Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ I’d apologize to my son publicly if he were here this morning but my man-child is at his first May Rally.

I noticed lately that he is learning to swagger.

This gives me great relief.

Skipping is not an issue unless you do it in boxing shorts, sweating profusely with a cut lip and one blackened eye.

This would make me proud.

I have been trying to help him with his swaggering – a swagger by the way is a man walk that should be learned as early as possible.

I am trying to make sure that I perform essential fatherly duties in this area.

I haven’t been able to come through with perfection in all areas.

As a handy man I have failed miserably.

My son will never learn to build things from me.

When we moved to Fredericton, privileged to occupy the home that we do, I was struck by the large trees in the backyard.

They screamed at me.

As the wind whispered through the branches, I could hear, “Build a treehouse.”

I did that when I was a kid.

That was when we nailed boards together and never worried about cutting them off.

They stuck out at odd lengths everywhere and I didn’t know about square and level.

In those days I enjoyed building treehouses and was confident in my abilities.

Now I know enough to realize that I cannot seem to build as I should.

I bought some boards.

They sat in a pile and finally Burt Dykeman was good enough to come and help me build a frame for the treehouse that was never to be.

I think I need to either complete it or tear it down because now I look out the back window and see that wretched skeleton that haunts me in my lack of ability and determination to get the job done.

It stands unfinished.

/28 //Later, //knowing that all was now completed//, and so that the //Scripture would be fulfilled//, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”

29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.

30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”

With that, he bowed his head and //gave up his spirit.

*[1]*/

 

We remember a wooden skeleton topping the barren brow of a wind whipped hill on the outskirts of the city of David.

Some of us wear it around our necks as jewelry.

It too is a reminder but not of an unfinished work but a completed one.

I am so thankful today that the job was not left undone.

I’d like to talk this morning about the words of Christ relative to your salvation and mine.

Those words, “It is finished.”

The Greek word “Tetelestai”.

Jesus Christ is the Completer of unfinished people with unfinished work in unfinished times.

-- Lona M. Fowler

 

Some of the most talented people in the world have trouble finishing.

Michelangelo started forty-four statues but completed only fourteen.

In a museum in Italy you can see his thirty unfinished works.

There are huge blocks of marble with only a hand or a foot completed.

Are our lives like those unfinished statues?

Is our potential for service still locked up within us?

When you think of the Cross this morning, what does it remind you of?

The finished work of Christ unfinished in you.

Has He yet begun?

As the wind whispers through the cross to you today what message do you hear?

Let’s talk about the reasons that you can have confidence in His Finished work today.

Colossians 2 gives a more exhaustive picture of what was accomplished on Calvary.

/8 //See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,  10 and //you have been given fullness in Christ,// who is the head over every power and authority.

11 In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature,a not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,  12 having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,b God //made youc alive// with Christ.

He forgave us all our sins,  14 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.

15 And having //disarmed the powers and authorities//, he //made a public spectacle of them//, triumphing over them by the cross.d

16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize.

Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.

19 He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules:  21 “Do not handle!

Do not taste!

Do not touch!”?  22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.

23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

*[2]*/

 

First of all there is the “Fullness” issue.

*/1.

/**/The Fullness Issue/*

 

/“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.”/

Do I have everything that I need?

If you have Christ then the answer is “YES” beyond the shadow of any doubt.

I love the way that the scriptures read with an unqualified “YES”.

Those among us who worry that people abuse freedom and look for justification to live as we wish rather than the way that God would have us to live, would rather qualify this response.

There was nothing held back at Calvary – He gave it all for you.

You don’t receive more of Christ at any other point in your life than what you receive when you bow your knee and repent of your sinfulness in nature and deed and receive this finished work of Calvary into your life.

The longer I experience the heart of God the more I realize that he is the major stockholder in our relationship.

He is my Creator, the Psalmist writes:

 

/13 //For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  *[3]*/

 

He loved me before I knew Him.

He forgave me before I asked Him.

He understands my heart when I have no words to speak.

/13 //if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.*[4]*/

In my mind there is no single more significant experience in the Christian life than “salvation” – there is nothing more miraculous than to discover the transformation that comes when you come to know Christ as your personal Savior.

To long or to search for something more significant is ridiculous.

Calvary was the ultimate outpouring of love.

It was the ultimate victory over sin and death.

Paul writes in 2 Cor.

5:16-17:

 

/So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.

Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!*[5]*/

So I would say that you have everything that you need in Christ.

And then there is the Forgiveness issue.

*/2.

/**/The Forgiveness Issue./*

/ /

/“//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/*/, . .

.”/

I know of many people who have a difficult time forgiving themselves.

Long after they have received Christ they punish themselves for things that they have done in their past.

I remember hearing this likened to the return of the prodigal son, expecting a better life as a hired hand, living in the bunkhouse, never anticipating that his room was still held for him in the big house and that he would receive once again, all that he had forsaken.

Many people wonder after their conversion whether or not the experience was real and whether or not God actually forgave them.

The scripture speaks of sins – the things that we do that are contrary to God’s will and the sinful nature – that which is within us which desires to find it’s own way.