Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome & Announcements: Daniel

1. Sunday School - Slated to begin January 9th after a brief training time.

2. Small Groups - Slated to start meeting on January 13th, we will be meeting at Daniel & Lynette's new house (aka Jared & Chrystal's old house).

Call to Worship in Song:

Great Is Thy Faithfulness, Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing

Scripture Reading:

Old Testament Text: Psalm 103:6-14

New Testament Text: 2 Timothy 2:8-13

Testimony Time: Daniel will Introduce the Testimony

Brittany

Offering & Pastoral Prayer: Daniel

Adoration

God of Grace

God of Mercy

Confession

Thanksgiving

Norman & Kaye

Uriah’s Surgery

Supplication

Bob Mallow

Marian Mason

Paul & Vienna Broadwater

The Offering

Prayer

The new year allows us to pause and reflect back on this past year as we consider the year to come.

Why is it important to look back?

It is an understatement to say that looking back is important in the Scriptures.

Over and over again, God reminds His people to look back and to “Remember”

Deuteronomy 5:15 (ESV)

15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

The people were to remember all that God had done.

Every feast that Israel was to partake in was an act of remembering an event that God had done in their midst.

The remembering was intentional and purposeful.

It was to guard them from thinking too highly of themselves.

Because the danger in this new land is that they would forget where they came from and who brought them there.

The LORD warned the people that if they went into the land and did not remember

In the book of Ephesians, Paul gives one of the most beautiful pictures of what it means to be saved by grace for the believer.

He begins chapter 2 by explaining that you and I were once dead in our trespasses and sins.

He goes on to say that we have been made alive with Christ by His abundant grace and mercy.

And he concludes by saying that believers were saved for good works which God had prepared beforehand in eternity past.

This passage should cause us to wonder at the beauty of the gospel in our lives.

But what he says next is striking.

Ephesians 2:11 (ESV)

11 Therefore remember....

Because of everything I have just said to you, the fact that you were dead, God has made you alive by grace, and He did so for us to walk in good works.

Because of everything I have just said to you, remember.

Remember…

That is striking.

Paul is commanding us to looking back and recall something to mind.

He is not teaching something new to them in what he is commanding them to do.

He is telling them to look back and bring to mind something that I have just told you.

Peter O’Brien

[it] does not mean that they have actually forgotten what they were, only that Paul wants to call these matters to their attention so that they will have a greater understanding and appreciation of the past and the mighty reversal Christ has effected on their behalf.

The privileges which they now enjoy would be appreciated all the more if they reflected carefully upon the spiritual condition from which they had been rescued.

For Paul, he is calling them to reflect carefully upon their former spiritual condition.

The more appropriately they understand where they came from, the more appropriately they will respond.

The Gentiles would have been anyone who was not from Jewish linage.

Basically outside of the fold of the people of Israel.

Which is why Paul says in verse 11 that they are,

Ephesians 2:11 (ESV)

called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—

This is saying that the marker which made the Jewish people distinct, circumcision was never known by the Gentiles.

I want to highlight three main elements of remember, and they are pretty simple.

Past: Who We Were

Present: Who We Are

Future: Who We Will Be

Past: Who We Were

The first distinction which Paul says of the Gentiles former position he says in verse 12.

Ephesians 2:12 (ESV)

12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ...

Christless: Separated from Christ

The reality for the Gentile believer was they were at one time separated from Christ.

Paul wants to remind these now believers about their previous position.

He wants to remind them where they have come from.

He wants to remind them who they used to be in their former manner of life.

And brothers and sisters, we need to do the exact same thing.

We need to remember what our lives were before becoming a Christian.

We need to remember what God has formerly done in our lives, so that we make Him look greater.

Ephesians 2:12 (ESV)

...alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise...

Homeless & Friendless: Sojourner in a Foreign Land

He is reminding these now believers of their former status.

Have you ever wondered....

When I read the Old Testament, what happened to everyone else?

The answer to that question is found in the words alienated and strangers

Anyone who was outside of Israel was estranged from the citizenship of what it meant to be part of the people of God.

Ephesians 2:12 (NIV)

...excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise

Now there was an ability as a sojourner to become part of the covenant people, but that is not what Paul’s point is here.

His point is that they were at one time...

Christless: Separated from Christ

Homeless & Friendless: Sojourner in a Foreign Land

Ephesians 2:12 (ESV)

...and strangers to the covenants of promise

This means that these Gentiles who are now calling on the name of the Lord were at one time foreigners.

They were at one time aliens to covenants that God has made with His people.

His point is this: Remember WHO YOU WERE

Remember from where God has brought you!

Remember your former position with God!

He goes on to give one more descriptor....