Sermon Tone Analysis

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When Christ calls a person, he calls them to come and die.

She stood over her husband’s coffin.

In the book titled, Extreme Devotion, there is the story of a widow.

There were tears in her eyes, but her voice was strong.

The bruises on her body told the mourners that she, too, had been beaten as her husband.

As Christians, they had refused to take a tribal oath that wasn’t consistent with their Christian faith.

For this, her husband was beaten to death.

She was beaten and hospitalized.

The crowd was still, silenced by the power of the widow’s words and her will.

“I, as his widow, also tell all of you, in the presence of my dead husband, that I hate none of those who killed him.

I love the killers.

I forgive them, knowing that Christ has died for them too.”

No one in attendance that day would ever forget the widow’s words or her example of extreme forgiveness and grace.

When Christ calls a person, he calls them to come and die.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is also a Christian martyr, writes, “'When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

Bonhoeffer is using

Matthew 16:24-25 “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

What does it mean for a believer that when Christ calls us to himself, he calls us to come and die?

Romans 12:1

Paul tells the Roman believers that by the mercy of God, present your bodies as living sacrifices.

Does he mean, a literal sacrifice losing our life for him, as we have heard in stories from North Korea, the Middle East, and North Africa?

Or does he mean it metaphorically, giving all we have in this life for Christ?

A close friend of mine told me once that he prays for a spirit of Martyrdom.

Even though he will likely never be asked to physically, literally lose his life for his faith.

Nonetheless, he prays for a spirit that dies to self in order to live for Christ.

He prays for a spirit of martyrdom.

Faith is a free gift that should cost us everything.

The words of Paul to the Romans contain the same charge to us.

Paul calls us to be living sacrifices, and sometimes, he calls believers to simply be sacrifices.

What does it mean to be a living sacrifice?

There are four ways that I believe we are called to live this.

Romans 12:2

Romans 12:1–2 (ESV)

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Christ calls us to go from a self/worldly focused worldview to a faith-based worldview.

Paul tells us that believers should not be conformed to this world.

There’s the old saying that believers should in the world, but not of the world.

This is a tough balance.

Being in the world can cause a believer to become of the world.

Meanwhile, not being of the world can temp a believer to escape the world and lose their witness.

The book called Misreading Scripture through Western eyes has a great example of differing worldviews.

The author reminds us that we speak as insiders, which has its own challenges.

They (referring to the authors) speak as white, Western males.

In fact, they always speak as white, Western males.

This cannot be changed.

Everything either of them has ever written has come from the perspective of middle-class, white males with a traditionally Western education.

There’s really nothing they can do about that except be aware of and to be honest about it.

They write as white, Western males who have been chastened to read the Bible through the eyes of our non-Western sisters and brothers in the Lord.

But Christianity didn’t start in the Western world.

It started in the Middle East before spreading to North Africa, India, and finally, Europe.

What started as a Middle Eastern religion turned into a Western religion.

In the book, one of the authors, Randy, recalls grading his first multiple choice exam when he taught in Indonesia.

He was surprised by how many students left answers unmarked.

So he asked the first student when handing back exams, “Why didn’t you select an answer on question number three?”

The student explained, “I didn’t know the answer.”

Randy replies, “You should have at least guessed.”

He looked at me, appalled.

“What if I accidentally guessed the correct answer?

I would be implying that I knew the answer when I didn’t.

That would be lying!”

In Indonesia, guessing on a multiple choice test is possibly lying.

Here in America, guessing on a multiple choice test is normal, it’s simply a good test taking skill.

Which takes us back to, what lenses do we bring to life?

Paul writes in Philippians 2:5-7, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Back in the days of Rome, it was normal and almost expected for people to take pride in their abilities almost to the point of arrogance.

But Christ emptied himself of all his privilege as being the Son of God, a part of the Trinity, and he went to earth taking on human flesh.

Just as pride and arrogance in Rome was almost expected, today it’s seems like the same thing can be expected?

But Paul tells us to live each day with the eyes of Christ.

As he says in Romans 12:2, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

For some, the will of God is to give up everything, including their life.

Christ calls us to go from a self-focused and worldly-focused worldview to a faith-based worldview.

Christ calls us to go from worldly power to the power of Christ.

When I was really young, my parents would laugh at an expression I frequently say.

When I was having trouble and needed help, I would get flustered and say, “I’ll do it myself.”

Well, trying to do it in our own power ultimately humbles us.

As I often learned right after saying that.

Paul is writing here to Christians who are living in the center of the Roman Empire.

Around them, they are sounded by a pagans who succeed through brute force.

But that power is fleeting.

Regardless of which kind of power in this world we rely, whether it be power derived from physical strength, social skills, emotional awareness, or spending power, none of them last forever.

Not one of the people in power during Paul’s day are still in power today.

Steven Dow puts it like this, “You know when you buy toys for your kids or grand-kids often times on the package in fine print are these words: “Batteries not included.”

Do you know what that means?

It means that you get the toy, but the power to make it work is not included.

That is not the kind of gift that God gives.

God’s gift of holiness includes the power of the fullness of the Holy Spirit - the power to make it work.”

The power of the Holy Spirit is tapped into through the power of prayer.

The Holy Spirit gives insight and guidance.

The Holy Spirit works through events.

When Paul talks about the transformation of our mind, it isn’t simply acquiring knowledge.

It is a complete and total change from the ways of the world to our minds being wholly centered one the ways of Christ.

Therefore, from what do you derive your power?

Is it your own abilities and skills, or is it the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and the Cross of Christ?

Christ calls us to go from relying on the wordly power to the power of Christ.

Christ calls us to go from lives characterized by sin to lives characterized by holiness.

Being transformed means that what we think, what we say, and what we do are growing into conformity with Christ.

Sin is defined as anything we think, do, or say that God’s law says we shouldn’t have, or anything that we should have thought, done, or said that God’s law says we should have.

As we grow in the knowledge and grace of Jesus Christ, we grow in lives that are holy.