Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have your Bible, we’re going to be back in Acts 20:26-38 tonight.

If you remember last week, we somehow got way behind schedule and didn’t come close to finishing all of the chapter so this evening, we are going to expand on what I originally had prepared and finish the chapter.

Last week we talked about the duty and the work of the pastor and we did this so that you all can know what to look for when you leave here and go out to hopefully find your own church to be a part of.

We’ll keep bringing that in to our message tonight but before we even get there, I want to take the first 10-15 minutes and preach an entirely different sermon if that’s alright.

I want to do this because we have been having quite a bit of behavior problems, some of which have up to a time, gone competely unnoticed but over time, things come to light.

Guys, I don’t take this lightly and I’m not even exaggerating but in almost 10 years of youth ministry, I have never had a group that I have loved more and have had my heart broken more.

I say that because I hear some of these things that you are doing out of the church and then I hear and see the things that you are doing in the church and to paraphrase Paul from Galatians 4:19-20, I’m perplexed about you.

I was up practically all night last Wednesday because you all were on my mind and it just pains me to see some of you walking the path that you are walking.

We actually had a “emergency meeting” this past Sunday with Pastor Wayne, the youth leaders, and even the kids ministry leaders because they’re their own breed as well with behavior problems that shock me, and we had this meeting basically to try and nail down what we need to do as leaders to work out some of these problems.

What we all decided was that we do need to crackdown on some of your behavior.

There needs to be consequences and accountability.

This isn’t just directed towards one specific person or one specific group, this is for everybody.

I’ll be honest, I’m tired of being lied to.

I’m tired of being pushed to the brink of exhaustion for some of you and still being treated like crap.

I’m tired of hearing apologies over behavior that’s totally wrong and then people going right back to it.

I see you all as my spiritual children and when I see my children make mistakes, over and over, I blame myself and I’m tired of that.

You need to get a grip.

So, we had this meeting and here’s what we decided: you need to check in when you get here and you need to ask a leader to go to the bathroom.

And you are going by yourself and if for some reason you need someone to go with you, a leader will be outside the door.

I’m tired of treating you like adults when you are only going to act like children.

We’re going to have a strike policy with each and every one of you that each and every leader is able to enforce and you all will receive a copy of that tonight so you know what is expected of you.

If your behavior gets to a point that is totally out of control, we’re gonna ask you not to come.

We’re gonna tell you that you can’t go on the fun trips with us and I have no problem telling Denny Hardee that some of you won’t be able to go to Refuel.

We will take your phones if we see you on them while I’m teaching.

Bible app is fine, the stray absolute emergency text is fine but those don’t happen every 30 seconds.

I’m tired of pouring my heart and soul into lessons that you need to hear but only a quarter of you are listening to.

I am fine putting days of work into each lesson for one person but I would really love for that not to be the reality.

If we have a problem, you will be stuck sitting next to a leader and being with them the entire evening.

You won’t escape their sight and if it gets to a point where you just refuse to listen and work with us, we’re gonna ask you not to come for a bit.

If you come back and there’s still problems, we’re gonna ask that you don’t come back at all unless change is really seen in your life.

I want you all here but a time comes when a decision has to be made to protect the sheep from the wolves.

If your “influence” is negatively impacting the faith of someone in this group, you are going to be asked to leave.

I know your teenagers, there is not a single person here that expects you to be perfect and we aren’t holding you to a standard of perfection that is unattainable.

We are holding you to a standard of what is good and what is righteous and what is beneficial for your soul and the good of the church.

What I want to briefly do now is look at Ephesians 4:17-32 and bring your attention to a couple of key phrases.

Let me just say too that tonight really is shrouded in love for you.

What tonight isn’t going to be is: Point 1- You’re stupid.

Point 2- You’re hopeless.

Point 3- We hate you for this.

That’s not at all where this is coming from.

What we’re saying tonight is because our love for you is so great, we need to talk about this.

Because we want to show you grace and mercy, that’s why we’re doing this.

So that’s where my head’s at and hopefully that’s where your head’s at.

Before we do that, I want to pray for us and our time together tonight.

Paul writes:

Ephesians 4:17–32 (ESV)

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

One thing that I will stress now is that I am talking to those of you that identify and claim to be a Christian.

The conduct that we are looking at is the conduct of the believer.

If you are not a Christian, there is a reason that you walk in sin and love sin so much and that is because you have not been made new by Christ and you do not have a newness of life.

We’ve asked the question before: Why do lost people act lost?

It’s because they’re lost!

Paul is clearly addressing Christians in this passage and the entire letter is addressed towards Christians.

Paul contrasts the who and what that Christians with that of the world.

He associates the lost with Gentiles and the reason that he does this is because in a sense, the Gentiles didn’t know any better.

The eyes of their hearts were so darkened because of sin and they live totally alienated from God.

They have given into every form of sin and impurity imaginable and they have done it joyfully!

Paul at that point immediately turns to the believer and says, “But that is not the way that you learned Christ!”

If you are a Christian, your life is to look differently.

You should be sticking out like a sore thumb and not for the wrong reasons.

John Calvin said, “The doctrine of Christ teaches us to renounce our natural dispositions.

He whose life differs nothing from that of unbelievers, has learned nothing of Christ; for the knowledge of Christ cannot be separated from the death of the flesh.”

Really what Calvin and Paul are saying is that if you are a Christian, you should know better because you’ve been taught differently!

You should live differently because you know differently!

As Paul is writting this letter to the Ephesians, he is well aware that almost directly across from the city is the great city of Athens.

On one side of the Aegean sea you had the city of Ephesus and directly across on the other side of the sea you have the city of Athens.

It’s almost as if Paul as he is addressing this knowing and learning of who Jesus Christ is that he is contrasting it with the learning that would be happening 200 miles away and he’s saying, “look at all of that knowledge and look what is has led to!”

In the grand scheme of things, the only knowledge that will have any everlasting value is the knowledge that you have of Jesus Christ.

Paul is saying look at what they have learned and look at what you have learned which is far better.

I would challenge you in the same exact way.

There are things in this world that are just simply not compatible with the Christian life.

You see what the world values and you have heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you know His work, His very personhood, you know His innermost being and His greatest desires, you have learned Christ, so what are you going to do with it?

Keep walking in the old?

God forbid it!

If you have learned Christ in the way of a Christian, your life looks different now, not 50 years down the road when you are ready to settle down!

You have been made new now!

Look at the next part of the verse that I highlighted and put in bold lettering: All of this assumes that you have heard and were taught in Him at all.

It is entirely possible that you hear these things but you don’t know them.

You heard the things of Christ but you are not truly united in Christ because if you were united in Christ, the old way of life would be cast aside so that the new life could begin, one that is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

If you are a Christian, live for Christ now.

If you are claiming that you have repented of your sins and have turned to Christ, stop living in those sins!

Put them to death or they will be the death of you!

Live for Christ now or don’t do it all.

Some of you have been coming here for years and years and you’ve made claim after claim and you keep saying, “Next time will be different” but what has that gotten you?

You keep living for yourself!

Jonathan Edwards once said, “How can you expect to dwell with God forever, if you so neglect and forsake him here?”

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (ESV)

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you.