Sermon Tone Analysis

LWML Sunday, Pentecost 19

Philippians 3:12-21

September 25, 2005

"A Diet For Healthy Christians"

            (As objects for this sermon, it may be helpful to have on hand several cans of various types of vegetables and candies or cake.)

How many of you like peas and carrots?

How many like hominy?

How many like spinach?

How about okra?

Or broccoli?

How many like corn?

How about green beans?

These are all different kinds of vegetables.

Although all of us might not like the same kinds of vegetables, or might not even like some vegetables at all, we do know that eating vegetables is good for our bodies and helps keep us strong and healthy.

Now, let's look at some different foods.

How many of you like candy?

How about Snickers or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?

How many of you like cake?

Who likes chocolate cake?

Who likes white cake?

How many of you like ice cream?

How many like vanilla flavor?

How many like chocolate flavor?

Now, how many like ice cream on top of cake?

These are all different kinds of desserts.

Desserts can be yummy.

But, we also know that too many desserts can be bad for us.

If all we ate was desserts, the sugar in our bodies would get really high and that can make us sick.

One thing we do know about foods, though, is that we need to eat a good balance of foods to maintain our health.

We cannot just eat all desserts, and it's probably not even best for us to eat only vegetables.

It takes a good mix of different kinds of foods to help us grow up strong and to be healthy We need to have a healthy diet if we are going to have healthy bodies and be healthy people.

Now, let's talk about being healthy Christians.

What do you think we need to have to be healthy Christians?

How many think we need to have love?

How many think we need to have prayer?

How about reading the Bible?

How about coming to worship?

Yes, we need all of these things.

We can never get too many of the things that help us be healthy Christians.

But, there is one thing we absolutely need that is the foundation of all these other things that is faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

We need the forgiveness of sins He won for us when He died on the cross.

Otherwise we would never be healthy Christians.

We would always be sick in our sin.

But, through the forgiveness of sins, we are made healthy.

In Baptism, we receive this healthy forgiveness.

We continue to receive this good, healthy spiritual food as we hear His Word of forgiveness.

This is something we all need and we all like.

We can never get too much of Jesus.

We thank God for Him.

\\ Sermon Theme: The Diet that Transforms Lives Sermon Text: Philippians 3:12-21

            In the United States, there is a diet-marketing craze.

We have all seen the ads.

"Lose 10 pounds. in 7 days."

"Lose 20 pounds in 30 days - Guaranteed!" Restaurants tout low carb menu items.

Grocery stores sell foods packaged for specific diets.

Accordingly, there is no shortage of diet plans - the Atkins low-carbohydrate diet, the vegetarian diet, the Weight Watchers plan, The South Beach Diet, The Grapefruit Diet, just to name a few.

The list goes on and on.

All of these diet plans purport the same objective - to lose weight.

Many are marketed by showing the results of those who have lost weight and now sport slimmer and trimmer bodies.

The television and magazine advertisements show before and after pictures of people whose bodies have been transformed - the result of having been on a particular diet plan.

Then, of course, the big question always looming in the midst of the diet jungle is, "Which one really works?"

CNN reported on a study earlier this year that attempted to respond to that question.

The headline for the report read, "Pick one diet and stick to it."

The by-line read, "Researchers say no diet works for everyone, because few people stay on the diet plans."

An article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, said no single diet worked for everyone.

It went on to say, "To find the one that's best for you, try 'dating the diets' as if looking for a life-long partner.

You may kiss a few frogs along the way, but once you find the one you can live with forever, stand by your plan."

The things that made this particular report on diet plan research interesting in relation to the message today are the various parallels to the way many people view faith and religion.

Many try a "dating the religions" approach in their attempts to find a religion that they can stay with.

However, unlike the findings of the report where many different diets may work, in the area of faith and religion there is only one "diet plan" that leads to a transformed life and leads to eternal salvation.

That is the plan made known to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

His plan of salvation, and His alone, is the one that holds the promise of transforming lives in time for eternity.

He is the one that promises to "transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" - not just for a week or a month or a year, but for all eternity.

His is "The Diet that Transforms Lives," and we must "stick to it."

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

(Philippians 3:12-14)

            The Apostle "pressed on," "sticking to" his goal of taking "hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of [him]."

It is key to note in this passage that Christ took hold of Paul first.

He took hold of us by tasting the bitterness and pain of this world.

"God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law."

(Galatians 4:4-5).

Through His suffering and anguish Jesus partook of a diet suffering, sacrificing His body, and dying on the cross so that we might receive the forgiveness of sins.

Then Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.

Through Him, death is swallowed up in victory.

Through His death and resurrection, Christ takes hold of us.

By faith, we press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of us.

We have been given a diet of forgiveness and righteousness, which brings us spiritual health and life.

Yet, we know, even as it is with diets, temptations loom around every comer that would cause us to stray from our faith in God.

Jesus described some of these as the "thorns that choke out the crop" - the worries and distractions of this world.

We have seen them in the lives of those around us and even in our own lives.

*There is the temptation of Discouragement* - the temptation to walk away from God in Christ when everything doesn't go our way.

We don't seem to get the results we want in life or don't like the answers God gives to our prayers.

We get discouraged and selfishly believe God doesn't care, instead of learning to trust and rely upon our Father in heaven who knows all, knows what is best, and above all "gives good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11)

            *There is the temptation of Pluralism* - going around and "kissing the frogs" of other religions and experimenting with non-Christian spirituality, even though one already has the Prince of Peace.

This causes us to fall into the trap of "picking and choosing" from a whole buffet of false religions and worldly philosophies, trying to define one's own truth, instead of being totally committed and reliant upon the truth of God revealed in His Holy Word.

The Apostle wrote, "For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.

Their mind is on earthly things."