Sermon Tone Analysis

Knowing the One who saved us

He guards us till the last day

!!! /Lord’s Day 3rd September 2006, 9.00am/

!!! Announcements

!!! Moments of silent prayers

!!! Bible presented

!!!

Call to worship

As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy.

\\ Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.

(Psalm 123:2-3)

!!! Blessing

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, \\ and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, (Revelation 1:4-5)

!!! Doxology Hymn No 23:          /“Holy, holy, holy” (Repeat with AMEN)/

!!! Prayer of Adoration and Thanksgiving

!!! Hymn No 151:            /“Name of all majesty”/

!!! Prayer for others

!!! Tithes, offering and dedication

While the tithes are waited upon, remaining seated, all sing

!!! Hymn:                            /“The one whose dwelling is with God” (Tune Rejoice! 168; 5 verses)/

!!! Scripture Readings                   /Psalm 91/

                                                                          /2Timothy 1:8-12/

!!! Sermon                          /“Knowing the One who saved us – till the end!”/

!!!!!! Introduction

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,

In the next week or so we will pause to remember the horror of /September 11/.

Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Centre in America and thousands of people died in this senseless act of terror.

One of the immediate effects of this dreadful day is the reality that here on earth we have no security.

Thousands of people and businesses lost billions of dollars they had thought impossible to lose.

The investments seemed rock fast, but in one moment of stupidity everything, as the Twin Towers, came crumbling down.

No doubt there were the sales people who had assured buyers to buy stock and insurance policies that the risk is low, and even secured itself; but that moment brought everything in perspective: nothing is sure and secure!

When one becomes a Christian one hears the message of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

One hears your sins are forgiven and that by God’s grace one may prepare for your heavenly home which stands firm into all eternity.

This is the message we bring to this morning; this is the truth of God’s Word that stands written in God’s own handwriting, sealed in the blood of Jesus Christ, affirmed by the Holy Spirit in your heart.

H.H. Hover wrote a poem which goes like this:

I have an insurance policy

Written in the blood of the Lamb,

Sealed by the Cross of Jesus,

Redeemable wherever I am!

The company will never go bankrupt,

It is bonded by God’s promise true;

It will keep every word of its contract,

Exactly what it says it will do.

I don’t have to die to collect it,

No premiums do I have to pay;

All I do is to keep God’s promise

And walk in His holy way.

No collector will ever come calling,

It was paid on Calvary’s tree;

It insures me for living and dying

And for all eternity.

The apostle Paul proclaims, driven by the Holy Spirit:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:38-39)

But when he wrote to Timothy here in his second letter to him he found himself in prison.

And he writes:  “Do not be ashamed of me as the Lord’s prisoner.”

Paul, one can say, your September 11 has arrived!

Your world has crumbled; your towers have come down!

You preached the love and protection of the Lord, and look at you now.

You even try to encourage a young man to keep going for the same Gospel that got you locked up!

Paul answer:  Do not be ashamed.

This word does not deny the circumstance of persecution and hardship for the Gospel.

He who wants to follow Christ will have to endure hardship.

Our Lord said, “They hated Me, they will hate you too.

A disciple cannot be more that his master.”

The fact that the apostle is in prison is no embarrassment to him, and he wants Timothy to understand this.

The word /ashamed/ here means fear of embarrassment that one’s expectations may prove false.

Timothy, it is not something to be embarrassed about when the enemy of the Gospel ask you about your God and your faith that seem to have forsaken you.

The Psalmist of Psalm 42 had the same problem when people kept asking him, “Where is your God?”

If we believe in Jesus Christ only for this life, then, the Bible teaches us, we are the most wretched of all!

If your faith in Jesus Christ is just to receive temporary relief for an earthly inconvenience of sickness, or financial difficulty, or insecurity, then my dear brother and sister, there is something dreadfully wrong with your faith.

Or let’s put us this way:  If your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will suffer when hardship, disappointment, adversity, distress and rejection come your way, you might find yourself in the category of seed our Lord spoke about which did well for a while but it withered and died as soon as the sun beat upon it.

To be treated badly for Jesus Christ is something every Christian should expect some time or another.

In fact, when Jesus called his disciples He had this to say to them:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

\\ Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(Matthew 5:11-12)

Not good news for a new follower of Jesus Christ.

!!!!!! Our knowledge of Him is based on His knowledge of us

How do you handle persecution and false accusation and hardship for the sake of the Gospel?

This is the crux of our knowing Him who saved us.

This a few things to remember:

God called us to salvation – based on his grace

What does this teach us?

I suppose many things, but in this paragraph it at least means that when we find ourselves in a difficult circumstance for the Gospel we need to know that we were save not by what we earned or merited, as if we haven now done something that brought God’s disapproval and judgement, making us deserving a hard time.

No, saved by grace means that God saves us not because we merited it; this also means that the grace that caused us to be saved will be the grace that will carry us through difficulty.

God called us to be holy – based on grace

Next, God called us to be holy.

Peter tells us a lot of suffering and God’s purpose with it.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

\\ These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

(1 Peter 1:6-7)

God called us by His power

Further, we are saved by the power of God.

Nothing could stand in the way of God to save us.

Nothing could frustrate the road of our Lord Jesus to cross of Calvary.

The devil tried his hardest to distract the Lord from doing God’s will, but in the end He declared that He lay down his life out of his own accord.

His blood is stronger than power of sin.

He breaks the power of sin and hell and satan.

By this power He called us and saved us.