Sermon Tone Analysis

When people say God does not want us to party… um are you crazy?

The parties the Israelites threw shames the parties of today.

Especially, when victory is won!

Check out Rome.

Plutarch’s description of the three-day Triumph given the Roman General Aemilius Paulus upon his return from capturing Macedonia.

Oh there were … Great scaffolds were erected in the forum and along the boulevards of Rome for spectator seating, and all of Rome turned out, dressed in festive white.

On the first day, 259 chariots displayed in procession the statues, pictures, and colossal images taken from the enemy.

On the second day, innumerable wagons bore the armor of the Macedonians.

As Plutarch tells it:

… all newly polished and glittering; the pieces of which were piled up and arranged purposely with the greatest art, so as to seem to be tumbled in heaps carelessly and by chance: helmets were thrown upon shields, coats of mail upon graves; Cretan targets, and Thracian bucklers and quivers of arrows, lay huddled amongst horses’ bits, and through these there appeared the points of naked swords, intermixed with long Macedonian sarissas.

All these arms were fastened together with just so much looseness that they struck against one another as they were drawn along, and made a harsh and alarming noise, so that, even as spoils of a conquered enemy they would not be held without dread.

Following the wagons came 3,000 carrying the enemies’ silver in 750 vessels, followed by more treasure.

On the third day came the captives, preceded by 120 sacrificial oxen with their horns gilded and their heads adorned with ribbons and garlands, next Macedonian gold, then the captured king’s chariot, crown, and armor.

Then came the king’s servants, weeping, with hands outstretched, begging the crowds for mercy.

Next came his children.

Then King Perseus himself, clad entirely in black, followed by endless prisoners.

Finally came the victorious general,

… seated on the chariot magnificently adorned, dressed in a robe of purple, interwoven with gold, and holding a laurel branch in his right hand.

All the army, in like manner, with boughs of laurel in their hands, divided into their bands and companies, followed the chariot of their commander; some singing verses, according to the usual custom songs of triumph and the praise of Aemilius’s deeds.

Wow look at the celebration of victory.

This is a small picture of the great victory we have in Christ.

What Christ accomplished and what He had overcome is so far beyond what we have seen and what many many many have celebrated over the years pictured in all world history.

None of it has lasted the sands of time, except the celebration of the victory of God that many devout Christians celebrate everyday and even more celebrate ever week on the Lord’s Day.

The death, The burial, and The pivotal resurrection of Christ, God the Father demonstrated a great victory over the evil powers of this world, in effect making “a public spectacle of them.”

He wants us to see that though they still exist, they are defeated.

Thus, we need no longer fear the outcome of our battle with evil.

Yet we do.

Many of us still live in fear concerning the things that are around us, the powers that be, those who have the power and maybe even the ability to ruin us in every possible way.

We as the church fear the world.

We fear the people.

We fear the circumstance and situations that happen because of current cultural endeavors.

We fear the media, we fear the press, we fear the very expressive person that lives down the street.

We fear what people will do to us if we speak the truth.

We have seen many Pastors and church leaders who cannot answer questions on the biggest platforms showing the wold world that we fear man!

We are afraid of everything that the Lord has already defeated.

Its already done, the victory is won, the enemies have been paraded across the world.

Why do we fear?

We fear because it is not our lives we are worried about… it is our lifestyle.

And the pattern of this world is in control of that.

We want the defeated enemies can give.

And so God has ripped them of their power and we are giving it right back to them.

We are loving the world and we are afraid that they wont love us back.

He delivered us from Egypt and all we want to do is go back.

Why do we do this?

This is what we needed to be delivered from.

This is what we needed to be shown.

This is why Christ had to die.

We will overcome this.

We will defeat this… Because they are already defeated.

Christ has conquered!

We have conquered!

And we will conquer!

The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.

Dead in Sin

Alive with Christ

The Greatest Victory

The first thing we will look at today is the all important subject of what it means to be totally depraved or dead in sin.

The second thing we will explore is what the Lord had done to bring us forgiveness and bring us from death to being alive in Christ.

Finally, we will see not just the beauty of forgiveness but the actual great victory that was won and that their ain’t no party like a Christian party cause a Christian party don’t … Stop.

Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to forget the defeat of all that we fear and the dead seduction of the defeated, it is the truth of the scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit that will help us to see that we not only have victory over the defeated and we are no longer dead, but that we will continue to be victorious over them in Christ; alive in Christ alone.

I. Dead in Sin

- Total depravity.

A. What does it mean for us to be totally depraved?

St. Augustine prayed “Lord command what you will, and grant what you command.

Ole Pelagius did not like the second part of the prayer.

No way… if that is the case then you are saying that we are morally unable to do what the Lord commands.

And so the debate began and still continues today.

B. Total depravity is not suggesting that we are as bad as we can be.

Shane people who are not Christian do good things everyday.

Right, it simply means that we are not as good as we should be.

And there is the button.

The reason we are confused with this is because of our incessant need to compare ourselves to others when we judge good things.

When the pollsters come out they ask the question if we believe that we humans are all basically good… majority in our culture will say yes.

Sure good people do bad things from time to time, but come on Shane nobody is perfect.

Ahhh but, when we do not judge right and wrong by looking at people as the standard, when we look at God it is a different thing.

God requires us to be perfect.

When we compare ourselves to the standard laid out by scripture as to what is right and wrong, we come up way short.

But Shane I’m not like those evil people out there who kill and rob banks they are way worse than me.

They are the evil ones not me.

They have real guilt not me.

C. Another thing… even when we do good it is suspect.

D. Motive is everything.

E. Argument with Jeanine and need her to make me dinner so I apologize.

F. This is what Paul is illustrating when he says that we were dead because of our sins.

The greek word is Nekros… dead.

Clearly and simply defined as a corpse.

We were spiritual corpses because of our sins.

And this should not be a surprise…

G. Paul is making is super clear that when Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they died along with all of humanity.

We died.

We are dead.

H.

The description is death.

It is a radical situation.

A radical situation that requires as radical solution.

See this is why we gotta stop saying things like we are broken in sin, we are weak in sin, we are stained in sin.

This is a result of our cultures high view of man a low view of God.

We were utterly corrupted tat we are dead… not broken.

Brokenness implies that we could be fixed.

Weak implies that we can be strengthened.