Sermon Tone Analysis

Coram Deo : From Spiritual Relapse to Rejuvenation

Good morning, church!

Welcome to the final week of our Coram Deo sermon series.

Throughout this series, we’ve sought to see how a life lived Coram Deo (“Before the Face of God”) is the way that we’ll move forward in spiritual rejuvenation this summer.

Remember that the enemy wants to lull us to sleep – to make us feel like we can just sit still and relax – to put our relationship with Jesus on pause and pick it back up in the fall – but that is a lie.

There is no standing still in our spiritual lives.

It is a constant battle against the current of sin.

We must be actively moving towards Jesus or we’ll be swept away from Him.

Even if we don’t intend to.

This series has sought to give us a framework to ‘swim against the current’ this summer.

The key to spiritual rejuvenation over the summer is to live our lives Coram Deo – before the face of God this summer.

Through this posture, God will grow and revive us by His Spirit.

These three weeks have looked at what living life Coram Deo entails :-Week 1 we looked at life Coram Deo as a life lived in the presence of God.

How the presence of God satisfies and sanctifies us.

And we can trust this because Jesus brought God’s presence to us to redeem us back into His presence.

-Week 1 we looked at life Coram Deo as a life lived in the presence of God.

How the presence of God satisfies and sanctifies us.

And we can trust this because Jesus brought God’s presence to us to redeem us back into His presence.

-Week 2 we looked at life Coram Deo as a life lived under the authority of God.

How God’s is our good creator and gracious redeemer.

As Creator, He knows more about us than we do–thus He knows what will make us flourish.

As Redeemer, He has made a way for us to surrender to His good authority through His Son Who surrendered all for us.

And we can know that His authority is best, because it freed us from the bondage of sin and results in eternal life with Him forever.

This week we’re talking about how life Coram Deo is a life where we grind for His glory.

Coram Deo : Grind for His Glory

Please Pray with me

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I wanted to share this quote by the late writer and english professor david foster wallace:

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism.

There is no such thing as not worshipping.

Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship…If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough.

Never feel you have enough.

It’s the truth.

Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you…On one level, we all know this stuff already…the trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness.

Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.

Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

And so on.”

–David Foster Wallace

Now, I know this quote is speaking of how everybody worships something.

But I believe that worshipping and glorifying go hand in hand.

You worship – bow down to, submit to, live for – something because of it’s worth.

In other words, because of it’s glory.

Of it’s value, it’s beauty, it’s weightiness.

You cannot glory in something without worshiping it, and you cannot worship something without recognizing it’s glory.

To glorify simply means to declare the worth of something or someone.

We live our lives for this.

It’s amazing how every human seeks to find worth, value, and completeness in something.

And our expression of that devotion is our glorification of that.

It could be self, sex, intelligence, etc.

We all declare the worth of something or someone, even if that’s ourselves.

You don’t get to choose whether or not you glorify something.

That’s because, church, we are hard-wired to glorify.

So, church, today’s question is:

Who ya livin for?

Everybody lives for someone’s glory .

We must be a people who grind for the glory of God.

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism.

There is no such thing as not worshipping.

Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship…If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough.

Never feel you have enough.

It’s the truth.

Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you…On one level, we all know this stuff already…the trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness.

Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.

Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

And so on.”

To glorify simply means to declare the worth of something or someone.

We live our lives for this.

It’s amazing how every human seeks to find worth, value, and completeness in something.

And our expression of that devotion is our glorification of that.

It could be self, sex, intelligence, etc.

We all declare the worth of something or someone, even if that’s ourselves.

You don’t get to choose whether or not you glorify something.

To glorify simply means to declare the worth of something or someone.

We live our lives for this.

That’s because, church, we are hard-wired to glorify.

That’s because, church, we are hard-wired to glorify.

Everybody glorifies something.

We must be a people who grind for the glory of God.

God created us for His glory

Church, know from that God created mankind in His image, after His likeness.

God decided to create humanity to reflect Him.

To point back to who He is.

We are created in His image – the word means, likeness of resemblance.

Not that we ourselves are God, but that God created all the people of the world that they would be a reflection of who He is.

That, every time we’d see people, we’d be reminded back to the God who formed them.

That we’d see His resemblance in one another.

Church, God created mankind in His image, after His likeness.

God decided to create humanity to reflect Him.

To point back to who He is.

We are created in His image – the word means, likeness of resemblance.

Not that we ourselves are God, but that God created all the people of the world that they would be a reflection of who He is.

That, every time we’d see people, we’d be reminded back to the God who formed them.

That we’d see His resemblance in one another.

I’ve heard it said that each person is called to be a glory reflector.

Each person is running around, living their lives, reflecting the worth, beauty, of someone/something.

The intention of creation is that we would reflect the wonder of the One who made us.

God is fiercely committed to His glory

God reiterates and clarifies this truth further in .