Sermon Tone Analysis

Denying from and Devoting to

In the beginning of the year with many people setting out for new years resolutions i pray that you would resolve to stop doing anything you know you shouldn’t be doing and start doing what you know you should be doing in Christ.

When you begin to think of all things that could befall you this year it could make your mind weary.

What will not on your door step? the better or the worse?

The sickness or the health?

riches or poverty?

peace or war? gain the 10 pounds or lose the 10 pounds.

Maybe this is the year your greatest fears come to pass?

What then?

I pray this morning that you would have a new lense to look through in life against all that may come before you.

In the sight of temptation may this be what you see, in the fiery trial may you be grounded looking through this lense.

This will give you strength to press on when your flesh and the world tell you not to.

We need this truth to be ever so evident in our lives if we are the children of God in order to press on.

In the beginning of the year with many people setting out for new years resolutions i pray that you would resolve to stop doing anything you know you shouldn’t be doing and start doing what you know you should be doing in Christ.Read .

Read .

PRAY.

Recap from the weeks past:

Our context. it is important.

Jesus asks His disciples who do men that say that I am.

John the Baptist

Elijah

Great prophet

Who do you say that I am?

You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.

First time in Mark that the disciples rightly attribute to Jesus his Christ ship.

Even Jesus said in Matthew Simon Barjona flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is heaven.

Next Jesus brings into light the mission of the Christ now revealed.

Not to over throw Rome but rather to be handed over to men to be slain but to raise again the third day.

Peter tells Jesus far be it from Him to do such a thing.

And Jesus told him to get behind him and referred to him as satan.

Then Jesus turns to the crowds and teaches...

ANYONE WHO DESIRES TO COME AFTER ME...

He is to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow him.

Deny means: To dissown or disassociate oneself from someone; claim no knowledge or relationship to.

So God is telling me if i want to follow him i must deny, disassociate myself from myself.

Why?

Then Jesus takes it to another extreme in not only denying our flesh but picking up a cross, the symbol of capital punishment in Jesus day.

take up an electric chair and follow me.

Why would christ command his followers to pick up an instrument of death and torture.

A symbol literally of death.

This seems pretty radical of Jesus.

This is not a sure way to draw a crowd.This is not a way to build a large church.

We must understand some fundamental principles.

First Jeremiah tells us like we heard last night that our hearts are

​ NKJV“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Our culture tells us to trust our heart do what feels good.

Jesus beware of the heart for it is deceitful and desperately wicked.

It will lead you astray.

Sin may be pleasurable but only for a season.

Till you begin to reap what you have sown.

We are so prone to wander.

We are easy deceived, and we do not know all things.

nor do we know beginning to end.

Don’t be blinded by fleshly pleasures and your emotions.

These are not that rule of thumb to finding truth but rather in truth these two things will be satisfied.

Which brings me to my next point

We are so prone to wander.

We are easy deceived, and we do not know all things.

nor do we know beginning to end.

God does.

He is the alpha and omega.

no wonder why He tells us to Deny.

We were at the church Wednesday night and I told Caroline not to play with a certain bench.

well long behold she began to play with it when i was not looking.

it ended up falling over and landing on the top of her foot.

She refused to deny her fleshly inclination and in so doing got hurt pretty bad.

She didn’t know why I was saying what i was saying.

Till afterward it made since.

We do this many times with God don’t we?

Its not till after the deception we bought into and found the hurt that accompanied it do we then realize why God demands that we do not trust our flesh.

IT WILL LEAD YOU ASTRAY.

If by preaching this truth a marriage is saved this year i praise the Lord.

If by preaching this truth a soul is saved this year praise the Lord

IF by preaching this truth friendships and unity within a church is saved praise the Lord.

God doesn’t call us to know all the details but rather that we would trust in him, at ALL costs.

We cannot do this if we refuse to lay everything down at the altar.

If we refuse to lay our life down.

This is like saying God i love you with my soul but not my heart.

I will trust you for salvation but not for direction.

This is like me telling my wife i love her but then going and cheating on my wife with other woman.

This is not love at all.

Its all or nothing.

Does God get your soul, your dreams, your desires and your passions?

In forsaking my flesh He calls us to pick up our cross.

I have a new identity.

A symbolic reminder that i was bought with a price and i am no longer my own.

I have died to myself and now live unto God.

All of life i now look through the lense of the cross.

We are a people of identity.

Many would find their identity in:

What they wear

What they eat

Where they

What their hobbies are

What we drink

What they drive

where they work

Where they live

In their political stance

In their passions