Sermon Tone Analysis

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."

Page #

"New Creations"

(2 Corinthians 5:6-10; 14-17)

*INTRODUCTION:*

            This Sunday marks the beginning of a new Conference appointment.

Even though I'm being reappointed as pastor of St. John the Apostle, each year is a new appointment.

Preachers are only appointed one year at a time.

That's part of our system for insuring that every church has a pastor and every pastor has a church.

The final piece of business at every Annual Conference is the reading of appointments.

It's exciting to hear all the names of all the churches and the pastors who will be serving them read aloud.

It's even more exciting to sit there and hear the Church's name read and then to hear your own name read following it.

Every reading of the appointments marks the beginning of something new.

Even for those who are returning for their fourth, fifth or sixth year.

It's something new.

In one of the churches I was appointed to several years ago, there was a little blonde headed boy by the name of Barrett Lockwood, who fell in love with me and me with him, the day we first met.

Whenever the Lockwood's were at church, Barrett would follow me around and grin up at me whenever I noticed him.

Barrett was a little shy and never said much.

Then one day I saw him in the grocery store.

At first he just looked at me.

You could see that he thought he knew me and was puzzling over who I was.

Then there was that instant of recognition.

The light went on and Barrett came running over and hollered, /"Mommy, Mommy.

It's the new creature.

It's the new creature from church."/

And he was right.

As you read the words of Paul in this letter to the Corinthian Church, he says: /"If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"  /Through the transforming and forgiving power of Christ we have all become new creatures, new creations.

Through the saving grace of Jesus Christ we have been given second chances.

We've been cleaned up, fed, clothed in a new suit and sent out to live for God.

Paul reminds us of all of that and then gives us guidelines for living the life of faith.

He says, because we are new creations: /"We walk by faith, not by sight."

"We no longer live for ourselves, but for Christ."

/and /"We regard no one from a human point of view."/

*I.

BY FAITH, NOT SIGHT:*

*            A.

*What does it mean to walk by faith and not by sight?

I remember reading one time about a missionary who was translating the Bible into one of the African tribal languages.

The people of this  particular tribe were simple and so was their language.

They didn't have any words for belief or faith and so the missionary was having a hard time communicating the Gospel.

One day one of the locals came in after having carried a heavy load.

He walked over to a large, sturdy wooden chair.

Sat down and liet out a sigh.

Then he turned to the missionary and said, /"It feels good to rest my whole weight on this chair."

/  

            That's when the missionary realized how to describe faith.

Faith is resting our whole weight on God.

It is resting the weight of our cares and worries; the burdens of  grief and sorrow, anguish and heartache and even our anger upon God.

It is letting God bear the whole weight of our lives.

That's what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.

*B.

*And we've seen how that is translated into everyday life.

We all know the Palm Sunday tragedy that struck the United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama.

While they were celebrating Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a tornado struck and destroyed their church.

Rev.

Kelly, the pastor, lost her six year old in the storm.

And yet, despite the storm, their faith continued.

Battered and bruised Rev. Kelly boldly proclaimed the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

Still grieving, still battered and bruised, the courageous survivors of this storm held their Easter services in the midst of the ruins of their Church.

They proclaimed the good news of the resurrection, of new life, of Christ with us; they proclaimed the message of hope to the community around them.

How?

Through faith and not by sight.6

Bishop Ndoracimpa, Bishop of the Burundi Conference, returned to Burundi after his Annual Mission journey only to find his own country in as much turmoil as the neighboring country of Rwanada.

There were death threats made upon his life.

On the second day back home, one of the young men who assisted him around the house was brutally murdered and a note attached to the body which warned the Bishop to leave or the same would happen to him.

The two American Bishops who accompanied Bishop Ndoracimpa back to Burundi urged him to leave but he told them he had to stay for his people.

They reminded him of the death threats and he reminded them of the resurrection and said, /"I would rather die than be unfaithful.

Besides, what have I to fear if I believe in the resurrection?"/

Bishop Ndoracimpa is walking by faith and not by sight.

We're called to do the same.

*II.

LIVE FOR CHRIST, NOT SELF:*

*            A.

*Through the grace of Christ's death and resurrection, we are transformed and made New Creations in Christ.

As New Creations we are called to walk by faith and not by sight.

As New Creations we're called to live for Christ and not for our selves.

That means we're to think of Christ and others first.

It's a means of prioritizing our lives and our faith.

One of the most beautiful examples of living for Christ and not for ourselves which I've heard lately comes from Richard Jensen, a Lutheran minister in Fremont, Nebraska.

He writes:

            She had  been a charter member of Trinity Church when it was founded just after World War II.

She was an "original" and she was faithful.

Every Sunday she sat in the same place, third pew on the right, just past the first pillar.

Generations of members of Trinity Church had grown accustomed to seeing her sit in that pew.

Few knew her name, however.

She didn't mingle much and didn't seem like she wanted to be bothered much by small talk.

So the folks just called her, "The Lady in Blue."

That's because she almost always wore a blue dress to church.

"The Lady in Blue" and her place in the pew had become a part of the fabric of life at Trinity.

And then one Sunday, her place was vacant.

"The Lady in Blue" was nowhere to be seen.

Everyone noticed, you couldn't help it.

There was just a kind of vacuum at Trinity Church that morning.

The pastor announced from the pulpit that their "The Lady in Blue," whose name was actually Grace Givens, had passed away early in the morning of a sudden heart attack.

The funeral would be on Wednesday morning at 10 at Trinity.

Quite a few of the older members of the congregation gathered that Wednesday morning to pay their respects to this woman whom hardly anyone knew by name.

After the committal service many of them gathered back at the church for a light lunch.

Grace Givens' daughter had come back to town for the occasion.

Her name was April Givens.

April had spent the days prior to the funeral making arrangements for the burial service and going through her mother's things.