Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Welcome to 2019!

The new year has started, and already the hot cross buns are on the shelves at Coles! We’ve not even celebrated Australia Day, and already we’re getting ready for Easter!

And most of us I’m sure have adopted new years’ resolutions, or like me cleared the cobwebs off of last years resolutions :)

Either way, our prayer is that this year will be a year of daring faith and mighty exploits for God!

If there’s ever been a time in the world when daring faith was required, then this is that time…and I love what Ps Tracy shared last week about how she journeyed through her time of challenge and difficulty in December, and that daring faith is sometimes just a basic trust in God, a basic obedience and dependence on His Word.

I love our senior pastors, because they’re real people living a real faith, real people saying with their lives follow us, as we follow Christ!

Daring faith indeed, is a faith that moves mountains, sees the dead raised, but I believe a daring faith in this day and age is

a faith that also compels a man to love his wife like Christ love the church - that He would lay down his life for her, that he will serve her, that he will lead her

that also compels a man to love his wife like Christ love the church - that He would lay down his life for her, that he will serve her, that he will lead her

a faith that compels a woman to submit/come alongside her husband, BECAUSE he loves and honours and cherishes her, and considers her life more important than his own.

a faith which, in the face of attack on the institutions of marriage and family, the roles men and woman, the gender of individuals, holds to the truth of the God’s word in love

Daniel

“…who know...” - Sense: to be or become familiar with something through experience; intimate knowledge; to understand; observe

**Maccabean revolt in 167 - 160 BC**

This morning the title of my sermon is Wise Living, and I want to follow on from Ps Phil’s message 2 weeks ago.

I believe daring faith find it’s foundations in wise, Spirit-inspired living.

Priest Mattathias and his sons defeated the Greek

Scripture Reading

In the gospel of John chapter 5 we find Jesus at the pool of Bethesda, where he encounters a lame man waiting to be put in the pool because the Bible says an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water, and that the first one who got in the water after the stirring was healed from whatever ailment or sickness or disease that they suffered from.

Because the man was lame he couldn’t get into the pool fast enough (he couldn’t find a man to put him in the pool), and so people would jump the queue and get in the water before he could.

Jesus subsequently orders the man to pick up his mat and walk, the man is healed which of course is amazing, however the healing happened on the Sabbath, a day of rest, where no work was to be done, not even healing someone!

And so the Jews, in particular the Pharisees and Sadducees started persecuting Jesus, because he healed the lame man on the Sabbath.

We pick up the story at

I want us this morning to have a closer look, in particular, at verses 19 - 20:

John

Wise Living

Dependence

John 5:19

A most mature faith, is a most dependant faith.

A faith that relies and trusts wholly in God.

The story of a father preparing for a trip with his son - reference your trip with Jared to Sydney for Hillsong conference

What preparations did you make for your son?

We will have what we need, to do what God has planned for us, at the right time time when we need it!

Wise living understands that this life I live is not about me, dependence understands that it is all about Jesus.

We are part of God’s plan in the earth… God is not featuring in my plan for my life…instead God saw it fit that I feature in His.

Paul says in

We have this priceless treasure of heaven inside of us - we are the jars of clay.

The extraordinary power that you see active in my life…the favour and influence I enjoy at my workplace, my successful business, my musical prowess, my wealth etc. is from God not from me - He is my source.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of man-made programs and formulas…God is my source, my dependance, in Him alone I trust and hope! …That this extraordinary power may be from God and not from me!

It should be unmistakeable that it is Him, His ability, His favour, His blessing!

It is easy to get caught up in big noting ourselves…it is easy to think that it is about us.

I’m reminded of Dead Sea Scrolls, when the scrolls were found at Qumran, some were intact in jars of clay.

Of course the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls is that the scrolls contained most of the books in the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament in our bible.

Of particular mention is the book of Isaiah, that was found completely intact.

The reason why we have the scrolls today is because the jars preserved the contents, so the jars were a pretty critical factor in the preservation of the scrolls when they were found.

However, when you go to the Israel museum to view the scrolls, the jars of clay is not the primary focus of the exhibition…the contents of the jars…the scrolls is the primary focus and emphasis of the scroll exhibition.

And so together with our dependence on God is also our surrender to Him...

Surrender

We let go of all of who we are, in exchange for all of Him!

Our lives completely surrendered to His will and pleasure…I’m leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms!

There’s nothing in my life that is off limits to God - everything is fair game for the glory of His Name!

In the Greek text, the word that the apostle uses is doulos which is not properly translated ‘servant’.

A servant in the ancient world was a hired employee, a person who could come and go at will, who could resign from one job and seek employment elsewhere if so inclined.

But a doulos was a slave owned by a kyrios, a master or a lord.

Frequently in the New Testament this type of imagery is used to portray the relationship between Christ and his people: ‘You are not your own; you were bought at a price.’

Christians are those who belong to Christ.

He is our Lord, he is our kyrios, he is our Master.

Paul will explain in the book of Romans that man, out of Christ, is in bondage to sin and a slave to his own evil impulses, inclinations and desires.

This is man’s natural condition in the fallen state.

Yet Paul wrote elsewhere that where the Spirit of the Lord is, where the Spirit of the kyrios is, where the Spirit of the Master is, there is liberty (2 Cor.

3:17).

How are these truths to be reconciled?

Paul had learned that man is only free when he becomes a slave to Christ.

Outwith Christ, he is a slave to sin; but when enslaved to Christ, he knows the royal liberation that only Christ can bring.

Paul, in citing his own credentials, regards as his highest virtue that he is a slave of Jesus Christ.

The original Greek word used for bondservant is “doulos”, which actually means “slave” when properly translated.

The difference in meaning is that a bondservant was a hired employee, a person that could come and go at will, who could resign from one job and seek employment elsewhere if so inclined.

In the Greek text, the word that the apostle uses is doulos which is not properly translated ‘servant’.

A servant in the ancient world was a hired employee, a person who could come and go at will, who could resign from one job and seek employment elsewhere if so inclined.

But a doulos was a slave owned by a kyrios, a master or a lord.

Frequently in the New Testament this type of imagery is used to portray the relationship between Christ and his people: ‘You are not your own; you were bought at a price.’

Christians are those who belong to Christ.

He is our Lord, he is our kyrios, he is our Master.

Paul will explain in the book of Romans that man, out of Christ, is in bondage to sin and a slave to his own evil impulses, inclinations and desires.

This is man’s natural condition in the fallen state.

Yet Paul wrote elsewhere that where the Spirit of the Lord is, where the Spirit of the kyrios is, where the Spirit of the Master is, there is liberty (2 Cor.

3:17).

How are these truths to be reconciled?

Paul had learned that man is only free when he becomes a slave to Christ.

Outwith Christ, he is a slave to sin; but when enslaved to Christ, he knows the royal liberation that only Christ can bring.

Paul, in citing his own credentials, regards as his highest virtue that he is a slave of Jesus Christ.

In the Greek text, the word that the apostle uses is doulos which is not properly translated ‘servant’.

A servant in the ancient world was a hired employee, a person who could come and go at will, who could resign from one job and seek employment elsewhere if so inclined.

But a doulos was a slave owned by a kyrios, a master or a lord.

Frequently in the New Testament this type of imagery is used to portray the relationship between Christ and his people: ‘You are not your own; you were bought at a price.’

Christians are those who belong to Christ.

He is our Lord, he is our kyrios, he is our Master.

Paul will explain in the book of Romans that man, out of Christ, is in bondage to sin and a slave to his own evil impulses, inclinations and desires.

This is man’s natural condition in the fallen state.

Yet Paul wrote elsewhere that where the Spirit of the Lord is, where the Spirit of the kyrios is, where the Spirit of the Master is, there is liberty (2 Cor.

3:17).

How are these truths to be reconciled?

Paul had learned that man is only free when he becomes a slave to Christ.

Outwith Christ, he is a slave to sin; but when enslaved to Christ, he knows the royal liberation that only Christ can bring.

Paul, in citing his own credentials, regards as his highest virtue that he is a slave of Jesus Christ.

But a “doulos” was a slave owned by a “kyrios”, a master or a lord!

Maybe that's where Kyrios gets his antics from…This imagery is used throughout the New Testament to portray the relationship between Christ and his people

1 Cor 6:190

Wise living means that we are those who belong to Christ.

He is our Lord, He is our “kyrios”, He is our Master.

That seems constricting though…who wants to be a slave anyway?

But Paul also writes in