Sermon Tone Analysis

The Need

“Imagine there’s no heaven.

It’s easy if you try.

No Hell below us.

Above us only sky.

Imagine all the people living for today.”---

Imagine by Lennon

Lennon was really wrong about his reasons.

But he was surprisingly really right about reality.

Imagine by Lennon

It IS easy if you try.

People try and succeed at avoiding God everyday.

The wicked heart will desire to keep God off of His throne.

Lennon asked us to imagine all the people living for today

Just imagine...

If people didn’t care about the future.

If they put their desires above everything else.

If they were willing to give up good things, just to chase a certain feeling.

If people would betray their families because of their desires

If people would hurt others they should have been protecting

If all the people we know lived for today and at it cost them their eternity.

It isn’t hard to imagine.

Because that part is real.

There is a desperate need for the Gospel in the heart of every person you know.

I could give you analogies that would be correct.

Everyone has a illness killing them and you know the only cure- say something?

Everyone’s clock is ticking down and you haven’t said anything

You are watching your family starve but you know where bread is- direct them?

None of these are wrong.

And I could use any one of them.

But, I will appeal to something more precious: I will ask you to use your new eyes and your new heart.

New Eyes

At the moment you became a child of God new life began

This means that something was there which wasn’t before

And it changes you: at once, and continually.

One thing that the Holy Spirit does in you is allows you to see the truth that surrounds you.

Satan deceives us often.

He can tell convince people that good is evil and that evil things are good.

That new life comes with a new eyes to see

We want to see the sin around us in truth

We want to see the people around us in truth

We want to see the choices they make in truth

W

When we see all these things with New, Spirit-given eyes we will see suffering.

We will see rebellion.

We will see choices leading into unnecessary suffering now and eternal suffering later.

New Heart

That realization of truth should break our new hearts.

The heart that the Spirit turned from sin-loving-rock to God-glorifying-muscle should bleed for those people we see.

The love we have for our family, our friends, our random acquaintances and just people in the human race— it originates from God

Starts from Him, works through this New Heart in us and goes out into the world.

Does you heart feel heavy for those you love that are ignoring Jesus?

It should.

Christ died for us when we didn’t desreve it and we know how wonderful that is.

Christ died for them and they don’t deserve it.

Tell them how wonderful it is!

There isn’t a greater love than this.

Christ’s love in us should move us to care deeply about the suffering we see

Im not using an analogy because I want you to see a face.

Not a face of someone on the other team

Not a face of someone who is stuck up and annoying and they need Jesus to fix them.

See the face of a child.

The face of someone loved.

A child who is helpless on their own.

This loved one has so much potential for good things.

But is hurt so badly.

They are lost.

They need help.

They keep getting hurt.

They keep hurting themselves.

They are suffering so much.

They are experiencing pain.

It gets worse before it gets better.

Just like any crime, the judge will impose a sentence.

They have been living for today, but tomorrow has come.

And with it comes punishment.

The suffering endured in this life from bad choices breaks our hearts, but the the suffering in the next life is unthinkable.

Christian, this is the situation.

It isn’t somewhere else, it’s right here with those you know and see walk in front of you at the store.

This is you and me and them and God in one place.

And we have something to do about it.

The Call

If you believe what we talked about, that suffering is real and we should be moved to action by seeing it because of what Jesus has done for us, then good.

I want to push you further.

I want that to control you.

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Controls us

This love that we know should be what moves us to do all the things that we do.

He died and we live, but how?

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

().

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

We don’t live for ourselves, or today, or even tomorrow.

We live for Jesus now.

That controls what we do.

We are His.

He owns us.

“…you are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

So glorify God...”

This is the new goal: Glorify God.

How does He ask to do that?