Sermon Tone Analysis
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Today I want to talk about a heavenly perspective.
What I mean is that when
we cultivate an eternal perspective instead of a temporal one we will grow in hope,
joy, and peace.
A viewpoint or outlook on life that only focuses on who we are
and how we operate on this earth, here, now will tend to make us lose hope.
But if
we adopt a kingdom perspective, or a viewpoint where we live our lives in the light
of eternity in God’s kingdom now, we’ll find that our priorities start to shift; we
start to adopt God’s priorities and perspective instead of a humanistic, fleeting one.
Let’s pray before we get started.
Father in heaven, we honor and glorify
Your Name.
Jesus we praise you for who you are and all you have done for us.
Bless this time we have together, and help us understand what you want to say to
us through your word.
Holy Spirit, we invite you here and we open up our hearts to
what you would speak.
Help us to adopt your viewpoint as our own so that we
might better represent you.
In Jesus’ Name, amen.
I want us to start by looking at Psalm 39:4-7 NKJV “LORD, make me to
know my end, And what is the measure of my days, That I may know how frail I
am. 5 Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my age is as nothing
before You; Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.
Selah 6 Surely
every man walks about like a shadow; Surely they busy themselves in vain; He
heaps up riches, And does not know who will gather them.
7 “And now, Lord,
what do I wait for?
My hope is in You.”
Life is short, we’re frail people, and even when we do a good job in life
we’re all like vapor, or the wind.
Life is short, we can’t take anything with us, and
then we die.
It’s an encouraging message from the Psalms, today, isn’t it?
But as
depressing as this Psalm and meditation on the brevity of life might be if we just
stay on the surface, in reality, thinking about life this way can bring us a lot of
hope.
In verse 7, David says, “what do I wait for, then?
My hope is in the Lord.”
1
Now yes, we can say that we have hope because we’re going to heaven after
we die.
But we have even more hope now, because despite the brevity of life, we
can live in the kingdom of God today!
We can live in the hope of Jesus because we
know that there is more to this life than just what we can see and we know that the
longings of our soul for something bigger, something more, something of the
kingdom of God is real, it’s not just a dream or vain-hope.
God’s invitation to new
life in His kingdom now isn’t just forgiveness, it’s also new life in Christ; a new
quality of relational life that never fades, dims, grows old, or dies. 1
Now the bible has some interesting things to say about death.
Today, we’re
talking about a heavenly perspective; how knowing that life is short and that we’re
all going to die is actually a life-giving perspective because it brings hope and
certainty of joining Jesus in eternal life.
And we can join Him in that now, today.
But the Bible actually says death is a ministry.
Did you know that? 2 Corinthians
3:7-8 NKJV “But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was
glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of
Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8
how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?”
You might ask, how could death be a ministry?
Well, sometimes, when hard
circumstances are over, or put to death, we feel a lot better, we are freed from
them.
When we put to death things in our lives that block us from walking in God’s
kingdom and experiencing relationship with Him, we’re able to move forward in
new, healthy ways.
This passage in 2 Corinthians is speaking about the law.
Paul is
saying that the law caused death because we couldn’t ever keep it.
The glory of the
law is passing away and changing into the new law of love, the law of staying
connected to Jesus through relationship by God’s grace.
1
Boa, Kenneth.
Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual Formation, P59.
Zondervan, 2001.
2
We don’t need to be afraid of death anymore.
Hebrews 2:15 AMPC “that
He might deliver and completely set free all those who through the [haunting]
fear of death were held in bondage throughout the whole course of their lives.”
Jesus came to free us from fear of death!
He came to give us new life in His
kingdom.
And it’s important that we’re not afraid of death if we’re going to live life in
the context of His kingdom.
Why?
Because we’ve got to keep dying each day we
walk with Jesus.
We’ve got to die to selfishness, self-worship, and self-indulgence.
We’ve got to die to self-pity, self-righteousness, and self-consciousness.
We’ve got
to die to our flesh and embrace the cross in light of the eternal love of Jesus.
Colossians 3:5 NKJV “Therefore put to death your members which are on the
earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is
idolatry.”
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