Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea: You are saved.

By grace you are saved.

A grace saved person is a changed and changing person.

What is a grace saved person?

List Adapted by CHIP DODD in“Voice of the Heart”

A grace saved person no longer lives in resignation, but finds acceptance.

No longer practices hopelessness, but lives in hope.

No longer lives in demand, but lives in expectation.

No longer lives in lust, but lives in passion.

No longer manage, but have faith in mystery.

No longer helpless, but recognize our powerlessness.

No longer defensive, we establish a healthy identity.

No longer live in worry, we live in faith.

No longer live in judgement, we live in discernment.

No longer live in pride, we live in confession.

No longer justify ourselves, but seek forgiveness.

No longer live in penance, but hunger to change.

No longer survive, but have a full life.

>>>Sin is parasitic in that it cannot create anything… sin has to take something good that God made and distort it into something less beautiful and less helpful… Sin distorts what is good and distorts it in a way that will lead us to destruction<<<

>>>God made this world and us and called it good!

And God is reuniting us to himself<<<

Big Idea: You are saved.

By grace you are saved.

A grace saved person is a changed and changing person.

There’s something about the grace-saved person that results in change —> results in transformation.

And it’s the kind of change that isn’t calculated or manipulated… there’s no posturing or pretending.

Rather it’s a change that occurs because of love.

It’s a surrender to divine love!

The Greatest Gift of All (v.8)

“For by grace you have been saved”

Grace

Wayne Grudem writes, “Grace is God’s goodness toward those who deserve only punishment.”

This is really the heart of the matter… Paul is writing this letter with this message in mind: “God is bringing dead people back to life.

God is mending broken hearts.

God is healing wounded souls.”

But God’s framework is based on a different set of rules.

You and I live in a merit-based world.

We are rated on everything.

Amber and I went to my daughter, Stella’s, Kindergarten parent teacher thing the other day — and they have this graph that showed her reading and math level based on the average… seems like she already get’s her math skills from me, lackthereof

But in kindergarten she is already being evaluated based on herskill, based on her ability, based on her works.

And so it’s very easy for us to base our worth on how much we accomplish.

It’s easy for us to identify with what we do rather than who we are.

Think about that… I mean on one level it makes sense… we need to be productive to survive.

Without competent people, we wouldn’t have doctor’s, technology, vehicles, so on…

But when our competency gets enmeshed with our self-worth, we are working from an entirely different worldview than the one we see of God in the Bible!

And thank God for this!

HOW are you doing?

That’s the question we ask, right?

That is our culture’s social greeting.

HOW MUCH?

HOW WELL?

HOW SUCCESSFUL?

The very makeup of the question lends itself towards an evaluative response.

So rather than cultivating relational intimacy, we find ourselves judging, comparing, boasting, gossiping, jealous and resentful.

This is the opposite of GRACE.

This is the opposite of goodness toward the friend or foe who deserves only punishment.

“Okay, so they have more than you.

They said something that offended you.

They didn’t invite you to that party.

Youkeep reaching out and they don’t seem interested.

They aren’t caring for you.

Maybe they stole from you, did something that was really wrong and mean-spirited.”

What would grace do in those circumstances?

How would grace respond?

Am I saying we are never to stand up for ourselves?

Or never get angry?

Or never confront?

Or never be hurt?

Absolutely not.

What I am proposing is a simply question, “but were we filled with grace towards that person?!”

Because friend no matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done God’s very nature is one of grace towards YOU!

Big Idea: You are saved.

By grace you are saved.

A grace saved person is a changed and changing person.

a grace saved person is changing to be a person of grace.

Saved

“For by grace you have been saved through faith”

Do you know you NEED saved?

The famous hymn starts:

“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I'm found

Was blind but now I see”

Do you notice the acknowledgement and awareness of lostness, blindness, wretchedness…

Non-Christian:

The Christian worldview teaches that we are all broken by sin and in need of something to change us.

All of the brokenness in the world points to the fact that we are in need of mending and redemption.

Fortunately, Jesus makes our restoration possible by doing all that needed to be done… he chose to take our sin as his own and give us his righteousness as our own.

So Christianity is an invitation to relationship with God which ultimately leads to the flourishing of all other relationships.

Christian:

PROBLEM: “I am in need before Christ and then after I am a Christian, I am now responsible for fixing my life and other’s through my own effort and willpower.”

The problem is that this is only a partial truth.

And I will try to remind us of that more this morning...

“This is not your own doing”

Christianity uniquely teaches, “you don’t fix yourself.

It’s not self help.

It’s not that only good people who work hard enough receive grace.”

“It is a gift of God”

Have you ever met a bad gift receiver?

I am a fairly poor gift receiver… and typically, you know why people struggle to receive gifts?