Sermon Tone Analysis

Living with the Past

 *Title of Sermon*

o Living with the Past

 *Text to be preached: *

o Ephesians 2:1-10

Ž    *Introduction *

*#1: John Newton*

Who am I? I was an only child and lost my mother when I was seven years old.

I went to sea at the tender age of eleven and later became involved “in the unspeakable atrocities of the African slave trade.”

I plumbed the depths of human sin and degradation.

I was so depraved that even my crew became disgusted with me.

Once in a drunken stupor I  fell overboard, and my crew, in order to rescue me, threw a harpoon through my leg in order to reel me back aboard.

I still walk with a constant limp to remember how God could save such a wretch like me.

Who am I?

 

*#2: Nick Cruz*

Who am I? I was only 3-1~/2 years old when my heart turned to stone.

I was one of 18 children born to witchcraft-practicing parents.

I lived in Puerto Rico in 1957 where bloodshed and mayhem were common occurrences in my life.

I suffered severe physical and mental abuse at my parent’s hands, one time I was declared the "Son of Satan" by my mother while she was in a spiritual trance.

Tough, but lonely, by age 16 I became a member of the notorious Brooklyn street gang known as the Mau Maus (named after a bloodthirsty African tribe).

I was Lost in the cycle of drugs, alcohol, and brutal violence, my life took a tragic turn for the worse after a friend and fellow gang member was horribly stabbed and beaten and died in my arms.

I was arrested countless times, a court-ordered psychiatrist pronounced my fate as "headed to prison, the electric chair, and hell."

No authority figure could reach me - I even met a skinny street-preacher named David Wilkerson.

I beat him up, spit on him and, on one occasion, seriously threatened his life.

Who am I?

 

*#3: Joni Erricson Tada*

Who am I? I was born in 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland.

I have three sisters; my father; was a creative, artistic man who could turn his hand to anything.

My family and I enjoyed outdoor activities like, tennis, hiking and swimming.

I was an immature and headstrong teenager.

And on July 30th, 1967 I had a diving accident and was paralyzed from the neck down.

After weeks in a special frame I began rehab and physical therapy at a nursing home- I battled with depression and self pity.

Who am I?

 

Now if you had a choice, to be one of these people and live their life as described just moments ago…who would you pick?

 

drunk, gangster, quadrapalegic?

Was it impossible to pick?

Was there a part of you that rejected that choice?

Did you look at your life and compare it to yours?

Are they really all that different from us?

 

  *Transitional statement to proposition*

 

Did you know their life would eventually turn around?

Now I will tell who they are at the end of the sermon but for now let me ask you, How could something so tragic turn out to so good?

How did they persevere from such a disastrous past?

What changed in them to overcome there sinful past?

 

*How were they able live with past?

*

 

*  Proposition*

Tonight, let’s explore 3 foundational truths that will teach you and I how to live with the past and be transformed from “mess to masterpiece”.

‘ * Transition statement to overview*

These three foundational truths are as follows:

 

’    *Overview your outline*

*I.

We Were Ruined By Sin (Ephesians 2:1-3)*

*II.

We Were Rescued by God (Ephesians 2:4-9)*

*III.

We Were Redesigned for Service (Ephesians 2:10)*

“  *Transition to Outline*

Let’s now open our bible to Ephesians 2:1-10

 

”* Background of the Book*

Now The Ephesian church was located in Ephesus, a leading center in the Roman Empire.

Paul had spent a short time in Ephesus during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:19-22).

And three years (Acts 20:31) during his third missionary journey.

In Ephesus Paul baptized a dozen of John the Baptist’s followers (Acts 19:1-7).

He preached to the whole province, both Jews and Greeks (19:8-10).

Unusual miracles occurred (19:11-12) and sorcerers were converted (19:17-20), and the city rioted while he preached the word  (19:23-41).

Did you know, that Paul was a prisoner at the time he wrote this letter (Eph.

3:1; 4:1; 6:20) We know from the book of revelation the Ephesian church kept out false teachers (Rev.

2:2) but many years later after Paul’s ministry they had failed to love Christ (Rev.

2:4).

In fact, one-sixth of all the references to “love” appear in this small epistle to the Ephesians.

The Book of Ephesians focus is on the church:

Chapter 1 – The church is a body, temple, mystery, new creation, a family, and a soldier.

Chapters 1 – 3 focus on the calling of the church, that is how it came about

Chapters 4 – 6 focus on the conduct of the church, that is how it is to obey.

Let’s now look specifically at Chapter 2 verses 1 through 10.

Let reading together verses 1 through 3:

 

*Ephesians 2:1-3** 1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

3Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.(NASB95)

*

* *

*¤** Door of Emotion*

Imagine surfing the internet and you come to a web page:  www.y

o u.com  On the web page  at you.com, is a series of photographs of yourself.

When you were a baby, toddler, adolescent, teenager, adult, etc.

But these are no ordinary photo’s, they have you in series of special poses, curiously you notice there are no photos of you doing anything good and pleasing for God, instead they are special photos catching you disobeying God.

Then under each photo is a caption, trespasses, sins, lusts, indulgences, pride, and the headline over all these picture is “child of wrath”.

Now you are thinking, how can I turn off that website!

But Here Paul, unashamedly, writing to the believers does not ignore their past.

He reminds them!

But Paul is not writing to condemn them.

Notice he is not naming names nor naming specific sins.

He is trying to help them understand their past life of sin and to look at their past properly from God’s perspective.

He does not want them to minimize their past nor re-write their past and say it was not all that bad.

Œ*  Homiletical Point: *

*In summary, these 3 verses tell us they  “We Were Ruined By Sin (Ephesians 2:1-3)*

* *

Look at his description:

 

*You were Dead! *

This death is not physical death but spiritual unresponsiveness.

This describes “a person unable to respond to God because of moral badness or spiritual separation and alienation, in other words they are powerless to please God” They are unable to respond to God rightly.

This person is alive physically, but spiritually dead.

This deadness is further defined by two key words: Trespasses and sins.

First, notice that they are plural.

Meaning- more than just one, more than even a few, inummurable, too many to count.