Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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Anger
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Introduction
Let me tell you a brief story about a young African American couple, Darryl and Joyce.
They live in a densely populated urban city in America.
They’re both musicians who met while they were each pursuing a master’s degree in music at a prestigious conservatory.
And together they attend and serve in the music ministry at an ethnically diverse church in their city.
I interviewed this couple during my dissertation research.
And many of my interview questions were intended to provoke an emotional and a thoughtful response.
One group of questions that consistently produced that emotional and thoughtful responses were these: What does is feel like to be “your ethnicity” at your church?
(I wouldn’t ask it in that generic way.
I’d be specific.)
How often do you think about your ethnicity at your church?
In what ways has that changed since you began attending this church?
When I asked Darryl what it felt like to be Black at his church, he said,
“I can’t really be Black in my church.”
Of course, I wanted to know what he meant by that.
He said,
“I mean, the things I would do if I was in a more Black setting, I can’t do that.
I often suppress it.
If I want to worship God, I’m very expressive, and I’m going to express it with my whole being.
The culture of All Saints church is pretty much the opposite.
If they call me to play the organ, it’s a Hammond B organ, but I’m not going to play it the way you would hear it in a Black church.
It’s the same organ, but it’s going to be something they can relate to.”
Now he’s been a member of that church for five years now.
So, obviously he stayed even though he felt like he had to suppress a part of himself.
And he’s still a part of the music team.
Why is that?
He said,
“I used to get upset that I have to suppress it.
Over time I’ve learned to see things from everyone’s perspective.
I’ve been learning over the years how to deny myself.
I hope that it can be the other way around too―that they can deny themselves too and we can assimilate across the different cultures…”
Then, his wife Joyce added this,
“I prefer to hear gospel music played.
I prefer to actually play gospel music.
And those things are fine to prefer.
But really, at the end of the day, my growth with Christ isn’t based on preferences.
Actually, it’s a stripping away of my preferences.”
“We’re supposed to be ministers of reconciliation,” Darryl said, “and we really need to see that in our city.”
What does it look like in practice to be a reconciled community?
One of the things that has been explicitly clear―if you’ve been paying any attention to events over the past few years in America―it’s been explicitly clear that we don’t live in a land where reconciliation is the norm.
You might be weary of all the talk and issues that surround race in this land.
You might be angered or grieved by the ongoing evidence of this problem.
When will it end?
How will the strife be done away with?
We need to be perfectly clear.
The only true and permanent Reconciler is Jesus Christ.
What is absolutely necessary is for the members of Jesus’ church to be ministers of reconciliation.
And that begins with his church living as a reconciled community.
Should Darryl have to feel as though he has to suppress his racial identity at All Saints Church?
Probably not.
Should All Saints church be aware of its preferences and how their African American musician was feeling, and what he was experiencing?
Yes.
But Jesus is the reason Darryl can say, “I’ve been learning over the years how to deny myself.”
Jesus is the reason Joyce can say, “My growth in Christ isn’t based on my preferences.
It’s based on the stripping away of my preferences.”
What’s more, they both had grown in thankfulness to God for this Christian community even though things were not the way they wanted it to be.
Gratitude is the attitude that Jesus Christ creates in his people.
Did you notice that in these three verses?
The tagline, almost like an add on at the end of each verse is thankfulness and gratitude.
In this movement of gratitude, we see peace, place, and practice Grateful in Peace, Grateful in Place, and Grateful in Practice.
Grateful in Peace
This chapter and section of Colossians is primarily about instructions on how the church is supposed to live in light of what Jesus Christ has done for us.
“Since, therefore, you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on the things above, not on earthly things.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Since Jesus is the Father’s right-hand man with all power and authority to effect God’s will and to protect his own people, then the Christian life should be entirely oriented by reference to him (Dunn).
This life is a life of putting off and putting on.
Put to death what is earthly in you because you’ve put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its Creator.
Therefore, put on, as God’s chosen ones, who are holy and loved, tenderheartedness, compassion, kindness, gentleness, humility, patience, forgiving one another.
And above all these things, put on love, which is the binding glue of perfection.
This life is not about me or you as individuals.
God isn’t just making a new “me,” he’s making a new “we.”
And this reconciled community of Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and free are holy and loved together.
They’re to be putting earthly things to death and putting on love together.
That is absolutely clear in our first point, grateful in peace.
He says in v. 15, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.
And be thankful.”
The desire for peace is not new.
The fact that in this world we are regularly confronted with violence, injustice, war, disruption, disharmony, and division is nothing new.
We long for peace, but the world has never known how to get it.
This is in part because peace is not simply calmness.
Peace is not simply the absence of strife.
There were riots in Charlotte, NC last week, but Charlotte was not at peace before people rioted.
There are no riots taking place outside of these doors, but that doesn’t mean that we live in a city of peace; not in the biblical sense of the word.
Peace isn’t just the absence of strife or hostility; it is the presence of well-being.
It is the presence of wholeness, flourishing, and prosperity.
It is all things working as they ought.
So here Paul says, “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”
To be a Christian means to be at peace with God.
Jesus Christ reconciles us to God.
We are God’s enemies.
We are at war with God.
That’s a losing battle, but we don’t care.
That is how life is apart from faith in Jesus Christ.
This is why Paul says in 1:19-22,
Jesus Christ is our peace.
He is our only hope for peace with God.
What that means is that in Jesus Christ we are restored to wholeness and flourishing in our relationship with God.
So, Paul says, “let the peace of Christ, this peace that Christ has established, and brought you into, let that rule your hearts.”
The command is for something to rule.
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