Sermon Tone Analysis
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A Christ-Centered Heart, Mind, & Life
10.16.22 [Colossians 3:1-14] River of Life (19th Sunday after Pentecost)
Grace and peace to you, my faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, from God our Father.
Amen.
Rachel and her brother Joey were just doing what kids do on any old Saturday morning-riding their bikes around the neighborhood.
Even though the sights didn’t change much, they loved the freedom and the speed of pedaling up & down & all around their neighborhood.
Shortly after they rolled up the driveway, where mom & dad were running a yard sale, a stranger followed.
He wasn’t interested in buying anything.
He wanted to talk to Rachel’s parents about her and her brother.
For a moment, Rachel panicked.
She was certain that they had been careful not to cross any busy streets or ride in anyone’s flower bed.
What could this stranger need to speak to her parents about?
Then the stranger walked up to her brother.
Son, let me show you something real important, he said.
He curled the four fingers into the palm of his right hand and quickly bumped Joey’s helmet.
It shifted backwards from the impact.
Joey was more stunned than stung.
You got the right idea in wearing your helmet, he explained.
But you gotta have to have it on the right way or its not gonna do a lick of good when you really need it.
I just don’t want to see you getting hurt.
Even though Rachel and her family had never met this man before, what he said resonated.
They listened intently as he showed them how to adjust the straps on their helmets so that they fit right.
Each time Rachel and Joey went to the garage to go for a bike ride, mom and dad reminded them to make sure they tightened their helmets.
A stranger giving somebody unsolicited instructions sounds like the kind of thing that doesn’t happen much anymore.
When it does, it usually goes poorly.
We don’t always react well to strangers telling us we aren’t doing something that well at all.
But it’s good if we slow down for a moment and remember that a complete stranger most likely only give us that kind of direction if it was really important.
That’s kind of what’s going on in our reading from Colossians today.
Paul has never visited these people in person.
He had only (Col.
1:4,8-9) heard of their faith from his dear friend, Epaphras.
They had heard of Paul, but the Colossians did not know him personally.
He was a stranger giving them some much needed and very helpful guidance.
(Col.
3:1) Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is.
(Col.
3:2) Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
(Col.
3:5) Put to death the desires of your earthly nature and (Col.
3:10) put on the new self.
(Col.
3:12) Clothe yourselves with Christ-like virtues, like compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
(Col.
3:8) Rid yourselves of loveless actions & attitudes.
(Col.
3:10) Be renewed in the image of your Creator.
Paul’s guidance is pretty straightforward.
You used to live in a way that deserved (Col.
3:6) the wrath of God.
But Christ changed all that.
(Col.
3:4) Christ is your life, so your heart, your mind, and your life should be Christ-centered.
There is nothing that Paul forbids and nothing that he commands that strikes us as strange.
We might have questions about the difference between anger, rage, and malice.
We might wonder why he says greed is idolatry.
We might be curious as to who a Scythian is, but Paul’s point is pretty clear.
But it’s still one we need to hear.
Because many times, we (Col.
3:10) put on the new self the way kids do bike helmets.
We know our heavenly Father wants us to wear it.
But why, we’re not quite so sure.
We put it on to placate others not to preserve our lives.
Putting on the new self is the flip side of the putting to death the sinful nature coin.
The old self and its practices are (Rom.
8:7) hostile to the new self.
But, at times, we try to get them to just get along together.
We may not engage in tawdry affairs, but we binge watch them on TV.
We may not march in pride parades, but we lack the courage to tell our friends and family that their homosexuality is a sin.
We may not ogle impure images online, but we’re relieved to let the very society that spends billions on pornography teach our kids and grandkids about the nature and purpose of sex.
We get too self-conscious and flustered talking about those kinds of things with young people.
We may recognize that we have our moments of greed and anger, but we don’t see it as really all that dangerous.
It’s not ideal, to us, but it shouldn’t be such a big deal.
It’s remarkable how quickly we forget about the bevy of blessings God has given to each of us and how often we belly-ache about all the challenges that they come with.
We think of our anger like a campfire, hemmed in by a ring of stones.
But our anger is more like flashes of lightning.
We don’t know when or where or even always why it flashes.
But it always does.
The storm clouds of our hearts and minds are hard to predict and impossible for us to rein in.
We internalize disappointments, stress, & anxiety and lash out at those who just happen to be around.
We’re so easily annoyed.
Hyper-critical and testy.
Nothing like our Creator God.
At times, our concept of truth is like our view of art—in the eye of the beholder.
We trumpet truth when it makes us feel superior.
We ignore truth when it makes us feel uncomfortable or embarrassed.
We keep a laundry list of other people’s transgressions and never deal with our own.
We are petty & childish, vindictive & resentful.
This is our old self.
We think our Heavenly Father should just be happy we have the new self on at all.
So maybe it’s not perfectly tight.
Maybe it could use some adjustments.
But surely we should get some credit for wearing it at all.
Like children, we just don’t get it.
We don’t see the need because we don’t fully comprehend the danger we’re facing.
What we do see are all those people who are riding without a helmet.
They look like they’re having so much more fun with the wind in their hair.
We resent the fact that we have to deal with sweaty foreheads and a tangled mess of hair.
Why can’t we be like them?
This is the old self’s immaturity.
We’ve missed the necessity of the new self much like a child and their bike helmet.
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