Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In a sermon Dr. King preached on Loving Your Enemies he took the opposite approach you usually hear from preachers.

He began with the practical, “how to love our enemies,” and ended with the theoretical, “why we should love our enemies.”

As he explained what he called the “theoretical why” here’s what he said.

Somewhere somebody has got to have some sense.

And that’s the strong person.

The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate; the chain of evil.

Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut hate off.

And inject into the very structure of the universe that strong and very powerful element of love.

Then he gave a practical example of what he was talking about.

He said one night he and his brother were driving to Chattanooga from Atlanta.

And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night.

Hardly any driver that passed by on the other side dimmed their lights.

So Dr. King’s brother said in a tone of anger,

“I know what I’m going to do.

The next car that comes by and fails to dim their lights, I’m not going to dim mine.

I’m going to pour them on in all of their power.”

He said one night he and his brother were driving to Chattanooga from Atlanta.

And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night.

Hardly any driver that passed by on the other side dimmed their lights.

So Dr. King’s brother AD said in a tone of anger, “I know what I’m going to do.

The next car that comes by and fails to dim their lights, I’m not going to dim mine.

I’m going to pour them on in all of their power.”

Dr. King said, “I looked at him and said, ‘Oh no.

Don’t do that.

There’ll be too much light on this highway.

It’ll end up in mutual destruction for all.

Somebody has got to have some sense on this highway.’

Somebody has got to have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble isn’t it?

As all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations have looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights and they decided to refuse to dim theirs…It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights.

And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction.

And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history.”

Dr. King said,

“I looked at him and said, ‘Oh no.

Don’t do that.

There’ll be too much light on this highway.

It’ll end up in mutual destruction for all.

Somebody has got to have some sense on this highway.’

Somebody has got to have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble isn’t it?

As all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations have looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights and they decided to refuse to dim theirs…It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights.

And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction.

And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history.”

I want to talk to you for a few minutes tonight about Having Sense on the Highway of History.

And this sense I’m talking about is rooted and grounded in the love of God in Jesus Christ.

It’s a sense that doesn’t make any sense outside of faith in Jesus.

Because it’s a sense that calls us to a love that dies to self for the sake of others.

In the first four verses of we hear the apostle Paul say to the Colossians, “Since therefore you were raised with Christ…you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

The deal is that in Christ we die.

We don’t die physically; we die to the power and grip of sin and wickedness over our hearts.

Paul said to the Colossians in 2:14 that in Jesus Christ God cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing to the cross.

Therefore, 2:20, with Christ we died to the elemental spirits of the world.

But what’s glorious is that when you become a Christian, you don’t die to die.

You die live!

You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Now, he is going to tell them what this dying to live looks like in practice.

He says, “Therefore, put to death what is earthly in you…You must put them all away…Here, in the church, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave free, Black, White, but Christ is all and in all.”

We’re going to spend our time talking about having enough sense to die tonight; a justifiable homicide for the benefit of living like Christ is all and in all.

If we’ve died with Christ, then there’s some stuff we’ve got to kill.

I’m going to talk about a A Sense of Reality, and A Sense for Relationships.

A Sense of Reality

we hear the apostle Paul say to the Colossians, “Since therefore you were raised with Christ…you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

The deal is that in Christ we die.

We don’t die physically; we die to the power and grip of sin and wickedness over our hearts.

Paul said to the Colossians in 2:14 that in Jesus Christ God cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing to the cross.

Therefore, 2:20, with Christ we died to the elemental spirits of the world.

But what’s glorious is that when you become a Christian, you don’t die to die.

You die live!

You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Now, he is going to tell them what this dying to live looks like in practice.

Here’s the reality that Paul presses upon the Colossians.

Y’all are in a fight.

He’s done all this talking to them about how they’ve died, they’ve died, they’ve died.

But that doesn’t mean that they’re now assured of life as they want it to be.

Put to death whatever in you is worldly, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, inordinate craving, evil and greed, which is idolatry.

The reality is that you’re in a fight because of the other reality that being a Christian doesn’t mean you no longer have a problem with sin.

That phrase, “what is earthly in you,” or, “what is worldly in you,” means that there are parts of us as Christians that still look like we don’t belong to Christ.

Here’s a simple reminder for you.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean I now have my act together.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean I no longer sin.

Being a Christian means that I’ve trusted in the finished work of his crucifixion and resurrection to new life on my behalf.

Therefore, sin, evil, ungodliness is no longer my authority.

Jesus Christ is my authority.

Paul put it this way in chapter 1:13-14, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

So, as citizens of the kingdom of light, the light shines on the things in us that are still dark so that they can be killed.

Please hear me.

Paul is not naïve enough to think that these Colossian Christians aren’t fighting against being consumed with themselves.

Look at his list, sexual immorality (porneia), impurity, lust, inordinate craving, evil, greed.

He’s not finished.

In v. 8 he says, “Now you must lay aside all things like wrath, rage, wickedness, slander, obscene speech from your mouth.”

What is the common denominator in these things?

The common denominator is that they are the manifestation of a thriving self-consumption.

We lust because we want to please ourselves.

We are greedy and we covet because we are the center of our world.

We face sexual temptation because we want more than anything to have our appetites satisfied.

When he says that you’ve got to commit justifiable homicide on these things, he’s saying you’ve got to kill your disordered obsession with yourself.

If you’re going to have some sense on the highway of history.

You have to have a sense of reality.

You have to come to grips with your disordered obsession with yourself.