Sermon Tone Analysis

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*The past is just that: it is the past*

 

Philippians 3:1-15a  /1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord!

It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.  2 Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.

3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12 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.

13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things./

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*The present is just that: a gift*

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/Hebrews 4:1-13 1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.

2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.

3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’

”  And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.

4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.”

 5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”

6 It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience.

7 *Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”*

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.

9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

12 For the word of God is living and active.

Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.

Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account./

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*To God, the future is history.*

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/1 Corinthians 3:16-23  16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

18 Do not deceive yourselves.

If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise.

19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.

As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”a; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”b

21 So then, no more boasting about men! *All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephasc or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.*/

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/Matthew 26:62-64  62 Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer?

What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent.

The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ,a the Son of God.”  64 “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

“But I say to all of you: *In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”*

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/Acts 5:29-32  29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.

31 *God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.*

32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”/