Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I wouldn’t say I am a particularly nostalgic person, but every now and then I like to take a trip down memory lane by listening to music I grew up with.

This past week I was listening to some songs I liked in high school - during which I went through a long and deep metal music phase - and I don't know if I am getting older, or just haven’t heard it for a long time - but I had no idea the songs were as jacked up as they were.

As I kept listening to the songs I thought I knew so well, I kept being surprised at what they were really about.

And I found myself thinking, “How did I never notice what this song was actually saying?”

I watched this happen to my mom as well.

I remember listening to songs on the radio with her while I was growing up and when an inappropriate lyric would come on, she would all of a sudden be in abject shock and turn the song off.

Or she’d do the thing where she’d turn the volume down just over the inappropriate parts.

She thought she knew the songs so well - and yet didn’t even realize what they were saying!

Maybe this has happened to you too.

If we’re not careful, becoming overly familiar with something can actually lead to ignorance, rather than insight.

This is true for a lot of things in our lives, but I think more often than not this happens with the gospel.

It is entirely possible to be so familiar with the gospel, that you actually become ignorant of the gospel’s very real implications in your daily life.

You might think the gospel is only to get you out of hell.

Or maybe you have heard the word before, but never really knew what it meant.

It’s also entirely possible that you have been in church your whole life, would say you believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, but don’t actually know what it is or what it means for you.

So whether you’ve been in church all your life, or have just started to take a look at this whole following Jesus thing - let me lay out for you what the gospel is.

The Gospel

When the Bible talks about the gospel, it means the good news about what God has done in Jesus Christ to bring us back to God.

There is one God, and this God is 3 persons: Father, Son, and Spirit.

And this Uncreated God, created everything and everyone.

He made us in his image - which means we are different from the animals because we can relate to him.

He made our first parents and placed them in a garden where they could spend their lives enjoying Him and one another.

And yet instead of living in union with the God who created them, they chose to defy Him.

They disobeyed His command, and wanted to be like Him rather than be in relationship with Him.

As a result, the infectious disease of sin entered the world, and death through sin.

And we’ve been sinning and dying ever since.

Humanity was now separated from God.

Unable and unwilling to be with Him.

But God made a way to bring us back to Him.

God promised that he would redeem people from the guilt of sin, and the death that followed.

And in the person of Jesus, that promise was fulfilled.

The Second person of the Trinity became man - Jesus of Nazareth.

He lived life untainted by the contagion of sin, and died in our place.

He, the sinless one, bore our sins in his body on the cross.

He became infected for us - and as a result, he took the death we deserved.

But he did not stay dead.

Three days later he rose from the dead: defeating sin, conquering death, and providing forgiveness of sins and hope of eternal life to all who would place their faith in Him.

This is the gospel: God has accomplished salvation, freedom from sin, and a way back to life with Him for all who place their faith in Jesus Christ.

If you’ve never heard this before, I want to encourage you to embrace Jesus today.

Right now, in your seat.

believe the message of the Gospel, and be reunited to the God your heart was made for.

But for those of us who embrace this gospel, it is entirely possible that we’ve become so familiar with it that we haven’t thought through how this gospel not only saves us, but shapes the rest of our lives.

To actually live the Christian life, we usually think we need anything besides the gospel.

Moralism, legalism, white-knuckling sin resistance, people pleasing, rules, lists, guilt, passive-aggressiveness….but not the gospel of sheer grace.

We’ve moved on from that.

Transition