Sermon Tone Analysis

Chair Update

Thanksgiving Eve

7pm Church of the Holy Spirit in Battle Ground

Jab 1

Glitter…once it arrives, it never leaves.

Jab 2

Halogen light.

Different resistance…but still light because of connection to the source…but once the plug is pulled…Nothing.

Jab 3

We notice the darkness of a room with a burned out bulb.

No one is ever surprised that there is no light on the inside of a rock.

You don’t think about it being dark, because that is the natural way of things.

In the same way, we don’t think of a rock as being dead.

We recognize it is not alive, but we usually wouldn’t use the word “dead” to describe it.

Because there is no expectation that it should be any other way.

We however experience great discomfort at the best of times with death, all the way up to crippling grief when it is someone near to us.

All this pain is a clue, a signal letting us know that this is not how it is supposed to be.

Transition

Last week we read about how awesome Jesus is.

This week we go to the other side to evaluate who we are, or were without Jesus.

Paul uses the language of death, not as illustration or hyperbole, but as an accurate description of the person outside of a renewed relationship with the father through Jesus Christ.

It is for our good and inspiration that we recognize the fullness of the great gift we have been given in Christ.

If for you, it has been many years since you first trusted Jesus, I hope this will serve as a spark in gratitude and a renewal to continued transformation and passion for the mission of Jesus in this community and the world.

Text

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Pray

Dead in Trespasses

v. 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

In this series…our identity…this week, we look not at who we are, but who we were…except, who we are is built on top of who we were.

The great Pixar Philosopher, Tow Mater once said, “I don’t need to know where I’m going, as long as I know where I’ve been.”

It’s as simple as this…you were dead.

You were supposed to be alive, but you weren’t.

What went wrong?

It’s right there in the last three words of verse 1. Trespasses and sins.

In what way?

Separated from God:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Like glitter

Dutch Bros.

In order to open a location, you must be a manager who is already exemplifying the culture they have chosen.

God called us to be his image bearers…and we have fallen short.

Every selfish action, every defiance against the goodness of God, every moment when our pride leads us to walk in our own way rather than his…and we all have fallen short and continue to do something.

And here’s the problem with that according to Isaiah:

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,

    or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

but your iniquities have made a separation

    between you and your God,

and your sins have hidden his face from you

    so that he does not hear.

God still has the power to save.

He still has ears to listen.

So why was a savior needed?

Why did the sins and trespasses need to be dealt with?

Because our iniquities have created a gulf, our sin has hidden his face…And that is for the best.

Moses was the meekest man who lived according to scripture, God called him friend, he was a part of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament…and when Moses asked to see God, he was allowed to see the back of his robe…anything else: for man shall not see me and live.

Cause of death?

So why is this death?

In Genesis and John we see that God is the source of life, light, and all good things.

(Cord for lamp) What happens when you disconnect from the source?

While that spark is still there, and God’s common graces are still at work in the world, at a heart level we are in fact…dead.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Adam and Eve opened the glitter jar.

Imagine the world was perfect until me.

Adam and Eve…perfect.

But I blow it.

What do my kids learn?

More than that, how does my sin affect every person I come in contact with?

The glitter keeps moving from one hand to another like an outbreak impossible to contain.

Patient zero has passed on the genetic marker for death.

For the wages of sin is death…

It’s not simply a matter of disease.

If our only fault was that we were diseased, then God might seem unjust in his ways.

Paul in makes it clear that in the acting out of our sin we are earning death.

Death is the payday of sin.

We have earned separation from the God who created and loves us.

So what does sin look like in our lives?

Walking with the World

v. 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

Walking is a great picture of relationship.

Who you walk with says a great deal about where your love lies.

As a couple of broke college kids, walking was the preferred date option in Monica and I’s relationship.

Walking with someone implies you are heading the same direction.

According to the world

Paul will express this more fully in

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.

18 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.

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

We are creatures built to fit in.

My two youngest cousins spent a year in New Zealand when their dad, a middle school teacher, did a “teacher exchange”.

We enjoyed a year of having a temporary Kiwi uncle and aunt, they had an amazing experience.

And when they came back…they talked like kiwis.

In a youth group I worked with we had 2 sisters move to Cottage Grove from Texas…and they talked Texas y’all.

For a month or two.

Then they learned how to talk normal.

If there is no other force acting from the outside, we will adopt the culture, and the darkness of the world around us.

And apart from Christ, that is what we are.

It is good to be culturally relevant for the sake of communicating the truth of the gospel in a way the world can understand it.

It is a betrayal of the gospel to change the truth of the gospel in an attempt to be relevant.

According to the power of the air

It goes beyond an amoral culture however.