Sermon Tone Analysis

One of the best ways I annoyed my children was at Christmas, I would refer to Santa Claus as the fat guy in a red suit.

This caused my kids much anxiety.

They were concerned my disrespect for the jolly old elf might have repercussions on Christmas morning.

Of course my insolence towards the fat guy in a red suit never caused any harm.

Christmas at our house has always been a rather lavish affair.

But Christmas comes and Christmas goes and really nothing essential in life is changed by it, really.

I think back on our forebears and the stories they told.

Christmas morning came and they might have an orange for a present.

It was the only fresh piece of fruit they had all winter.

One elderly relative told me one Christmas they got an orange, a few walnuts and a pair of socks.

They were grateful for those presents.

But even then, Christmas came and Christmas went, the fat man in a red suit made his rounds, and really nothing essential in life changed.

But see, somehow, we’ve missed a little something.

When Jesus was born, the world changed.

The whole world changed.

Calendars were revised to revolve around Jesus’ birth.

Even with the new designation of Common Era and Before Common Era - a rose by any other name, right?

The pivot point of history was that one baby out of 107 billion babies born.

It’s kind of fun for me to imagine - we portray the night of Jesus’ birth as a “Silent Night, Holy Night,” but in the heavens, a cataclysmic thing was going on.

After 2,000 years, the promise was delivered.

Messiah was born.

And I’m telling you absolutely nothing new - it’s what you came here this morning to hear.

A retelling - a reminder - that what you and I believe is true.

It’s the fulfillment of a promise.

Empirical evidence of sorts in a world of faith.

Jesus was born.

But something else happened that day too.

The way we look at Christmas is kind of a ‘one-and-done’ kind of thing.

Jesus came, he lived a perfect life, he died and was raised on the third day.

Today He sits at the right hand of the Father and His Holy Spirit fills the earth.

We believe that but really, the way we see it, nothing essential in life changed.

When we trust Jesus as our Savior, some things do change typically.

We try harder to do better.

But other than that, what changes?

It could just be that we are missing the greatest gift ever.

Our scripture is Titus 2:11-15.

Titus is a short letter written by the apostle Paul to a man named Titus.

Titus was an elder on the island of Crete which is located south of Greece.

I believe Cretans could have been precursors of Baptists.

Everyone had their own, very strong opinions about how things are supposed to run.

Church life in the fledgling church was tumultuous.

Titus needed some encouragement and direction from someone who knew what they were doing.

So Paul wrote a letter to Titus to help Titus know what they should believe and how they should operate.

Our scripture is part of the letter telling Titus, this is what we should believe.

I read the greatest quote this morning.

It’s from Rosario Butterfield in her book, “The Gospel Comes With A House Key.”

And this is what it says, “Because Christian conversion always comes in exchange for the life you once loved, not in addition to it, people have much to lose in coming to Christ - and some people have more to lose than others.

Jesus is not in addition to, He really comes instead of.

The grace of God appeared.

What is Grace?

Grace is something God has done for us solely because he loves us and he knows there is no way under the sun we can ever meet His standards.

Grace is God doing something for us -

God the Father sent Jesus the Son.

Our baby in a manger, our “Silent Night, Holy Night,” our “First Noel,” our “O Holy Night.”

Sent to save our lives, to rescue us from ourselves.

Verse 14 says “who gave Himself for us...”

He gave His entire life - His whole life - from infancy to death.

Lived sinlessly although He was tempted just like each of us are.

He faced constant discrimination.

He was tried and sentenced by prejudiced people.

Executed unjustly.

All for a reason.

He endured things you and I can’t even imagine.

And He endured it all to “redeem us from all lawlessness.”

Redeem - a 50 cent church word - but a word with a crazy special meaning.

When you redeem someone, you set them free.

The way Paul writes the verb redeem means it is something that happened in the past, it happened to us - we didn’t cause it and, we were hoping all along that it would happen.

(Aorist Middle Subjunctive)

We were stuck somewhere we didn’t want to be but we had no clue how to get out.

Jesus redeemed us - He set us free.

He set us free from lawlessness.

We think that means that Jesus freed us from living like heathens and He gave us the right rules to follow but that’s not exactly it.

Lawlessness means that a person has a complete disregard for God.

Let that soak in for a second.

Jesus didn’t free us from our heathen-hood to now follow the right rules.

Jesus freed us so we would no longer disregard God.

Think of all of “those” stereotypical sinners we caricature - those people and the things they do.

What do they have in common?

It’s not their actions - it is they disregard God.

Now, replace them with us.

Jesus redeemed us so that we would no longer disregard God.

To put it positively, Jesus redeemed us so we would have the privilege of regarding God.

Of seeing Him and realizing just how good He is.

Jesus purified us.

Think of it this way - if you invited a homeless person into your home to live - what would you do?

You’d provide him or her with clean clothes.

You’d show them the bathroom - provide them soap, shampoo, deodorant.

You’d give them a towel and a washcloth and you’d make sure they had plenty of hot water to shower with.

Wouldn’t you?

Or would you simply invite the person who has lived under the second street bridge in Macon to live in your house, in the same clothes.

Just tell them to sack out on your couch and make themselves at home?

Maybe you do that for a meal - you don’t do that to stay.

You would want them to be purified so they could live at peace with everyone else.

Our sins stink to high heaven.

The ones we so easily say, “forgive us of our sins,” they stink to high heaven.

And Jesus purified us to make us His possession.

Now, I don’t care for how the ESV rendered the word possession.

I like the New English translation better - “He gave himself…to purify for himself a people who are truly his.”

Jesus frees us from sin, He makes it so we can regard God and He purifies us from our sins to make us special and treasured people who can live at peace in His Father’s house forever.

And we feel so special and we feel so treasured, we are so grateful for what we have become, that we become zealous - we really, really want to do good works.