Sermon Tone Analysis

Recap

Turn with me to John 11:44

Theme for the year - Unhindered - not restrained or held back

God is looking for a church that is not restrained or held back - a church of power

Jesus is everything that we need when we need it.

- reason for so many different names and descriptions of God in the Scriptures.

Examples - a mother hen, a father, the light, the bread

The one we’ve been looking at was the one that he gave to the disciples when he was leaving them to prepare the way for them to be where He was going.

The main thought in looking at these descriptions of Christ is that if we are truly his people, his church - they should be able to describe what goes on when we meet together and when we are doing what we do in the world everyday.

Last week we looked at the Way - and how the church should be living in the way of Christ.

How the church should be loving the way

And how that love changes who we are and gives us the ability to love ourselves and those around us.

And then we said that through that love, we will be able to legislate or follow and exemplify the laws of heaven here on earth.

The degree of our love for Jesus will determine the degree of our life with Jesus.

And that brings us to our focus today - the life

Living The Life

If Jesus is the Life - then the church should be living the life.

phrase - living the life - to the fullest, with the greatest experiences, in the greatest way with the greatest memories.

It’s what the Bible says about our savior in

So first,

Jesus is life.

That means outside of Jesus is death.

And we know that to be true, because we all had been living it.

But then why does the church seem to be so enamored with those things that were only death.

- It’s the graveclothes that we spoke about two weeks ago.

It is amazing to me that our society as a whole does everything we can do to beat death.

The doctor tells us that we have something and we’ll spend every cent we have to beat it.

We go to the gyms, some of us try to eat differently - why so that we hopefully we can live a little longer.

I know someone else like that.

Mark 5:25-29

She had suffered at the hands of the physicians - they could do nothing

She had spend every cent she had - and still she was no better

But then she heard of Jesus - the life - And her body is healed of the affliction.

We try everything to stay alive, but we have all that we need and still we are unhappy.

We want to go back to death.

I want you to know today, that you can search this whole world over and you will never find a better life than that which Jesus offers you.

Jesus is the author of life - He was there at Creation - he crafted you and made you and gave you the ability to live

Jesus is the keeper of life.

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and then down to

Jesus is very vocal about his ability to keep us in his hands.

He is the one who watches over us

And Jesus is the beginning of life - There is a live that we were created for, that we have not had the ability to live.

He rose from the dead - giving us the ability to live that life

He baptizes us in the Holy spirit - giving us the power to live that life

He

And he ascended into heaven and sits at Father God’s right hand, ready to usher us into the life that he originally created us for - eternal Life

Secondly,

Jesus is THE life.

We are all looking for a life.

I tell the kids in my class - Get a life.

It’s a joke, and they all laugh.

But truly what we all struggle for in life is to have a life.

To be known for something

To make something out of our life

To enjoy something in life

And the answer is staring us all in the face every day - The Life is Jesus.

So why are we struggling so much?

Why are we battling when the battle has already been won.

If you want life, stay plugged into The Life.

Jesus’ Church should be full of LIFE

Can I tell you today, that because of what Jesus has done in you.

Because of what jesus is doing in you and is yet to do in you

You should be the peppiest you that you can be.

I know we all have different personalities.

There are some who are just normally more upbeat than others.

But every believer should have some beat to them.

There is a life that is flowing through us that is far greater than any life that any one of your co-workers is experiencing outside of Christ.

Your family members who don’t know Jesus need to see a heart beat in you.

It’s time to get free of the graveclothes and really live.

Because as we said two weeks ago, there are people in those same graveclothes that God is bringing to us to be free.

I want to be a church that is marked for the life that we have in us

A church marked by the life that we have in our services, in our prayers, in our baby dedications and in our water baptism

I think we should do our communion services with life

I think we should sing with life and sing about life.

This is what should mark Jesus’ body.

That same life that caused his physical body to walk out of that grave.

Is his spiritual body healthy enough and powerful enough to do the same?

When we gather together together, we should be speaking life over one another

We should be praying for the life of the Holy Spirit to over take us

We should be experiencing that life together and in turn thanking God for it.

The church should be leading people to THE Life.

We have this program for that and that program for this

We are trying to make people fall in love with us.

We are trying to win their loyalty and their devotion.

We are changing everything we do to make them want to be here.

Why not just introduce them to Jesus?

If they fall in love with Jesus.

If they are set free from Jesus

If what we do here rolls the stone away from their grave - they will hear Jesus

If how we do it and the spirit that we do it in removes their grave clothes they will be able to follow Jesus - and they will want to be a part of what Christ is doing in our midst.

It’s not about polish - it’s about a savior

It’s not about quality - it’s about salvation

It’s not about status quo - it’s about status forgiven

Now serving Christ may cause us to polish up what we do - I’m fine with that as long as its to bring glory to him

Working for Christ, will probably mean that we want to do things a little better - that’s fine as long as he is the one being glorified.

But the church must be LIVING THE LIFE.

Pray - where are we today in living the Life?

When people look at you in all types of situations - do they see Jesus?

Is there a place in your living where this fulfilled life of Jesus Christ has broken down?

Is there a move of the Holy Spirit that you need today.