Sermon Tone Analysis

Lose Control

It’s a great day to be in the house of the Lord?

I want to Thank you for inviting me and my family out

Thank you for tusting the Jesus in us and allowing us to minister to you all this week.

It is our hope that the Holy Spirit was able to move in your lives through the ministry he has called us to

We have truly experienced the Grace of God in this place and we are so blessed to be able to serve you

This morning we are going to have several awesome moments

We are going to have some baptisms, we are going to worship the risen Lord, We are going to hear his word proclaimed

Today’s sermon is a part of our Damage Control series that we’ve been discussing all week

If you’ve missed it what we are discussing is how we fight for control of elements of our lives and how that fight and desire to control this parts of our lives actually results in damage

The source of all of this desire to control is our fallen nature

Its the fact that we all have a bent toward self and sin and away from God

It is this bent that we are all born with that causes us to rebel against what is best for us and to fight to become the soverieng of our own domain

We want to be able to set the standard, to be the exception, to be the hero, to be the victim… to be the one who has the ability to decide what is right and good according to our own hearts

The problem is because of our condition of fallenness our hearts are decietful above all things

So we find ourselves in this loop where we fight for control in order for our world to make sense to us in order for us to feel important or valued or seen… we strive for control so that we can matter… so that we can have a say… so that we can protect ourselves.... and when we finally figure out a tactic that is going to bring a result … the thing we are trying to control suffers damage

Our desire for control which is aimed at being the solution to our issues becomes the root of the issues in our lives

It seems like a hopeless loop

We’re broken and so we fight for wholeness and in the fight we end up breaking more

There’s a word for that in the Old Testament… It’s Hevel

Say hevel

Now you know Hebrew and you can tell all your friends that you went to summer camp and learned hebrew!

In the book of Ecclesiastes

There is a man by the name of Solomon… you guys heard of him?

What do you know about solomon?

he was wealthy and wise son of David who ended up making some pretty bonehead mistakes for being as wise as he was

He wrote this book of Ecclesiastes where he tells us about this journey of control that he went on

That he, in an effort to find meaning in his life, sought after what it was that he could engage in that would bring this sense of meaning to his life

Do you know what he found.... everything he spent his time and effort working towards ended up being hevel

That is it is like chasing after the wind

He went after riches.

Money and found that you could never be satisfied with money

Went after eternity in his legacy… Trying to build up for himself a legacy that will last… only to find that whatever he handed to the next generation would only be as valuable as they decided it was

Went after physical pleasures… eating and drinking and satisfying every pleasure he could think of only to find that there was nothing of eternal value in it

Just a side note if and when you purpose yourself to read the book of Ecclesiastes… make sure that you don’t read it when you are depressed and also make sure that you finish the book.

Because if you stop in the middle you are going to have a terrible day thinking that the world is all hevel

We see this hevel is what comes from trying to exert our control over different situations and facets of our lives and trying to gain control over them.

Trying to find ultimate purpose and ultimate satisfaction in the temporal.

Trying to find identity in the things of this world that the Lord has blessed us with that are only supposed to be decorations.

Trying to place our ultimate purpose in things that will let us down

So what is the answer… what is there to be done?

Is all hope lost?

No.

Let’s go to scripture

We see in this passage that our only hope comes from Jesus Christ and his living inside us

Our true hope comes from letting go of all control.

IN fact it’s in death

Death to the bondage of control

dying to self includes dying to all that we think we have to control

Exposing that momentary desire to the all consuming fire that is Christ and then allowing Him to be our fullness and our wholeness