Sermon Tone Analysis

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Introduction
Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.
We’re so thankful and blessed that you would join us this morning.
My wife and I are big fans of FixerUpper - well really she’s more of a fan, I’m just a tolerant watcher - but one of the greatest parts of the show and the most suspense filled part is when the individual’s who’s home is being remodeled are standing there in front of a huge picture of what their house used to look like.
And then there’s always the dramatic pause until the screen is pulled away to reveal what Chip and Joanna have done to their home and how beautiful it is.
There is just something beautiful about a before and after story.
And the greatest before and after stories in the world are those of people who have been redeemed by Christ.
Christ tells us in Luke 15 that there is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance.
And while every story has its own wrinkles and nuances, just like the FixerUpper shows they all share the same common storyline.
Today Paul is going to open up that story line for us so that we can again see the wonder of Christ working to save those who will put their faith in Him.
Please turn in your Bibles with me to Colossians 1:21-23.
Our Condition
Colossians 1:21; Ephesians 2:12; Romans 8:7-8; Romans 1:21; Isaiah 5:20
Paul wouldn’t have made a very good AYSO coach - or guidance counselor.
He was way too honest about the truth of the human condition.
And he does so here without any preamble or warning.
He’s just taken the Colossians to the mountaintop - to the very pinnacle of the Christian experience with his description of Christ in all His majesty as the revelation of God, as Creator of the universe and as the Originator and Head of the church.
And now in a matter of a few seconds he brings them and us crashing back to reality as he reminds us in very pointed language where we have come from.
He says that we were once alienated from God.
In this instance the idea of alienated carries the sense of being in isolation or having a deep sense of not belonging.
Elsewhere in the New Testament in Ephesians this word is used to describe the alienation of the Gentiles from the nation of Israel
There is a sense in which we may not assume this to be all that bad.
We may think of family members that we are alienated from - we don’t bear any ill will towards them or particular animosity, we just don’t make a huge effort to see them or talk to them.
So in the sense of being isolated from someone it’s just a state of being.
I have a cousin who I would consider myself alienated from - not because I bear him any ill will of have a dislike for him, but simply because we don’t quite see eye to eye on many things but especially religion and so we don’t talk that much.
I pray for him and hope that someday he gets saved but that’s the extent of it.
So we might be tempted to think that being alienated from God really isn’t all that bad - He’s always going to be there when we’re ready for Him.
Growing up in my days before truly being saved I can remember thinking that I was okay with God and He was okay with me.
He was right there at the end of my hand and any time I desired I could just reach my arm out there and take hold of Him.
But Paul’s next statement destroys that mindset.
He says that we are not only alienated or distant from God but we’re actually hostile in our minds toward God.
The world is not searching for Him - they’re searching for all the benefits of Him without Him.
In our hostility to God we seek ways to avoid Him and we’re running as fast as we can away from Him.
This all culminates in the perversion of our minds - what is known as the
Noetic effect of the Fall.
This concept comes from the Greek word nous which translates over to the English as noetic - and it means mental or pertaining to the mind.
The longer we are separated or alienated from God, the more hostile we become the more our mind becomes unable to discern right from wrong.
It is a bit like the character Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies and books.
The longer he maintained possession of the Ring the more depraved and impacted him mind became.
It is best explained by Paul’s statement in Romans 1:21
Although we intrinsically know that God exists, mankind chooses (by and large) to ignore Him and worship Him or ascribe to Him the glory which He is due as our Creator.
As such our thinking becomes worthless - some translations like the ESV translate this as futile and our hearts are darkened and hardened by sin.
It should be no surprise to us that the world has descended to the depths that it has because we ignore the most basic and obvious of truths that God exists - ignoring any other truth after that becomes easy.
And so we are seeing the effects of the depraved mind having freedom to work however it pleases in the world.
The prophet Isaiah spoke of these in Isaiah 5:20
And so we live in a time period where you can’t tell anyone they are incorrect or that their truth is not valid.
We have been alienated from God and the thinking of our minds is not simply apathetic or ignorant of Him - it is outright hostility.
Paul goes on to say that this is best expressed in our evil actions.
This is most clearly seen in the culture of death that now surrounds us at both ends of life’s journey.
In Washington state in the year 2017 212 people took advantage of the “Death with Dignity” Act to commit doctor assisted suicide.
At least here we put guidelines on this by saying that they have to have less than 6 months to live.
In Holland the numbers are far greater and the situation is far more liberal.
A recent article in the Guardian details the culture of death that has worked its way into that nation’s culture.
In 2017 6,600 people were euthanized, 1,900 committed suicide by a more traditional means and more than 32,000 died under “palliative care” - basically they succumbed to their illness while being sedated to avoid physical discomfort but in reality they often died of dehydration.
Altogether, according to this article, “well over a quarter of deaths in 2017 in the Netherlands were induced.”
And those are end of life issues - for people who had already had an opportunity to live their lives such as they were.
The most evil act a society can commit is the murder of the unborn.
And yet we see on this slide that our own society has been doing that since 1973 and the results have been catastrophic.
More babies have been murdered through this insidious act than all of the men killed in all of our wars combined nearly 100 times over.
And just this week New York passed a bill that allows for abortions to take place all the way up until birth with Virginia looking to follow suit.
Vermont has a bill in the works that will protect the “right” of abortion in that state throughout the third trimester all the way up to birth even for viable babies.
Seven states around the nation now have third trimester abortion laws in place - permitting abortions to take place in the last trimester.
And let’s be clear and precise with our language - this isn’t about reproductive health, the health of the mother or even that of the baby in most cases - it is about infanticide, sexual freedom and rebelling against our creator.
Let me also be clear - if you are here today and you have had an abortion forgiveness is available to you.
Abortion is a sin and a grievous one - but no more so than lying or cheating on your taxes or any of the other litany of sins that could be listed.
And before any of us feels any form of moral superiority to those who are still trapped by their depraved, alienated and hostile minds let me read a prayer written by a puritan...
Self-Deprecation - Valley of Vision
Yes our before condition isn’t pretty - we are an evil lot.
But that’s not all there is to the story and Paul goes on to the reveal, pulling back the curtains that showed how ugly we were before to show the good news that Christ has provided a solution.
Christ’s Solution
Colossians 1:22; Romans 5:1; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 12:1-2; Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 4:14-15; Hebrews 2:14-16; Leviticus 11:44-45; Leviticus 19:2; Leviticus 20:26; 2 Corinthians 5:21;
Having painted humanity it the dark but realistic image that we existed in before Christ, Paul moves on to tell us what Christ has accomplished on our behalf.
He says that He has reconciled you.
This Greek word - apokatallasso - is only used by Paul here and in Ephesians 2.
It speaks to the broader picture of what Christ’s reconciliation has accomplished for the Christian.
Certainly we were reconciled to God through faith and our sins are now forgiven and the threat of wrath has been removed.
But here Paul is digging deeper into how that reconciliation impacts the whole person.
Having just told the Colossians how they were hostile in mind toward God, Paul is highlighting that Christ’s reconciliation provides a completely new mindset.
He didn’t just cleanse us of our sin like an antibiotic that kills the bacteria but leaves the rest of the body relatively unchanged -
He has made us an entirely new creation.
And has transformed our mind.
And now Paul makes an interesting statement.
He seems to choose to highlight the fact that Christ has accomplished this through his physical body.
For all his self-deprecations, Paul was really a master debater and rhetorician.
Frequently throughout his books he will make a statement and then another will follow that seems to immediately address the objections that his hearers or opponents would raise because of what he has just said.
In Colossians 1:15-20 Paul has given one of the most cohesive and closely reasoned presentations of the supremacy or preeminence of Christ anywhere in the Bible.
And it’s almost as if he could anticipate the false teachers in Colossae saying “see - if He was all of that - the creator of the universe, the image of the invisible God He couldn’t have been human because we are made up of matter and matter is evil.
So He couldn’t have become a human and died for our sins.”
And so Paul emphasizes the physical nature of Christ both here and in Philippians 2
The writer of Hebrews would highlight His humanity in this way
Christ had a human nature just like we do.
He experienced all the same temptations as we did and, unlike Adam who failed, He remained faithful and did not succumb to temptation.
And it had to be this way - only a human could pay for the sins of humanity and achieve forgiveness with God.
The writer of Hebrews explained this in Hebrews 2:14-16
Christ had to be human in order for His sacrifice for us to be efficacious.
Paul tells us that Christ saves us to present us to His Father in three ways - as Holy, Faultless and Blameless.
Holiness is the crowning attribute of our Lord from which all of His other attributes flow.
Yes He is loving and merciful, jealous and wrathful but it is because of His holiness that He is all of those things.
A true love to God must begin with a delight in his holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute; for no other attribute is truly lovely without this, and no otherwise than as (according to our way of conceiving God) it derives its loveliness from this.
JONATHAN EDWARDS
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