Sermon Tone Analysis
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Opening
Lesson Opener
Pull out your iPhone.
Talk about how much you use it, how much stuff it has on it, how much it cost, etc.
The illustration is an illustration of OWNERSHIP.
This has 4 elements as it relates to the iPhone:
A) I bought it.
B) I can request that it do what I want.
C) It doesn’t have the right to argue about B.
D) If it doesn’t do what I want it to, there’s something wrong with it.
The iPhone belongs to me.
I own it.
That’s the definition of the word “possession” in this context:
POSSESSION: belonging exclusively to, owned.
-
So it is with us.
We BELONG to God.
God OWNS us.
So it is with us.
We are God’s special POSSESSION.
We BELONG to God.
God OWNS us.
If this is true, then these things follow:
1) God BOUGHT us.
Just like I paid for my iPhone with money, God spent something of considerable worth to have us.
His Son went through pain and torture and death in order for us to be belong to God.
This is in context of Israel, whom God has chosen.
But does God not say the same thing about us?
He has called us by our names, and we are His.
And not only does that make sense individually, but our focal verse actually makes this a collective thing: we are a “people for His possession.”
A seal was the mark of ownership of something.
God has placed His seal on us, showing that we belong to Him, and we are His.
Again, we are sealed, this time with the Holy Spirit, who is a down payment of our inheritance until when?
Until the redemption of his possession.
Until His redemptive work is totally finished and He sets everything right.
Since He bought us, we are owned by Him.
This is easy to get.
You buy something, you own it.
- (set His seal)
- (God’s possession)
Since He bought us, we are owned by Him.
This is easy to get.
You buy something, you own it.
2) God gets to request our OBEDIENCE.
He could DEMAND it, and sometimes it feels that way, but ultimately, He requests it.
Since He owns us, He could just force us to do what He says.
But instead, He gives us a choice.
We have been set free from bondage to sin into a right relationship with God through faith in Christ.
As a result, we are called Christ’s slave.
Since we belong to Christ because of the price He paid, we are not to be slaves to anyone else.
Again, we were bought at a price, and as a result, God has every right to command us about how to use our bodies.
They aren’t ours.
In fact, they belong to God as the temple of the Holy Spirit.
We are intentionally designed to do specific work, which God has intended and prepared for us to do.
I’m not that way with my iPhone… I demand that it do what I want it to do.
- (slave to God)
- (honor God with body)
- (God’s workmanship, created with purpose)
I’m not that way with my PalmPilot.
3) We don’t have the RIGHT to argue.
Yes, He gives us a choice, but for us to argue about it doesn’t make sense.
We don’t belong to ourselves any more.
We were purchased through the death of Christ on the cross, so that we can be used by God for His purposes:
Since we belong to Jesus, we don’t have any rights for ourselves.
This is one of the things that we struggle the most with in our society.
We love the words “my” and “mine”.
“My rights.”
“My stuff.”
“My body.”
If we’re in Christ, these things all have to go out the window in submission to Him.
We belong to another, and our purpose is to bear fruit for God.
If I’m alive, I belong to the Lord.
If I die, I belong to the Lord.
How much of my existence does that cover?
All of it.
We have come to know Christ, and now to be more like Him through this taking off of our former way of life and through the putting on of the new self.
And this is an ongoing process: the taking off of the old and putting on of the new.
- (belong to another)
- (live and die to the Lord)
- (taught to remove old, and put on Christ)
4) If we won’t obey, there is something WRONG with us.
Just like my iPhone has something wrong with it when it comes up with an error message, so we have something wrong with us when God makes a request of us and we give Him an error message.
If we claim to be in Christ, yet consistently deny God by our works, we should have a dire concern regarding our relationship with God.
It should be a spiritual warning light, flashing that something is wrong.
If we don’t care, then perhaps (and probably) we aren’t saved, and we don’t belong to Him… we aren’t a part of the people for His possession.
His grace instructs us on how to live, to deny godlessness and worldly lusts.
He did this again, to prepare for Himself a people for his own possession, eager to do the works that He would have us do… good works.
- (all things are pure to the pure, nothing is pure to the corrupted)
- (His grace teaches us how to live, we should know how, and be eager to do good)
Lesson Closing
Everyone who is in Christ is a special possession of God, and collectively we are a people for His possession.
That’s why this same phrase is translated as “peculiar” in the KJV.
In it’s original use, it meant “special”, not “strange”.
We are God’s special possession.
We should live like it.
Remember, our focal verse is:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”
-- (NIV)
So: “Who do you think you are?”
So: “Who do you think you are?”
Our answer this week is: “I am OWNED.”
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