Sermon Tone Analysis

We gather together today to mourn the loss of a brother, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, an uncle, and a friend, but we do not mourn as others do because most importantly the one whose loss we mourn this afternoon was a Christian.

Hope is a good a theme for us to center our thoughts this afternoon.

I don’t think it was any coincidence that James and Judy and Jimmy came our way.

When they started visiting with us at Northeast you could tell James was sincerely seeking to be right with God.

He carried around a lot of guilt from which he so desperately wanted to be free.

He made the decision to put on Christ in baptism, having his sins washed away and it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders, his guilt was gone.

He often expressed his joy and thankfulness for what God had done for him.

James had hope.

He loved to be at church in the presence of God with the people of God.

Anytime I saw him after his surgery, what he always said, if he said anything was how much he missed coming to church and being with his church family and that he was going to come back as soon as he was able.

Unfortunately for us he never joined us again, but fortunately for him he got his wish in a way he may not have expected.

Because of his faith, his hope was realized, I believe he is now in the presence of God with the people of God.

Immediately he loved his brethren

He always talked about going on a fishing trip

1 Pet.

1.3

Language of cleansing and rebirth.

Heb.

10.19-

I want to talk about this hope in slightly different terms.

James, at least in the time that I knew him, was not in great health.

He was feeble, he was frail, he was… He hoped to regain his health.

I believe James’s prayers were answered.

2 Cor.

4.16-18

The Apostle Paul then goes on to describe how God will give us a new body in heaven that will be much better than the earthly body that we have now.

He describes our earthly body as a tent, that is wasting away and will be destroyed.

But our heavenly body will be a house build by God himself.

Paul goes on to say that he has hope, he is of good courage because he knows that God will give him this body and that he will be at home with God one day.

It is because of that hope that Paul says he makes every effort to please God knowing that we will be judged for what we do in the body.

How can we have that same hope?

Heb.

2 Cor.

5.11

,

Now is the favorable time, now is the day of salvation.

God in His grace, has made it possible to be reconciled to Him through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

He has called us not to receive the grace of God in vain but to be new creatures who live for Him who died for us.

In this He has given each one of us hope of a new body, a new home with him in eternity.

Heb

May we all live with the hope that James had in his final months and because of that hope, that love and the grace that was out poured on our behalf let us endeavor to live each moment not for our own sake but for the sake of the one who died on our behalf.

Will you bow with me?