Sermon Tone Analysis

How to Change Your Life.

Who is your favorite player?

NFL? NBA? MLB? NHL?

What if they were traded and had bad attitude on the team?

Who is your favorite reporter?

What if he/she changed networks?

And talked about how much they missed the old network?

What is the best care you have had?

What if someone gave you a new one and all you did was talk about how good the old car was, unappreciative of the new one?

Our human, sinful nature is resistant to change.

We like to play “god” and be in charge, and keep things under our control and in our comfort Zone.

But What if God has something better for you?

5 Kinds of Attitudes About Change

1. Early innovators (2.6%), run with new ideas

2. Early adaptors (13.4%), influenced by (1) but not initiators

3. Slow Majority (34%), the herd-followers

4. Reluctant Majority (34%)

5. Antagonistic (16%), they will never change

The majority of ministers are being nibbled at by the last group.

They focus on the minority opinion.

This group is basically carnal.

You expect antagonism from them.

Stages of Change

1. Resistance to change

2. Tolerant of change

3. Embrace the change

READ PASSAGE: Unity and diversity come together to benefit our spiritual formation.

Walk is often used in Scripture for conduct in life, general demeanor, and deportment.

There are contrasting ways of walking, thinking, and living in this passage.

BEFORE I was a Christian.

AFTER I Became a Christian.

These are competing for your MIND, HEART, and BODY.

BEFORE - Like the Gentiles (multitudes of people / Nations).

AFTER - Like a new man IN JESUS.

A prisoner can stand in court and be convicted of his crime, or pardoned, or acquitted of all charges.

When he leaves the court, either as a free man or in handcuffs, his condition changes, but not his character.

Not true in God’s court.

When we are confronted with Jesus and His Gospel, we leave not only in a different condition, but with a new character of heart and life.

“In the vanity of their mind” = the futile and empty thoughts.

17

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (ματαιότης)

a. what is devoid of truth and appropriateness: ὑπέρογκα ματαιότητος (gen. of quality), 2 Pet.

2:18.

b. perverseness, depravation: τοῦ νοός, Eph.

4:17.

c. frailty, want of vigor: Ro. 8:20.

Worldliness is not so much what we do, but how we think and what we love: We have generations of Christians that think and love just like the Pharisees “as long as I don't do these things I can have as bad an attitude as I want because I love my works."

Not good.

“Change Your Brain; Change Your Life.” - Dr. Dan Amen

10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Self Change)

Everybody thinks of changing Humanity and Nobody thinks of changing Himself.

- L. Tolstoy, Russian writer who wrote War and Peace.

What we do (actions) and what we love (affections) are indications of how we are thinking.

Before your thinking is effected, the heart must change.

Priorities change.

This affection changes when we are confronted with the Gospel and believe in Jesus.

All parts of your being can change (according to this passage) by the power of the GOSPEL.

Knight’s Master Book of New Illustrations (The Change Came the Other Way)

An Italian woman, whose husband had accepted the Gospel and joined a Protestant church, was asked, “Is it true that your husband has changed his religion?”

“No,” answered she, “but his religion has changed him.

Formerly he had no religion, but now he has accepted one that must be very good, because it has changed him so.

You must have noticed that he does not get drunk.”

Eph 4:17 begins a new section to 6:9, dealing with the after effects of being “In Christ.”

These are logical conclusions of life change that takes place for the followers of Jesus.

How can I Change?

22-24

The “Replacement Principle;” a Before and After Perspective.

Hit the ON/OFF Button Daily.

Keep Changing Daily.

A little boy once said, “How hard it is to do right!”

and so hard did he find it, that, after a while, he added, “It’s of no use trying.”

But he was a boy who had learnt to read and understand the Bible; and one day he thought to himself, “Why!

I have been trying to change myself all this time; and here I read that only God can change me.

How foolish I have been not to ask him!”

Ask God to change you and submit to His leading and teaching and changing.

Understand the Need for Change.

WHY?

Walking requires looking ahead to navigate the path.

17

Seeing requires the blinders be lifted off our eyes.

18

We are being changed to be more like Jesus!

Know that Change is Healthy.

HOW? Change is good:

A seed becomes a plant.

A child becomes an adult.

An immature becomes mature.

An ignorant becomes informed.

A novice becomes experienced.

A new Christian becomes an experienced Christian.

Change is possible by the power of the resurrection and the Spirit of Christ Who now lives in you!

Today's Best Illustrations, Volumes 1-4 (Religion and Change)

If your religion does not change you, then you should change your religion.—Elbert

Hubbard.

Identify What Can be Changed: WHAT?

What can be changed?

Pick any singular problem, issue, habit, choice, or thing and by God’s grace it can be changed.

Your life can change for the better and for God’s glory.

Your life may still have hardship and the effects and consequences of sin and choices may still be there - but you can be changed!

Hit the ON/OFF Button Daily.

Keep Changing Daily.

“Renewed” (23) appears to be past tense, but the idea is “being renewed.”

“Renewing and renewed” is the same root word.

The starting point for being renewed is when you became a Christian.

From that moment - You are a new man / woman.

We are being renewed daily in our lives.