Sermon Tone Analysis

Saving Ourselves

Heading into unknown territory is difficult and scary.

We often try to prepare ourselves for the journey and take things with us which remind us of home.

I know my children take their stuffed animals everywhere we go so they are comforted.

Myself, I might take my phone with me to make sure I can stay connected with others and keep up with what is going on in the world.

And there’s one thing I know for certain; that my wife will not leave anywhere without the comfort of her books.

Along the roadtrips in my life, I love to stop for food along the way and gather as much snacks, soda, and chips to keep me satisfied along the way.

We often do not prepare our journeys to begin in death but this is something worth investigating.

All major steps in life of growth begin in shedding some previous part of yourself.

However if you attempt to retain all that you were beforehand, you will not gain what God has for you.

Not letting go

How much do we hang on to the past?

When do you find yourselves bringing up your prior sins and prior habits?

Perhaps you thought you were changed and instead find yourself stuck wandering in the same life you have tried to escape on your own.

We often think it is as easy as making the choice to be better.

Maybe we can just decide in our minds that we can be good now.

This is the path that many of us have taken.

We believe we have in our own power the ability to change ourselves.

Why do we need God in our life?

What has He done that we can’t do ourselves?

Some have found the ability to reach out and die to themselves.

They see the world from God’s perspective, God’s eyes, and obey God in the fullest.

Fully dying to themselves in order that others may benefit.

Ephesians 2:1

But did you die?

Paul is telling us here that we are already dead in our sins.

Our sins have separated us from the eternal life which only comes through Jesus Christ.

If we recognize that we are already dead, we then are confronted with the truth of the one who was raised from death because he did not deserve the wrath that was put on him.

When we walk according to our own desires, it is not the Spirit of God that compels us to walk this way, but it is in our flesh which yields to the carnal pleasures of the world.

Stott mentions that a walk to western readers may indicate a leisurely stroll through a park or exercising as you walk around your subdivision.

But it couldn’t be further from the truth of the enslavement which sin has over the body that is controlled from the world, the devil, and society which oppresses and enslaves others.

Stott, John.

The Message of Ephesians.

Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1984.

Accessed April 16, 2022.

ProQuest Ebook Central.

We are all before accepting the truth of the resurrection already dead, but there is more to being dead.

Atheists would have you believe that the death you experience is just a ceasing or becoming something else entirely.

However, the eternal Father desires for us to be His children.

Instead, when we choose sin and reject the truth, we give in to our flesh and put our bodies under a different form of control.

God indicates we are deserving of the wrath that is poured out on those who reject His holiness.

There will be a day where that comes.

There have been many of those days in the past where this occurred as evidence of the miracles God promises.

All people in Egypt under the rule of Pharoah were following different idols.

The Israelites were also under the wrath that would have been poured out upon them unless they listened to God’s message.

They too were spared by the blood of a lamb spread across their door.

Left to ourselves, we would stay in Egypt and live with the idols of the time.

God’s love for us is greater than the love we have for ourselves.

If it were up to us, we would hang on to every last thread of ourselves in order to ensure we don’t lose our goals, desires, and ambitions.

Thankfully, God brings us out of our death through His love.

God is love and God is mercy and God is Holy.

Because of this, He cannot tolerate anything outside of that.

In order to become His child, we must do away with our former selves.

God’s love is so powerful, so overwhelming, and so undeserved that when His Son, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead we were given the gift to be made alive forever with Christ.

Where we give up and die to ourselves, we begin to live with Christ.

We must die because that is what Christ did.

He obeyed the Father’s will and gave up any attempt at maintaining His will over the Father’s.

DeMoss mentions the decision to follow the will of the Father was made from eternity past.

There is the leading of the condemned to the cross.

There is the torture and blood spilled that was undeserved.

We are not only made alive but we go through Christ’s death in order that we may be made alive.

DeMoss, Nancy Leigh.

Surrender : The Heart God Controls.

Moody Publishers, 2005.

Accessed April 16, 2022.

ProQuest Ebook Central.

God looks out upon the world and the only thing which does not grieve His heart is when He sees His Son, Jesus Christ.

This is the compassion which holds all things together and prepares us to die to ourselves and clothe ourselves with Christ only.

Anything outside of that is an abomination to God.

He desires only the holiness that is found through the obedience found in Jesus Christ.

Without that, we remain children of wrath.

We remain lost in our sin and our trespasses.

Resuscitation or Resurrection

Knowing what was coming, Jesus prayed for another possible way outside of the cross to accomplish God’s will.

But He yielded his desires knowing the Holy Father’s plan would work out for the betterment of all future generations.

Jesus allowed His life to be taken by those who stood against Him in order that we may receive the eternal gift of dwelling with God.

Many of you have went through difficult times and have come out on the other side changed.

Many have testimonies of near death experiences where they felt abandoned and isolated only to be revived and able to live to their fullest.

There is a danger in being rescued to yourself and to gain confidence in the things you were attempting to do on your own.

You may have been broken down by the world and broken down enough to be scared into a moralistic and legalistic living.

But God does not ask us of that and did not give that example of Himself.

He was not resusitated from the grave.

He was resurrected.

You too must die and be resurrected.

First spiritually then bodily.

Understanding the difference is a spiritual endeavor you must begin.

Jesus says the grain must die in order to bear fruit.

It can’t almost die.

It must fully die in order for God to allow growth.

God wants you to stop holding on to your last breath

Many of you struggle with maintaining your existence by fighting to hold on to yourself identity.

What would it look like for you to let God fully take control of your life?

Your spiritual journey would be great.

God would take what was His and make it into what He intended for it to be.

When you hang on to your last breath, you are living on a miserable life support package that barely sustains itself through feable attempts to have both what you desire out of this life and the breath God graces you with daily.

You were made for so much more.

But did you die?

Did you fully give up your life in the likeness of Jesus Christ?

If not, you are attempting to do something impossible.

You must surrender; you must die; you must allow God to be God and change you.