Sermon Tone Analysis

"*RAISED FOR A NEW LIFE ORIENTATION*"

(A Series on Colossians)

 

Westgate Chapel 9~/6~/93 a.m.

Colossians 3:1-4

 

PROPOSITION:  Since we have died, with Christ, to this world, and have been raised with Him to new life, we must set our hearts and minds on those things that have to do with our new life.

! i. introduction

!! -     HAVE you ever been taken captive by a dream....and set your heart and mind on achieving that dream with such determination that you would not be denied?

!!! ~*     An educational goal?

!!! ~*     A possession, like a home, or a car?

!!! ~*     A business or career goal?

!!! ~*     Financial independence?

!!! ~*     Some athletic achievement?

!!! ~*     A special relationship?

!! -     AND for the period of time that it took to achieve the dream, that was all that you could think about.

Nothing else mattered.

!! -     YOUR heart was totally involved.

All of the emotional energy that you could muster went into attaining the goal.

There was nothing left over for anything or anyone else.

!! -     YOUR mind was completely involved.

You planned and schemed and read and strategized and thought.....until the path to your goal was clear.

!! -     WHEN competing attractions came into your path they were quickly disposed of.

Nothing was allowed to get in the way.

!! -     THERE have not been many of those kinds of all consuming passions in my 45 years of life.....except Rita.

!!! ~*     I first saw her in the congregation of Clayton Street Church of God, Middletown, Ohio...in the summer of 1968.

!!! ~*     I was there to preach a series of youth meetings, and our eyes met for a second after I sat down on the platform.

!!! ~*     A mutual friend introduced she and her Fiancée to me after the service....and something jumped in my heart.

!! -     I WAS in between colleges and should have been concerned about finding ways to finish my academic training.

!! -     I WAS supposed to be going back to my family in Africa at the end of that summer.

!! -     MY goal for those three months at that church was to make enough money to pay my airfare back home.

!! -     I WAS hired by that church to be an assistant pastor for the summer of '68.

!! -     MY father, whom I respected greatly, had taught me that you NEVER dated a young lady from the congregation where you were working.

!! -     COMMON sense should have told me that since she was engaged.....I was wasting my time.

!! -     BUT from that June Sunday evening on the platform of Clayton Street Church of God, absolutely nothing else mattered but Rita.

!! -     MY roommate, who had introduced us, had a crush on Rita too.

But I had watched him operate for two years at Lee College and it took him months to get up the nerve to ask a girl for a date.

!! -     SO, to be decent about it, I gave Bill Winters 30 days to ask Rita for a date.

I told him, "You've got one month."

!! -     AND for a month I waited and planned and schemed....and 30 days to the hour, when he had not made a move, I called Rita and asked her to go play miniature golf with me.

!! -     AND the race was on.

!!! ~*     I got acquainted with her brother.

Taught him how to play soccer.

Attended his high school football games and watched him play in the marching band.

!!! ~*     I spent time with her family, and learned what they liked and didn't like.

!!! ~*     I found out what Rita liked and didn't like.

!!!! ~*     And immediately got rid of my white socks, my shiny Travera cloth suit, and my brylcreem.

!!!! ~*     I wanted to make myself as attractive as possible to her.

!!! ~*     I got personally acquainted with the local florist and spent my return air ticket to Africa money on dozens of red roses....with poems attached.

!!! ~*     I studied her meticulously every time we were together...to figure out whether my strategies were working and whether or not she was softening.

!!! ~*     I hated shopping with a passion.

But when she mentioned needing to go to the mall....shopping became my middle name.

!!! ~*     I didn't even look at other girls when we were out.

I didn't want to.

Rita was all that I wanted.

!!! ~*     I looked for any hints that George, the fiancée who lived in Detroit, was still a contender.

!!! ~*     The first time that I told Rita that I loved her, under the Oak tree in their front yard, she said, "Well, I am not ready to even begin to respond to a statement like that."

And I drove away and stopped the car a few blocks from her house and got out and kicked myself.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

!! -     I HAD decisions to make about going home to Africa.

I didn't care.

I had set my heart on Rita.

!! -     I SHOULD have been writing home.

I didn't.

I was too busy pursuing Rita.

!! -     I WAS supposed to be working at the church.

I did.

But my heart wasn't in it very much.

My heart had been given to Rita.

!! -     I WAS taken to the final game of the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field....before they moved to Riverfront Stadium.

But who cared about Johnny Bench or Pete Rose....I was thinking about Rita.

!! -     INSTEAD of going back to Africa, I stayed that fall and enrolled at Wittenberg University.....because that was where Rita was going to school.

!! -     I GOT a job as assistant pastor at Rita's uncle's church.

!! -     I ATTENDED classes, but all I cared about was seeing Rita afterwards in the library.

!! -     THAT Christmas I asked her to marry me.....we would get married the following Christmas of '69.

!! -     BUT then I talked her into getting married the next fall of '69.....because of all the beautiful colors.

!! -     AND then I talked her into June of '69.

Why waste a whole summer being single?

!! -     HAVE you ever been taken captive by a dream....and set your heart and mind on achieving that dream with such determination that you would not be denied?

!! -     WHAT can you look at in your life that has consumed you for a season...or maybe even still is now?

!! -     IT is one thing when we demonstrate that kind of consuming determination about things that will sooner or later pass away.....but what about being captive to a spiritual reality that will change your life for all eternity and will never pass away.

!! -     THIS is the challenge of the apostle Paul concerning our pursuit of Christ in Colossians 3:1-6.

!! -     IN the first two chapters he has painted an incredible picture of what Christ has done for us.

!!!      

!!!       "*For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.*"

(Colossians 1:13-14)

!!!  

!!!       "*Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation*..." (Colossians 1:21-22)

!!!  

!!!       "*For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.*"

(Colossians 2:9-10)

!!!  

!!!       "*When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.

He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.*"

(Colossians 2:13-14)

!! -     JESUS has done all of this for us....even when we were far from Him and deserved nothing.

!! -     AND when you receive Him by faith as Savior of your life, your old sinful nature is buried with Him.....your new Christ-like nature is born anew....and you become a new creature in Christ Jesus.

!! -     YOU are raised with Him to new life.

!! -     THAT is the message of the first two chapters of this epistle.

!! -     AND, as usual, Paul follows a message like this with a challenge concerning our responsibility.

!! -     IF a Christian has experienced a radical change of status....from death to life like this....then it should affect his whole life from that time on.

!! -     IT should be a lifestyle that consumes us.

!

ii.set your hearts on things above

!! -     TURN with me to Colossians 3:1,

!!!       "*Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.*"