Sermon Tone Analysis

Brother Heyward and His Elevated Cholesterol

My doctor told me that my cholesterol was elevated and that i needed to drastically change my eating lifestyle.

I had a three month window before my next doctor visit.

For the three months i put forth a strong effort to change my diet.

So when i went to windows and ordered two bacon cheese burgers and a large french fry, i also ordered a diet coke to offset the meal.

When i went to Popeye's to get a 2 piece with fries.

i made sure not to forget my diet coke and even a bottled water.

When i went back to the doctor, and took my test, the doctor reported that there had been no change.

Some Christians have been trying to have lifestyle change by depending on a Sunday diet coke while while living a junk food lifestyle, and then wonder why there has been no progress in our spiritual lives.

God wants us to become acquainted with the Holy Spirit and his work so that we can be clear about how he transforms our lives through the revealed message of the Gospel.

Today i want to speak about the Implications of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit., which is, “If He is In You, He owns You

Part of the conversion experience is to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The bible declares in the historical birthday of the church, the first Pentecost after the resurrection, that about three thousand souls repented and were baptized for the remission of sins, and subsequently recieved the “gift of the Holy Spirit”.

This is echoed redundantly in Pauline epistles as we are encouraged by passages such as “If any have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his” ().

He is provided to us as an earnest (down payment) that we are God’s inheritance.

It is by the Holy Spirit, that we have been sealed and anointed ().

Within the very passage of our study this morning, Paul provides a declaration:

Gospel declarations are good news.

However, it is not always the declaration we struggle with, but the implication that address out situations.

So to appreciate the declaration, i need you to see the situation, that makes Paul draw an implication from his declaration.

I.

The Situation

The City of Corinth:

An influential Greco-Roman city where Paul spent an approximate 18 months during his second missionary journey in about AD 50-52.

An influential Graeco-Roman city in the Peloponnesus region where Paul spent 18 months on his second missionary journey

This city was the third largest city of the Romans empire and was rich with tremendous cultural diversity making it a hub for paganism and a hotbed of immorality.

Excavations have shown that Corinth was home of many diverse pagan deities such as Apollo, Athena, Aphrodite to which their were temples dedicated to their worship.

The Isthmian games focused their attention on a temple dedicated to Poseidon.

Part of the accepted activity within the culture of Corinth was that some would go to this temples that has priestess who were prostitutes who uses sexual activity as a means of worship.

To justify this activity their was an attitude that permeated the Corinthian cultural that all things were lawful or permitted, and that the body was designed to fulfill its appetites since God would destroy it anyway while preserving the soul/spirit of a man.

This led to an accepted loose living.

It is within this context that Paul provides a declaration that had some implications to address a situation.

What is the situation....

Accepted and Endorsed Immorality, and in particular men going to the temples to engage in temple prostitution.

It is one thing to struggle with sin and quite another to have a disposition of accepting sin.

Watch the attitude:

The attitude of the Corinthians is reflected in the statement in the “a” clause “All things are Lawful, which is contrasted antithetically with, But all things are not beneficial.

This Idea is once again restated, “all things are lawful, But i will not be mastered by anything.

Paul is correcting the mentality of the Corinthian men in this context who were accepting immoralities under the notion that everything in the body is permitted since it has nothing to do with the state of the soul.

There view of the body is reflected in another common corinthian saying, “Food for stomach, stomach for food, but God will destroy both.

In other words what i do with my body does not matter.

In their mind Christian Liberty Means License to Sin.

Paul argues that you cannot be joined to the Lord and be one flesh with a temple prostitute.

By doing so you sin against your body.

Look at these passages

Conclusion:

DEEP sea divers enter the water with tanks on their backs.

These tanks contain oxygen.

The purpose of these tanks strapped to their backs is so that they can make it in a foreign world.

Water is not their natural habitat; it’s not the normal place for them to live, so in order for them to survive in this foreign world of water, they need to be connected to a life source from their real world.

In order for them to make it in that world, they need air from this world.

In other words, if they get disconnected from the air from this world, they won’t last long in that world.

Their connectedness is the key to their survival because they weren’t meant to live in water.

So they borrow from this world in order to live in that world.

That life source in the life of a Christian is the Holy Spirit.

God has given the Christian a life source because this world to the Christian is foreign territory.

In order to live here and make it, you need to be connected to a life source from your real world.

If you get disconnected from the life source from your real world, you won’t make it in this world as a Christ follower.

You’ll be gagging for air that this world doesn’t offer because it’s foreign territory.

This life source comes through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.457