Sermon Tone Analysis

Repentance through Joy

1 Cor.

13:1-13

Secular:

* The Wind and the Sun

* The wind and the sun were arguing about which of them was stronger.

They agreed to a contest:  the winner would be whoever could make a traveler take off his coat.

The wind blew hard and tried to tear off the traveler's coat, but the traveler only wrapped it around him more tightly.

When the warm sun shone on the traveler, he took off his coat.

* */Turn or burn…/*

* Repentance is more about what we turn to….

Than what we turn away from….

* Turn or burn….

* Hate Pain or Love God

* “Come unto me…”

* Or get out of hell…

* Repentance is like the scene on a beach where lovers run to embrace each other….

Bliss, joy, expectation and excitement….

Repentance comes through Joy

* *

Biblical:

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Personal:

*   God hates divorce…

* He hates covenants broken

* He hates the pain

* He hates the infidelity

* If you have ever watched the first stages….

Two friends

* You would hate divorce…

* Pain to come…

* The lack of hope…

* If you truly love them the hope for the ideal

* Divorce would cause even greater pain…

* Hope is the desire to see them realize all that God intended for their life.

* Potential in a child….

* In light of the potential… the reality of the present is magnified!

Bridge:

* Sometimes momentary relief… from relationship strain

* Sometimes momentary satisfaction… of sexual lusts

* Sometimes momentary happiness…

* Sells out our future.

* We will never realize the joy God has in store for us… if we follow some legalistic… morality driven faith… because it is too hard to do!

* We will be drawn into a rich, joyful, and enduring relationship with God when we have tasted, and now have an insatiable hunger for the glory of God.

* The change in life comes not in an effort to be better… to be godly… to be good…

* True repentance comes in light of the glory of God!

* Loving, desiring, revelling God… makes the sins of the flesh… the offers of this world pale in comparison.

Body:

Repentance through Joy

Earmarks of Repentance

Enthusiastically pursue…

*Radical Obedience to God*

·         1 Jn 5:1-4 - 5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.

And his commandments are not burdensome.

4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

·         Dynamic shift!

o       2 Co 7:10-11 - 10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

11 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment!

o       Sorrow, joy – pain, passion – shame, relief – heart wrenching, heart pounding…

o       Repentance breads radical obedience!

·         Ps 23:3He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness *for his name’s sake.

*

·         God’s restoring of our soul… is to glorify his name… for his name sake… not a handy divine gadget that serves our whims… but a God who serves his glory in helping the helpless… loving the unlovable… providing righteousness for the unrighteous…

·         We should be drawn… radical obedience isn’t merely a thank-you… because it would be trite in comparison to the gift of grace

·         Radical obedience is the natural response to those who have seen a glimpse of the glory of God… It is enthusiastically pursuing the Glorious one…

·         It is a desire that burns within us to reflect and magnify the glory of God… to worship and declare… to be overwhelmed by the nature of God to the point of complete surrender!

*Magnification of God*

·         Mt 5:14-16-14  “You are the light of the world.

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

·         Moses’ face…

·          Ex 34:29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

·         Intimacy changes us!

·         You can’t miss the Viagara and Cialis commercials on television…

o       They are both drugs designed to assist in a lagging physical relationship…

o       The commercials are often focused on the celebration the next day of the fact that they had an intimate evening the night before.

o       Physical intimacy satisfied…

·         But so much more is the banquet that is God…

·         Does are face shine, heels click, smile pervade, hope ooze from our pores…

·         To whom do you testify…

·         True repentance testifies to a true God.

·         Do our neighbours, our children, our spouses, know the nature of God through our repentance…

·         What do our kids see?

Rules or Love

o       Response or restriction…

o       How do we communicate?