Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Tonto and the Lone Ranger were riding through a canyon together when all of a sudden both sides were filled with Native American warriors on horses, dressed for battle.

The Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and asked, "What are we going to do?" Tonto replied, "What you mean 'we,' Whiteman?"

(Edward Dobson, In Search of Unity, p. 20-27.)

This is not unity nor good fellowship.

Hilarious?

Yes, absolutely.

But it is not being together and joyful about it.

This is how many of us in the church are today.

We are with one another until we see some others who are different and against those we are with.

We abandon each other for those people thinking we are doing right.

We are all to be together.

We are all to share in the suffering of Christ as the body of Christ.

If we get slightly offended by a brother or sister in faith, we need to forgive and not allow this to cause a split.

We need to stick together and speak to one another if we are in disagreement about something but not be mad and leave and split.

Back in Col. 3:5 Paul wrote,“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

Any time we are angered and we decide to have division over it rather than meet up and resolve the problem or just forgive it and move on if it is a minor disturbance, we are earthly, with impure, evil, passionate desires.

That is how we once walked (v. 7).

We are not like that now.

That is the world.

The world is like Tonto and will leave the one for the other if the other looks to be better.

We are one body together if you are in Christ and we are not to be that way.

We are to be Together and Joyful About It.

This is what we see in the text today.

In Col. 3:12-17

In this text we see first:

We’re Forgiven so We Forgive (12-13)

As those who are in Christ, we have been forgiven much so we need to be forgiving of much.

We are God’s in Christ chosen to be holy and beloved by Him.

As such we must learn to live well together and worship well together.

This elect of God is“Because of redemption brought by Christ’s death on the cross, all who participate in his death and resurrection can now be identified as his own people.”

(David W. Pao, Colossians and Philemon, Zondervan Exegetical, 240.)

We are God’s and as such we need to act as His.

We see in this text a list of how we are to do this.

We see we are to have compassionate hearts we are to be compassionate from our deepest inner emotions, not false compassion.

To be compassionate means we have compassion for others and are not out to tear them down over any grievance.

We have mercy with others.

We are not out to tear them down to build ourselves up.

2. We are to be kind.

We need to be willing to be generous, considerate of others, and seek to not harm them but build them up.

This means we speak truth in love.

Paul tells us to do this in Eph.

4:15

3. We are to show humility.

Simply we are not to think more highly of ourselves than we are.

We are not to try and seek to be better than everyone else.

We are not to seek to try and top other peoples stories with ours.

Simply, we are not trying to one up one another but live together and mutually build one another up.

4. We are to show meekness with one another.

This means we are to be quiet and gentle with one another.

We are not seeking to make one another falter and become discouraged but we are seeking to build one another up as the one body of Christ.

We are to not be overbearing of one another but in mutual submission following the head of the church: Jesus Christ.

5. We are to have patience with one another.

Patience is hard but when we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom.

12:1-2), we can have this patience.

When we have patience with one another we will be willing and able to forgive one another and not hold grudges against each other.

If someone offends you at church or you hear something that you don’t quite agree with, you come back and have patience because you may have heard wrong or felt something was wrong when it was not.

We bear with each other because we are one together.

We are part of the body of Christ and as such we are one with many members.

We here at WTCC are a finger in the body while other churches are other parts of the body in the church universal that has spanned all centuries since the church began to today.

As part of that we have many parts in the finger.

You have the bones, sinews, finger nail, skin, veins, cartilage, and many other parts that comprise the finger.

If any of them are not right the whole finger is not working right.

We must strive to always be together and serving the Lord as one so we can be effective for the Lord.

This requires work and commitment on all our part, me included.

The transforming of our minds is something we must always work at because the devil and his minions will move in and take advantage as much as possible.

We must always seek to be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient with one another and always be willing to forgive as we have been forgiven.

This means we do not let bitterness take root in any form.

We do not allow for anger to grow.

We do not let anything that is wicked or evil bring separation but we rather:

Let Peace and Love Rule (14-15)

When we continually seek to allow compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience rule in us, we will have the peace of Christ and we will love each other.

When we do this we will have harmony we will be many but one.

We will be the body of believers that do much for the Lord.

Much like when,

one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other[.]

They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.

So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

(A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God.)

When we are tuned by Jesus and His peace alone, then we will be of one accord.

When we let His peace rule in our hearts and rest in His wisdom and grace, then we can have harmony.

We will not only have harmony but we will be thankful for one another.

We will have joy together even in our differences because we are resting in the grace and peace of the Lord.

We will be, while together, like many couples are after they lose their loved one.

There are many who realize that the annoying thing the other did was something they miss now.

They found joy in that annoying trait of leaving socks on the living room floor, or their shoes in the hallway, or any number of things it may be.

We need to realize that the differences we all have as parts of the one body are so that one body can function correctly.

If we were all exactly alike we would never get anything done.

We need differences and those differences are what make us work well together.

But to work well together we must be together regularly.

In a marriage the family cannot become a family of more than two if the couple are never together.

The husband and wife must spend time together if they ever want to see their family become more than them two alone.

That is the same for the church.

We must spend time together and grow together if we ever want to see more people come in.

Because when we do and when we are in unity we seek to bring more and more people with us and therefore, grow the family, the church.

We must have unity in the Christian community if we want to see the community grow any at all.

If we are alone in the world and not serving and doing life together because we think we can make it alone, we will fail and fall.

We are not that good.

We are like snowflakes.

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together.

The few fragile become something quite powerful and dangerous if working well together, just look at what avalanches do.