Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon in Oral Style:

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

 

          Most of us enjoy a good comic strip from time to time.

*My favorite while I was growing up was the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.*

Calvin is an imaginative young boy who always gets into trouble.

And his best friend in the whole wide world is Hobbes, his stuffed tiger.

Calvin’s parents also show up in the comic strips quite often*.

And Calvin’s dad is always full of words of wisdom.*

*One of Calvin’s dad’s favorite phrases is “It builds character.”*

It rained all day on your fishing trip.

“It build character.”

You got the car door slammed on your finger.

“It builds character.

The teacher assigned you too much homework.

“it builds character.”

Calvin’s dad’s reassurance when anything got too difficult.

“suck it up.

Get through it.

It builds character.”

In many ways Calvin’s Dad is right.

Our sufferings are what will train us to be people of even greater character.

If we never have to work for anything.

If we never have to feel a burden of any kind, then we will have trouble becoming people of character.

In fact, Calvin’s dad was almost speaking words from Scripture.

Calvin’s Dad is teaching his son something that has a good biblical foundation.

But he missed the last part of the passage that we read today.

Suffering doesn’t just build character.

It produces hope.

Something much greater.

*Verses 3 and 4 of Romans 5 say.

“**3**Not only so, but we[c] also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope.**

Suffering produces character and character produces hope.*

*That is something we have been talking about all throughout this series about the thorns.*

As we bear thorns in many different ways.

Whether it be physical suffering, emotional suffering.

Maybe we suffer some kind of persecution or trial, or betrayal or rejection*.

Our sufferings will make us people of greater character.*

Growing in character is something everyone can appreciate.

Whether someone is a Christian, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Muslim, or an atheist.

Everyone can appreciate a person who is going to take their sufferings and use them to become a person of character.

*But this passage is not simply calling people to be people of character.*

Jesus was not simply about calling people to be people of high moral character.

*And today, Easter, the celebration of Jesus Christ rising from the dead is not a celebration the triumph of character.

*

 

          *Today is about hope.

It is about triumph of Christ.

It is about the coming of hope into the world.

It’s about giving our hopeless lives something to hope for.*

In the last verse of Romans 4, Paul sets the stage for what he wants to talk about in Romans 5.  Romans 4: 25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

On Good Friday, Jesus Christ was delivered over to death.

On Good Friday, Jesus Christ was forsaken by God.

He was abandoned by his father.

He was turned into an orphan on the cross to rescue take all our sins to the cross, to bear all our thorns.

And the story doesn’t end with Christ’s death.

Nothing is truly finished without the resurrection from the dead as well.

Christ wipes away our sins on the cross, but it is when he rises again from the dead that we can be sure that he has truly conquered all sin.

And it is through the resurrection that we can be sure God doesn’t hate us.

He loves those who are covered by the blood of Christ and believe that he rose again from the dead.

We are justified.

We are declared innocent before God, once and for all when Christ rises again.

That’s what Paul is talking when he writes the passage we are looking at this Easter Sunday.

*The next thing he says is, verse 1, “**1**Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a]have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.*”

Because Jesus Christ leaped out of the tomb on Easter, we can have peace in our lives.

You can have peace in your soul.

*If you noticed the cross is nearly empty this morning.*

This is the first Sunday since the beginning of Lent that our cross here has been this empty.

For weeks we have been putting different items representing our pains and struggles on the cross.

We have been putting our brokenness on the cross.

We let it hang there on Good Friday, symbolizing how Christ takes all those thorns to the cross with him.

Now we look at the cross.

It is empty.

The blood and the gore and the horror of the crucifixion is done with.

Christ’s has finished the work on the cross.

And all of our thorns died there with him.

Christ went to the grave and when he rose again, all the thorns and pains were gone.

They stay in the grave.

*That brings us peace.

No more chaos caused by others rejection.

*No more chaos in our hearts over others rejection of us.

No more of the tumultuous trouble in our hearts over the loss of loved ones.

*If we have been able to give it over to Christ, the memory isn’t gone, but the pain can be taken away.

If we have given our pain over to Christ, then the thorns are gone and our hearts can finally find peace in it all.*

When we are at peace then we can begin to rejoice.

*Verse 2 says, “**And we[b] rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.*”

When we accept the resurrection of Christ.

When we feel the Holy Spirit stirring that faith inside of us.

When we start having peace because we have cast all our cares on Christ, then it is time to celebrate.

*It is time that we can rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God.*

The glory of God isn’t the first thing we would figure to rejoice in.

Maybe we would rejoice as our team stayed in playoff contention.

Maybe we would rejoice as our buddy’s team lost their chance for the playoffs.

If someone won a bunch of money.

That’s when most people would spend time rejoicing.

I have no doubt a man by the name of Jack Whittaker did some rejoicing when he won a 315 million dollar lottery pay off.

The biggest solo winner in the lottery ever.

Evidently he was a Christian man.

He prided himself in giving a tenth immediately to the church.

Then he set up a foundation for helping the poor and needy of West Virginia, where he was from.

But, quickly his lifestyle changed.

Instead of rejoicing in the blessing of the wealth that God had given him, his hope had turned to other things in the world.

He wasted his millions on people who misused the money.