Sermon Tone Analysis
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*The Life You’ve Always Wanted*
*Colossians 1:9-14*
* *
*Introduction:*
/Secular/: Three days ago I began pondering what it means to “live the good life.”
There is so much written about how to live the life I’ve always wanted – the one I’m striving for.
There are even visual images all around us trying to tell us how we should live.
All we have to do is to think about our everyday encounters with people and the normal places we travel to everyday.
If you shop at Kroger, walking down the magazine aisle or waiting in line might lead someone to believe that your doing well in life if you’re physically fit, fashionable and beautiful.
Border’s is a great place to grab some coffee and to browse some of the new releases like… that tell us that the good life is staying young in appearance and energy level – delaying the inevitable.
The internet is full of great resources on how to truly live.
In fact I stumbled across a website called Magical Living to help me discover if I’m truly living.
Overwhelmed with curiosity I took the magical living quiz to discover the quality of life that I’m living.
Well, I scored a 37 on a 16 question quiz and was informed that I’m staying afloat in the sea of life but I’m no expert at riding the waves.
If I want to be an expert I can begin taking an e-course on the /9 Steps of Magical Living/.
I’m just staying afloat!
Yikes!
/Personal/: Are you all just staying afloat like I am? Have we seized the day and grabbed hold of the good life like modern culture tells us to do.
Are you who you want to be?
The truth is, what we are told to grab onto in order to live well is so elusive and in many ways, impossible to attain.
We can’t control our age or the aging process.
While there are many things we can do to stay healthy, our overall health is out of our hands?
Physical beauty is temporary, fashion changes and money doesn’t grow on trees.
The good life according to our everyday experience is a moving target and when you think you’ve nailed it, your arrow goes right through it.
So what is the good life then?
What should we shoot for?
/Biblical/: My prayer this morning is that we will be encouraged by the Word of God that the good life, the one we’ve always wanted, the one we were made for is within grasp.
I want to motivate us this morning to strive for the best life which is a life that pleases God, a life that is worthy of the name of Christ.
And I want us to be encouraged because it is attainable.
We are going to read one of Paul’s prayers this morning and learn what it takes to get on the path to living a life pleasing to God and we are going to get a glimpse of what our lives could look like.
/Textual/: Please turn to Paul’s prayer for the Colossian church in Colossians chapter 1.
We are going to study verses 9 though 14 together.
*Big Idea:* God’s word and power is the recipe to living worthy Jesus’ name.
Through the Word of Truth and God’s supernatural filling, we can live lives that please God – we can know and live according to God’s will.
\\ *Big Idea:* God’s word and power is the recipe to living worthy Jesus’ name.
Through the Word of Truth and God’s supernatural filling, we can live lives that please God – we can know and live according to God’s will.
* *
*Outline:*
1.
A worthy source: God empowers his Word in our lives enabling us to please God.
The Word is the fuel and the God is the spark.
(1:9-10a)
a. Explanation
i.
/For this reason…/ Paul’s prayer flows from his excitement about how the word of truth – the hope of eternal life – is producing faith and love in their lives.
ii.
/asking God to fill you with the knowledge…/ God is the one doing the filling.
In a sense we can read this as though he is completing or enabling the word of truth in our lives.
The fuel and the spark!
iii.
/of his will…/ God revealing not head knowledge, facts or lofty theological findings but who God wants us to be – our character and our hearts that demonstrate themselves in the way we live our lives.
God’s will is not what we should do but who He wants us to be!
One cannot be truly interested in God’s will if they’re not seeking Him in His word (Carson says… folly).
iv.
/in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…/ Who God wants us to be stands in high contrast to worldly wisdom and understanding.
God’s will is to fill us with a competency and complete understanding of his word so powerfully that every mental faculty and decision making tool that we have is transformed.
v.
/that you may live a life worthy of the Lord…/ The effect of the God empowered word brings us to a place where our lives
vi.
/and… please him in every way… /In the end, we cannot please the Lord unless he fills us with a knowledge of his will and that can’t happen without a certain book.
The right desire is not to be the best Christian but to please the Lord.
b. Illustration: Recently Hollywood has produced several movies depicting God appearing and talking to people in order to tell them what to do – Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty would be two examples.
I think people today want God to appear in a more tangible form so that they can dialogue with him.
Many atheists substantiate their claims by saying that a real God wouldn’t be silent.
I’ve even heard one or two arrogantly demand, as though God answers to their beck and call, that if God is real that he strike them down on the spot.
Have we forgotten that God does communicate with us?
His word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
And God empowers us with inward urgings to do his will through the Holy Spirit.
God shows us how to live by filling us with wisdom and understanding through His word!
c. Application
i.
What sort of speech or conduct will shame Jesus’ name?
How do we work… spend our leisure time… talk to our spouses… treat or children?
ii.
Flirting with worldly understanding in our daily decisions and interactions…
iii.
Pray unceasingly for a deepening knowledge of God’s will through the word…
iv.
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