Sermon Tone Analysis

Illustration: Snow storm last time you had the retreat here…coming from Chicago we could have snow on the ground any where from October to April.

In order to make it around they would have snow routes…they would clear certain streets first so that the main routes would function well…if you got on the side streets it was really every man for himself.

My car was horrible in the snow.

I had a 2005 Nissan Altima 2005 that I bought from my mom.

When I bought the car it needed new tires so I figured, we will have the car fora while let’s go ahead and get a good set.

(70k).

I was slipping and sliding everywhere all winter and all spring I felt like the car was fighting itself.

I just thought, man I guess this car just drives weird…it will be a bit of a learning curve.

Summer time rolled around and my parents came up and we were out getting ice cream and my dad looked down as he was getting out of the car and he noticed something shiny on the side of my tire.

We both when over to get a closer look and you know what we saw?

(It wasn’t a penny!

It was something that was going to cost me a whole bunch of pennies!)

It was the steal belt.

My 70k miles tires lasted for about 8k because they were severely out of alignment.

I got new tires, but they wheels were not aligned.

They were put on properly, but they were never adjusted.

It made driving really difficult (trying to get “up” my driveway) - there are no hills…but I didn’t make it.

I tore through the neighborhood!!!

The tires were fine.

They were good tires but they were put on wrong.

All this to say, we have had the grace of the Gospel applied to us, but now we must align ourselves with the Gospels intentions if we are to make any progress down the road that is mark out for us.

Grace has appeared, been applied, and accepted, but now we need to align ourselves with God’s purposes.

What does that practically look like in our lives?

That is what we want to look at this morning.

God’s grace..

Trains us to renounce ungodliness.

Titus 2:12 (ESV)

12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions,

Training - Padewon learner - these young kids that are learning the ways of the master jedi.

Jedi in training.

παιδίον - child - What do you have to do with children? you train them.

παιδεία - instruction (is this something you do just one time?

(download a bunch of info and then they are able to be sent off in the world or the workforce and succeed?

No there is a learning curve or a learning process.

παιδεύω - training (on going) - (present active participle).

there is always more to learn…it is an ongoing process.

Illustration: Think about the Olympics that are coming up.

How many of you are excited about the Olympics?

How many of your wives are excited about it?

If the last time (Shawn White - worked on stuff over time.

Double McTwist 1260) - got to keep working on that one (Summit Trampoline park - ).

It is ongoing.

This word was the word Stephen used to describe how Moses ascended to a place of prominence in Egypt.

Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.

Pretty good education.

Acts 7:22 (ESV) 22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.

He could “talk like and Egyptian” and “walk like an Egyptian.”

(that was my only reference to the Benglas for the weekend…unless we start talking about the Chiefs game).

So anyway, instruction...we need to be provided with instruction so that we can begin forming a proper appetite for godly habits of behavior.

So we are God’s kids and we need to be TRAINED.

We need to receive His training.

His training is two fold in nature…there are things you need to cut out of your life…and then there are things that you need to add into your life.

Last night we looked at Death…this morning we are going to look at Burial, this afternoon we will look at Resurrection.

Q.

What do you do with dead things?

A. You bury them.

What do you do with a corpse?

You put it in the ground.

The call to Christ is a call to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow.

I mentioned this last week in the message time.Or to use the language Paul used to Titus you “renounce” them.

ἀρνέομαι: to refuse, to deny, to refuse to give thought to, to pay no attention to, to SAY “NO!”

This is the word Jesus used in Luke 9:23

Do you know the first thing that is required to follow Jesus?

Deny yourself.

The “yourself” that Jesus had in mind is “all of you.”

The entirety of “who you are” both body and soul, material and immaterial not “SHOULD” be DENIED, but “MUST” be DENIED.

The end goal of Christianity isn’t to have your life get better because you put Jesus bumper stickers on your car, as if He is some good luck charm.

The goal of you coming to Christ is to get you to recognize that apart from Christ you can do nothing.

“You can indulge every dark desire and explore every avenue of sin”…it will not be enough for you because to borrow the language of the prophet Jeremiah, you have forsaken the fountain of living water, and hewn out for yourself a broken muddy cistern that can hold no water.

What will it profit if we gain the whole world and forfeit our souls.

We must die to self and be raised up alive in Christ.

As Paul says to the Galatians the only thing that counts is “the new creation.”

(Gal.

6:15)

So once we are ‘new creations” we make it our ambition to keep denying ourselves by picking up a cross which is an instrument of torture that will assist in KILLING any remnants of the OLD YOU that occasionally pops up.

And then you carry it throughout the duration of your NEW LIFE and as you follow in the footsteps of a crucified Messiah.

That my friends is Christianity.

Who wants in?

The Gospel is never slotted easily into our lives without major adjustments to our lifestyles.

As Peter who left his nets.

Ask Matthew who left his lucrative tax collecting booth.

Ask Simon, who became zealous in a whole new way.

His grace has allows us to say no to the ungodliness and worldly passions that once controlled us.

We area able to do that because we have a bigger and grander and more controlling passion…we have tasted of His ridiculous grace and it has whet our appetite to be zealous for good works and so we want to do that which maximizes our enjoyment of God in our bodies.

So we say no to ungodliness and any and every type of ungodliness.

They all must be renounced and discarded.

They must be denied and deserted.

Forsaken and walked away from.

Every type of ungodliness.

I want you to think of one sinful thought, one sinful use of emotion or one sinful action that you just want just much to get rid of.

Maybe it you have tried so hard and just can’t seem to gain any ground on.

No advancement.

Or maybe 2 steps forward 3 steps back kind of.

What is it?

What is God revealing to you? Name it...

THOUGHTS (Lust, Pride, Apathy)

EMOTIONS (Anger, Anxiety, Depression and Despair)

ACTIONS (Gluttony, Sloth, Tongue Lashings)

This next section of teaching will apply to all of these sins, but I am going to take this opportunity to look at a rampant ungodliness that so often trips us men up.

The teaching will apply to any sin across the board, but I want to make sure I highlight one area of ungodliness that needs to have a hard “NO” screamed at.

The rampant use of Pornography.