Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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Our call to worship this morning comes from Ephesians 3: 20, 21:
*Silent Prayer*:  Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus, let’s take a moment as we continue to prepare ourselves for this morning’s church service.
Let us come before our Lord God in silent and individual prayer…
……………………………………………………..
Lord God, may what we say and do and think, be to your everlasting glory,
In Jesus name we pray,
Amen
*Greeting*: Congregation of our Lord Jesus, our help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth
Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit
Amen
*Singing: *Let’s remain standing as we sing some more, praising our Lord
*Confession~/Assurance*
*Please turn with me to Lords Day One in the Book of Forms:*
*…………………*
*Let’s pray*
Father God, we stand before you, deeply humbled.
We realize Lord that we have again sinned against you in so many ways.
Please forgive us Lord.
Forgive us and give us continuing strength, father God, to live our lives in honour of your great mercy to us.
Lord, and even as we pray for your forgiveness now, we come before you deeply thankful.
Thank you Lord that we may know that you made it possible for us to approach Your throne, through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
As we worship you now, Father God, make us wholly aware of all these things, and guide us in your love - In Jesus’ name we pray  - Amen
 
*Brothers and sisters, let’s respond in song.
Let’s sing BoW 103A (Praise My Soul)*
 
*Just before we call on             to lead us in pastoral and offertory prayer, lets take time for the offering this morning.
The offering is for *
*Offering*
*Prayer (                                                )*
*Bible reading:  Roman **11:33** – 12:2 (                                    )*
*Lets sing again, this time BoW 432 (A New Commandment)*
* *
*Sermon*
Our text is the firs two verses of Romans 12… \\ \\
Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus, I want to start by saying something we might not want to hear.
I want to start by saying…
 – to be a Christian - is exceptionally difficult!
It is the kind of stuff that potentially will make you sweat blood …
like it did our Lord Jesus the night he was betrayed in the garden at Gethsemane.
Have you found this to be true, or is it just me?
Let me stick my neck out even further …unless you struggle with your daily walk with the Lord, while living in this world,
            you are either exceptionally blessed or
                        …we need to reconsider how serious, how committed we are about our                       Christianity.
Why?
Because the price Jesus paid for our salvation, is just too high to gloss over what it means to be a Christian.
We really need to be serious about it.
And we should stop living in denial.
We do actually know how we should live our lives – that part has never changed – and it is still all there in the Bible.
All to often, however, we  read the Bible …if we still read it at all …to endorse our own lifestyles, don’t we?  – not to learn from the Word of God what he wants!
The bible, read this way, then becomes, of course, our permission to live the way we want to … and yet still claim we are Christians.
That way we can have it both ways…
When we read it this way, we can get the bible to say
            that it is ok to cheat a bit on our taxes;
                        it’s ok to be homosexual or adulterous;
And so we don’t have to change the way we live.
– No! That’s just too difficult.
Brothers and sisters, many of us have become really good at justifying our worldly lives       – and we are getting better at it - we practice at it daily…
 
But how much do we practice at being good Christians?
Can it be that we have forgotten the reason why we should…
             and should want to …
                        live lives holy and acceptable to the Lord, to live Christian lives?
Paul in our text, reminds us that that it is because our reward has already been secured for us… that is why we should do our utmost to want to live lives that are right with the Lord – not live “holy” lives so that we might get ourselves into heaven!
* *
*And that’s where our text kicks in…*
*Therefore*…Paul says in 12:1
Paul is saying, I am going to remind you how we should live our lives so that it will reflect a Christian sincerity – and why?
            …therefore!
 
The reason I am now going to call on you to consider how you live your lives, Paul says, is that which I have just shared with you in the preceding chapters of Romans.
"Therefore" clearly refers here to all the blessings of salvation that are ours in Christ.
Let’s look at a few: \\ -in Christ we are (already) justified by faith (4:1f) – Therefore!
\\ -in Christ we have peace with God (5:1f) – Therefore!
\\ -in Christ we have been made righteous (5:12f) \\ -in Christ we are dead to sin and raised to new life (6:1f) \\ -in Christ we are set free from sin and misery and are able to follow the Spirit (7:1f) \\ -in Christ there is no condemnation (8:1f) \\ -in Christ we are free not to walk after the flesh but after the Spirit (8:5f) \\ -in Christ we are daughters~/sons and heirs of God (8:12f) \\ -in Christ we have a glorious future hope (8:18f) \\ -in Christ our prayers are heard (8:26f) \\ -in Christ God works everything for our ultimate good (8:28) \\ -in Christ we are elect (8:29) \\ -in Christ no charges are laid against us (8:33) \\ -in Christ we are conquerors (8:37) \\ -in Christ nothing can separate us from God's love (8:38f) \\ -in Christ we are grafted into the tree of Israel and are now part of the people of God (11:11f)
Therefore!
Because of "God's mercy," Paul is saying… "Therefore … I urge you, brothers and sisters, to do something ..."
To do really only two things specifically…(which by the way, brothers and sisters was quite different to the many laws that the Jews felt they had to adhere to be right with God.
No, Paul says, do these two things, I urge you …
Lets look at the two things…
/ Pause…………../
 
Firstly, you are to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, he says;
           
            And secondly, you are to avoid becoming like the unbelievers in world we live in;       to not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but transformed.
\\ \\ *Offer Your Bodies as Living Sacrifices*
How are we to offer our bodies living sacrifices?
The short answer is found in 1 Cor 6:20, where we are see we are to glorify God in our body.
Our body is to be used to give thanks to God for His wondrous mercy in Christ.
\\ \\
Here of course we have to admit, we already run into the concept of it being difficult to be a Christian, even more so for those caught up in the ways of the unbelieving world.
It is really difficult to be set apart, as the Bible says?
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle in some cases, our Lord says
 
It is so much easier to conform to the world, isn’t it?
Lock, stock and body, we might add…
For in our own time, we know all too well what the world suggests we should do with our bodies…the media for one forces it down our throats.
And it is easy to get caught up in it,
not stopping for a moment to even try and consider whether, or how, we may or may not be honouring God in the way we act.
But we should consider it…in honour and thanks for the biggest sacrifice ever made …         Jesus on the cross on our behalf.
– that’s why we should offer our bodies as sacrifices.
And that doesn’t mean we should be killed, or tortured, or kill each other – it means we should love one another to the extent that we do so even if it is a self-offering on my part.
But instead … we squeeze every last bit of sensual pleasure out of our bodies, for our sake…by means of drugs, or alcohol abuse; sexual freedom (which really means I want to sleep with whom I want when I want);
            we flaunt the human body (the temple of Christ) so that we may get material or           sensual mileage out of it.
/Pause…/
Brothers and sisters, Paul, I am sure does not suggest we be prudish.
Paul does not say we should not enjoy the many pleasures this world, God’s world, offers us, also in our bodies.
For example, Paul does not say that sex as such is sin – on the contrary – he says a man and a women, a married couple, should enjoy their sexual union.
He even cautions them not stay away from each other, sexually speaking, for too long – for that indeed may lead to one of the two or both succumbing to undue seduction and to sin.
Just so, partaking in a little wine is good for the body…
            – but it is when we take to unnatural practices regarding our bodies, that we sin.
Like the new phenomenon (or perhaps an old phenomenon but with a new name – binge drinking!
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