Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Obviously Paul is speaking of sinners here, right?

Oops!

CHRIST-LESS CHRISTIANITY

Our faults and failures don’t occur in spite of our best efforts, but because of them.

Laodicea (la-od-i-se’-ah) = Greek, laos - people; laity; and dicea - opinion; custom; opinion or custom of the people; = justice of the people; ruled by the people; rule of the majority; democratic; i.e., peoples right or opinions.

The people’s rights.

Ears to hear appears 125 times in scripture, spoken by, or quoting God the Father or Jesus.

"We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it.

We believe something when we act as if it were true." ~ Dallas Willard

The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.

Dallas Willard

Consumer Christianity is now normative.

The consumer Christian is one who utilizes the grace of God for forgiveness and the services of the church for special occasions, but does not give his or her life and innermost thoughts, feelings, and intentions over to the kingdom of the heavens.

Such Christians are not inwardly transformed and not committed to it.

Let’s take a moment to balance works in the faith equation.

What you do will not determine your eternity, rather, it is who you become.

Is everyone still saved?

CO-CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST

Romans 6:1-14 (TPT)

1 So what do we do, then?

Do we persist in sin so that God’s kindness and grace will increase?

2 What a terrible thought!

We have died to sin once and for all, as a dead man passes away from this life.

So how could we live under sin’s rule a moment longer?

3 Or have you forgotten that all of us who were immersed into union with Jesus, the Anointed One, were immersed into union with his death?

4 Sharing in his death by our baptism means that we were co-buried and entombed with him, so that when the Father’s glory raised Christ from the dead, we were also raised with him.

We have been co-resurrected with him so that we could be empowered to walk in the freshness of new life.

5 For since we are permanently grafted into him[a] to experience a death like his, then we are permanently grafted into him to experience a resurrection like his and the new life that it imparts.

6 Could it be any clearer[b] that our former identity[c] is now and forever deprived of its power?

For we were co-crucified with him to dismantle the stronghold of sin within us,[d] so that we would not continue to live one moment longer submitted to sin’s power.[e]

7 Obviously, a dead person is incapable of sinning.

8 And if we were co-crucified with the Anointed One, we know that we will also share in the fullness of his life.

9 And we know that since the Anointed One has been raised from the dead to die no more, his resurrection life has vanquished death and its power over him is finished.

10 For by his sacrifice he died to sin’s power once and for all,[f] but he now lives continuously for the Father’s pleasure.

11 So let it be the same way with you!

Since you are now joined with him, you must continually view yourselves as dead and unresponsive to sin’s appeal while living daily for God’s pleasure in union with Jesus, the Anointed One.

12 Sin is a dethroned monarch; so you must no longer give it an opportunity to rule over your life, controlling how you live and compelling you to obey its desires and cravings.

13 So then, refuse to answer its call to surrender your body as a tool for wickedness.

Instead, passionately answer God’s call to keep yielding your body to him as one who has now experienced resurrection life!

You live now for his pleasure, ready to be used for his noble purpose.

14 Remember this: sin will not conquer you, for God already has!

You are not governed by law but governed by the reign of the grace of God.

Many churches are measuring the wrong things.

We measure things like attendance and giving, but we should be looking at more fundamental things like anger, contempt, honesty, and the degree to which people are under the thumb of their lusts.

Those things can be counted, but not as easily as offerings.