose what we don’t want to lose, we fear that in losing what we don’t want to lose, we will come out worse.

We fear everything that has no power and fail to fear the one who has all power.

!

II.

Moving Towards Belief

            I appreciate the prayer of the man who came to Jesus to ask for his son to be healed of an evil spirit.

In Mark 9:24, “…the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

I too need help with my unbelief.

Ben Patterson in the book “Waiting” says, “Will we believe Him? Probably not, a good deal of the time.

But God will emerge the victor in our struggle to listen to him and trust him.”

Even though we struggle with unbelief, there is hope.

How can we move from being practical atheists to being people of faith?

!! A. Yield to God’s First Move

            When we realize that we are often practical atheists, we may begin to panic and wonder how we can scramble back to God.

The wonderful thing about faith is that God has always made the first move towards us.

Throughout the Bible, we see God moving towards people.

It was God who came to Abraham and told him to go to a far country where he would make him a great nation.

It was God who came to Abraham to let him know that in his old age he would have a son.

It was God who came to Moses and asked him to lead his people out of Egypt.

And so it has been throughout the history of God’s people.

It was God who sent Jesus to redeem us.

I like Ephesians 2:4-10 where the movement of our salvation is clearly lodged in God’s initiative.

Follow the logic some time when you read this passage.

It says, “But God…God raised us up…the gift of God…God’s workmanship…” In John 6:44 Jesus affirms this movement when he says, “no one can come to me unless the Father …draws him…”