Sermon Tone Analysis

*Change is Coming*

*August 14, 2005*

 

A well-known major league ballplayer, John Hiller, almost died of a coronary, but later returned to star as a relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers.

He said his remarkable recovery came, in part, because he quit smoking, changed eating habits to lose weight, and meticulously followed his doctor’s orders.

He had known all along that he was overweight and smoking too much, but he didn’t think he could do anything about it.

When he realized the stakes, however, he had all the incentive he needed.

He came back to be named “Fireman of the Year” (the award for best relief pitcher) for the 1973 season.

We’re all like this to some degree.

We know we should be better persons and improve ourselves, but lack the information and self-discipline to do it.

A “real” Christian is one who is committed to change and to grow in grace and knowledge, considers change a friend and is willing to let changes take place in his life as the Spirit of God transforms him into the image of Christ.

Growth cannot take place without change because that’s exactly what growth is, changing from what we are to what God wants us to be.

This is what “submission” is all about – complete surrender.

WE should be more than willing to change, we should be eager, even hungry, for it.

Here’s an example: A young girl was being examined for membership in a local church.

“Has Christ made a difference in your life?” one deacon asked.

She replied that He certainly had.

Trying to draw her out more, he asked, “Well, then do you sin any more?”

The girl admitted that she did.

“Well, if you sinned before you were a Christian and you sin since you became a Christian, how has Christ made a difference in your life?”

The girl thought a moment, and then replied: “Sir, I think it is like this.

Before I was a Christian I ran after sin.

Now I run from it although sometimes I am still overtaken.”

Count Leo Tolstoy, the eminent Russian writer, tells how he turned from evil to good: “Five years ago faith came to me.

I believed in the doctrine of Jesus, and all my life suddenly changed.

I ceased to desire that which previously had desired, and on the other hand, I took to desiring what I had never desired before.

That which formerly used to appear good in my eyes appeared evil, and that which used to appear evil appeared good.”

John Newton, who wrote “Amazing Grace”, once stated, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be; but by the grace of God, *I am not what I was!” Can you say this?*

*INTRODUCTION*:

If you have your Bible with you, turn to 1 Peter 1:17-25 and follow along as I read/: “ \\ And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites when he judges.

He will judge or reward you according to what you do.

So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as foreigners here on earth.

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors.

And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver.

He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

God chose him for this purpose long before the world began, but now in these final days, he was sent to the earth for all to see.

And he did this for you.

Through Christ you have come to trust in God.

And because God raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory, your faith and hope can be placed confidently in God.

Now you can have sincere love for each other as brothers and sisters because you were cleansed from your sins when you accepted the truth of the Good News.

So see to it that you really do love each other intensely with all your hearts.

For you have been born again.

Your new life did not come from your earthly parents because the life they gave you will end in death.

But this new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.

As the prophet says, "People are like grass that dies away; their beauty fades as quickly as the beauty of wildflowers.

The grass withers, and the flowers fall away.

But the word of the Lord will last forever."

And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.”/

In the first two verses of this book we noticed three distinctives  of Christians.

They are the elect of God, they are strangers down here, and they are called saints.

In verses 3 to 17 we noticed that Christians can face the future on the basis of a completed, certain, and meaningful salvation.

This morning, I want to remind you that you have change coming whether you want it or not!

By change I don’t mean nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies, and toonies.

We as Christians must live expecting to change!

We are to expect change because the life we are called to live is to be lived reverently, trustingly, and lovingly – none of these comes naturally, nor do they come from the natural man.

So, let’s take a closer look at each of them.

A. *LIVE REVERENTLY* (verses 17-19)

/“We are to live our lives in reverent fear of Him”/                                                 Reverence for the Lord insists upon respect for Him and for all that He made.

Agreed?

In order to get his point across Peter says that we have been redeemed from a corruptible life style that came to us from the  traditions of our ancestors ( John MacArthur says that this is “characterizing the unredeemed, their futile way of life, which identifies a vain, useless, and worthless existence.

No matter what they may think, every unredeemed man or woman is living a futile life.

Even the grandest accomplishments unbelievers seem to achieve are pointless from eternity's perspective.

/Jesus made that clear by means of two penetrating questions to His disciples: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"/ (Matthew 16:26).

Pure tradition is a vain manner of life because it is void of personal reverence for the Lord.

To be redeemed means to be bought back, and Jesus Christ has bought us back out of the kind of tradition that has no respect for God as Judge or Father.

So, we have a:

1.                 *A new relationship* with God and are to live reverently because of it.

Somehow or another, many people who have known the Lord for some time, are described in this way, “Well they seemed to have made a decision at some point in their lives,” have slipped back into the rut of tradition or else by consistent irreverence and unthankfulness have formed a new rut which is even more deceptive.

In other words, they do not have a meaningful relationship with Christ.

We need a sense of reverence for God that is based upon a growing relationship with Him as our Heavenly Father.

God is not a judge to you but a Heavenly Father and a very loving Heavenly Father since we have entered that new relationship with Him.

It is an awesome tragedy when a person knows the Lord for a long time, but fails to live accordingly.

It happens to those who fail to live reverently.

The tragedy is reverting to a form of tradition rather than maintaining a fresh respect and trust in God based upon a growing relationship with the Father

When we became Christians God, who was once our judge, became our Father in heaven, but deserves no less reverence and respect.

We must watch out for familiarity with holy things, remembering that it is only because of His mercy that we are not consumed!

He is due reverence because of who He is and because of what it cost!

Peter challenges us to expect change in our Christian lives, but never to expect deterioration –if you fail to be mindful that you are redeemed from a wasted life, you can expect deterioration.

Peter says that we have not been redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold from our vain traditional form of godliness.

Instead, we have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ!

2.                 We are to *live reverently* because of our new relationship with the Father and because of *salvation’s cost.*

Our salvation may be free to us, but it is not free!

So many people are confused when it comes to how they will stand before God.

All this talk of the brotherhood of men implies the same father.

The only father that most men have in common is the Devil.

Jesus said to one group, in John 8:/44// “You are of your father the devil.”/

Friends, you will stand before God as Judge or as Father, but never both.

This new relationship that is ours in Christ Jesus where we can call God /“our Father who is in heaven” /(Matthew 6:9), is ours only because of the precious shed blood of Christ.

As I said just a couple of minutes ago, our salvation is free to us, but Christ paid an enormous price to make that possible.

If we are going to live reverently we must reverence the Father as our Father but we must also stand in awe at the cost of our salvation and at Christ’s willingness to pay that price for us.

The blood will never lose its power and therefore our relationship with Christ need never deteriorate as do silver and gold.

In review, because we, at conversion, entered into a new and eternal relationship with the Father in heaven, we ought to live in reverence for God and expect change in ourselves because no growing relationship can be stagnant!

Think of it this way: you are in a canoe paddling up a gentle river.

If you stop paddling, what happens?

You go back down the river.

So, keep paddling!

If our relationship with God is not growing, it is deteriorating!

There are no other options.

Secondly, we ought to live reverently expecting change because the blood that saves us is the blood of the One who lives in us.

He is taking control of us in that new relationship so we should expect changes, dramatic changes.