Sermon Tone Analysis

Sequoias

(insert slide of redwood trees)

One of the things CA is known for is the sequoias or the redwood trees.

They are massive and some you can even drive a car through.

But what you may not know is that the roots of these giant sequoias are not deep, they spread out and are intertwined with each other.

The roots of the sequoias lie just below the surface but they can weather the worst of storms, how?

For they grow in groves and the roots intertwine with each other to hold each other up.

We as people are like the sequoias we need to grow in groves (we may call them churches).

alone the winds, storms of this life can take us out, but collectively when we are intertwined with each other the storms cannot break us.

As the sequoias grow and reach toward the sun, we as Christian’s when we grow together in groves reach toward the Son!

Our passage today we look at the call to holiness, personally and how collectively it helps us to grow together.

God called us by the Gospel

God called us to the mystery

God called us to unity

God called us to holiness, that is what we are looking at today.

I.

Call to Holiness

Eph4:

Eph4:190

So we are to live and work in unity, which means we need to walk away from vanity and the things that detour us from walking in unity to the fullness of Christ (re: 4:13)

Paul calls for people to come to the calling of holiness.

Holiness to obtain it by ourselves is impossible for without faith it is impossible to please God and holiness pleases God.

We need God to change us hence why David prayed.

We cannot do it, we need God to do it, but before God will change our heart we have to change our mind.

This is what Paul is talking about, we need to make the decide to make changes in our life because we are trying to grasp the riches we have in Christ Jesus, including the riches of His calling to holiness.

Ephesus was a gentile culture where temple prostitution was considered a form of worship to the goddess Diana, crime, immorality, idolatry were all common, and this is what many of the people there in Ephesus were coming out of and Paul is telling them don’t live like that anymore, that way is futile.

Then in (v.18-19) Paul goes on to tell us why they were like that, they were darkened, sin had no impact on them.

I heard a story about a old preacher Dr. Donald Barnhouse who shared a message about the repercussions of sin and a youngman came up after the service saying that sin did not effect him, he felt no guilt, no shame about it at all eventhough he knew it was wrong.

Dr. Barnhouse asked the youngman if he dropped a heavy weight on a dead man would he feel it?

The youngman said “no, he’s dead.”

Dr. Barnhouse replied that’s the point, if sin does not impact you, if you don’t feel it’s weight than you must be spiritually dead.

Don’t let there be a hardness of heart.

When the weight of sin loses its fear of the consequences in our lives then we are slowing spiritually dying.

Sin is grievous and we need to remember that always and not allow a hardness of heart to make us callous.

It sure does not promote unity within the body, nor maturity.

(Slide) These verses point out some very dangerous things.

(Slide) Petrified hearts -they no longer feel the weight and the grievousness of sin.

(Slide) Dominated by sin lost its shamefulness - they don’t even try to hide their sin, they don’t care who see’s anymore

(Slide) giving in to lustful desires they don’t care -they don’t think about who their sin impacts, they just give in to their own selfish desires.

Is this not the same problem we see in the world today and even slipping into the church too if we want to be honest.

People want to turn the eye to sin, nor call sin, sin, we want to make it not sound so grievous.

Now this is not the way you learned was it?

That is what Paul brings up.

You heard the truth, believed the truth, obeyed the truth, don’t be one who just knows about God, be one who knows God.

How we do that is by doing what we are doing today.

It is going further too, it is reading and studying God’s Word on your own.

That brings us to the next point Paul is trying to make in our call to holiness, the call to put off, and to put on.

(Insert a slide with two pictures on it, 1. graveclothes, 2. new man in Christ)

First you put off, you get rid of those old graveclothes then you put on a new way of doing things that is created in Christ Jesus in true righteousness and holiness.

Put off deceitful lust, that is a body killer, the spiritual body, the body of Christ.

this is not just a sexual thing, but a desire, a lust for anything the flesh desires, demands that we indulge ourselves in (ok for me sometimes it is food) we need to be careful

there is old adage that goes like this.

(Slide) “Lust is like a fire the more you feed it the more it demands.

The hotter it gets, the hotter it burns.”

- We need to put off deceitful lust and put on and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

Notice Paul says put off, put on, we need to do it, and it takes effort.

We cannot just sit there and think the transformation is going to happen, we need to get involved get up and get involved.

We learn to replace our old lifestyle with a new lifestyle in Christ.

Remember you change your mind, God will change your heart and will help you in your transformation through knowledge of him.

More than academic knowledge but true knowledge (which means application knowledge).

Now this call to holiness takes come cultivation.

II.

Cultivation of Holiness

Eph4:25

Eph4:28-

Eph4:30-31

So in other words, having laid aside, put off the old ways there are new ways of doing things, new lifestyle to learn about and to apply so as to protect the unity of the faith.

It starts with speaking truth (v.25) we put off lying and replace it with truth.

This is the truth we find in Christ Jesus (v.21).

We make telling the truth to our neighbor, or in other words sharing the truth with our neighbor our habit.

Peter said it another way.

One more quick point on this item before moving on.

There is speaking the truth, but then what about when we keep silent is there a falsehood that can happen there?

Yes there is look at 1Cor5 and you can see that, they were not saying anything about sin.

By our silence it is giving approval isn’t it?

So put off, and put on, be ready, then do it!

Speak the truth.

(Slide)Don’t let anger get the best of you!

Jesus did not let anger get the best of him, for anger was not His best, His best was to worship the Father and to do the things the Father told Him to do.

When he turned the tables of the money changers over it was because it was keeping people from worshipping the Father.

There were other times he was angry too, but you can research those yourself in the scripture.

There is a time and a place for anger, and a way, so we need to be very careful.

Anger can bring up unwholesome words (v.29) that does not promote unity within the body.

Anger can fester and open you up to the unwholesome things we have put off.

Don’t go to bed angry, have issues with wife, kids, husband, deal with it.

A neighbor, coworker or the like, handle it, don’t go to bed angry.

We want no root of bitterness to grow.

Anger, bitterness not only effects you, according to Heb12:15 “many’ be defiled.

It effects, impacts others.

So don’t go to bed angry.

Or in reality the scripture says “do not let the sun go down on your anger.”

So we have (THIS IS NOT ON A SLIDE)

Be honest, put away lying

Don’t let anger get the best of you

Now it brings us to stealing, stealing no more (v.28)

Not only are we not to steal and to work with our hands, but Paul gives a reason to do it, so you can help others.

See the Christian is to put others before themselves and to trust God for provision for their life.

Now comes the topic of the words that come out our mouth (v.29)

we are to build up, encourage, edify one another, it will be giving grace to those who hear.

Kingdom people have a different, or should, way of talking, the world murmurs, complains, curses, and corrupt communication, they fault-finding and filled with cynicism, whereas the Christian is to speak good words and to give grace!