Live Like You Were Dying

Message Transcription

Good morning. Thanks for letting me join you all today. It's summertime, and it's it's an exciting time of the year. People love summer. And what that often means is, hey, we get to we get to take a breath of fresh air real quick. We get to pause. We get to go on vacation. We get to celebrate Memorial Day weekend. We get to get with our friends, get with our family and go have fun. That's generally what summer time means. We got the 4th of July to look forward to. And with that usually involves getting with your people, getting with your friends, your family, and jumping in the car. Getting in the vehicle. We're going to go take a trip. When you drive down the interstate, we're all very used to seeing this. Sorry, everybody. We're trying to get the. Let's see if it gets to work. My man got me set up. There we go. All right. We're driving down the interstate and we're used to seeing this. This is a very common thing to see. Me, me, personally, I'm from New Mexico, so I'm more used to seeing this. But but nevertheless, we see these speed limit signs, don't we? We see the speed limit signs and they're just a normal part of driving down the interstate. I want to have a candid conversation about speed limit signs for a moment, if we can. Okay. Let's be honest. More often than not. Rather than speed limit signs, these are more, you know, speed minimum signs or or starting speed signs.

You know, I can just tell in here, we've got some speeders in here. I can just tell. Looking around, we've got some speeders in here. But the reason that people feel comfortable to think themselves, I'm going to go above the speed limit. The reason people speed is because way, way, way more often than not. You get away with it. You're able to do it and get away with it. You know, you think to yourself, I know I can get away with this and be okay. So I think I'm going to do that. I know I can make this choice and there are not going to be severe consequences. So. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Transitioning now. Do we have any basketball fans in here? A little bit. Okay, great. Oh, yeah, a lot a lot of basketball fans in here. I want to talk about the NBA for a moment. We have the NBA finals going on right now. Very exciting time for me personally. I'm actually diligently praying for the downfall of the Golden State Warriors and can talk about that with me after if you want, but not to split the audience too much. That's how I feel about it. I don't talk about the NBA. It's my observation. If you're 40 years or older, you might have like an inclination against the NBA right now. That's just an observation I have. Again, I don't want to offend too many people by saying that if I wanted to, like, split the audience talking about NBA, I might bring up who the greatest of all time is.

You know, talk about the debate, LeBron James or Michael Jordan. I won't tell you what I whatever you think, that's what I think. Okay. I want to say in everybody's good graces early this morning. I'm definitely kidding. I think it's LeBron. But let's talk about the NBA for a moment. Let's talk about the NBA. If you know the game of basketball, you know that you are allowed two steps. You pick up the ball, you're allowed two steps before you shoot the ball. Now, there's a new phenomenon taking place if you've watched this product that is changing. And what I'm referring to, it appears very clearly that players these days are allowed more than two steps. They're granted that that half step, that two and a half or even that three that that third step. And if you're a player, if you're Jayson Tatum. Why would you not use that third step, if you can? Right. If you're a player, why would you not take advantage of the opportunity officials are allowing you? They're not calling it. So these players are sitting there thinking to themselves, I know I can make this choice and be okay. I know that there's not going to be severe consequences if I make this decision. And so they do. We're in Romans six today. And real specifically, I want to talk about this first part.

Right, this first part of Romans. Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? And this is Paul. This is Paul talking to the Romans very openly, very candidly, very bluntly. This is Paul trying to provide an education to the Roman people, a group of people who are living one way. He is trying to convince and persuade them to begin living another way. See, throughout the first five chapters of Romans, the theme of being saved has come up. The message of redemption has already been told. Paul is told these people. The message of God's grace has come up and now He's here. Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Paul's here saying like, Hey, look, I know I just told y'all about how awesome God is. I know. I just told you about how our king who died for all of you. How he extended grace to all of you, even when you didn't deserve it. I know I just told you about all that, but please do not misunderstand me. This is not some kind of get out of jail free card grace that you can keep turning in over and over and over again. I find it important to remember Paul's personal perspective speaking into this situation. Because Paul is here talking about something. Grace. That he has also been a very full recipient of himself. Paul is able to relate very, very personally with the concept of grace because Paul has been a sinner.

Paul Persecuted Christians. Paul murdered Christians. Paul threw them into jail. And he's here talking to the Romans like, guys, you need to understand this. I have gone through this very personally. I've met the guy, I know the guy. He's the real deal. And if he loves someone like me strong enough to save my life, then please hear me out. Romans. He can do the same thing for you. And that's what he's saying. I know this applies to you. If it applies to me. Next, I want to look at the specific language or be it so the translation of the words that we receive today, the word choice that Paul uses here, because I think we can all agree. That what he's doing has intent to persuade. Paul's message is written with intent to change the mind. And so me personally, when I'm looking at literature or design to persuade or I'm listening to a persuasive speech or anything like that, I'm looking at it very closely, like, what strategy did they use? What tactic did they use? What is he doing specifically to try and change their mind? And I think this has to do with my background, my communication, my background, talking about how to communicate and persuasion and things like that. I think about a guy by the name of Aristotle and Aristotle's rhetoric and persuasion. And what I'm talking about is ethos, logos and pathos. If we can go to that next slide.

Ethos, logos and pathos. And what this is, is Aristotle claimed that if you want to change somebody's mind, you can do it with one of these three things or a combination of these three things. So ethos being credibility, someone's credibility, how you how they are perceived by the audience, how high of a standard the audience holds them, contributes to their ability to change someone's mind. Logos logic are logical. Thinkers. Data. Statistics. Numbers. You're probably more likely to be persuaded if you love data, statistics and numbers and then pathos. Our feelers, our emotion. Connecting with someone internally on a level where they feel something, they feel something inside, and it increases their ability to be persuaded. So I wanted to give you a quick three real world examples of how mainstream media uses ethos, logos and pathos, something you've probably seen on your television set. So here's the first one ethos Why go no further than the King of Lubbock? Patrick Mahomes Right. If you're in Lubbock, Texas, and you think really highly of Patrick Mahomes. I'm a big time Cowboys fan, by the way. Like I'm not on the Mahomes deal. I just want to say that. If you are a fan of Patrick Mahomes. And he has State Farm. Hey, I want to have State Farm homes. That State Farm. His credibility is high. His ethos is high. So his ability to persuade you into getting that plays a real factor. How about logos? We've all seen cellular companies advertise their coverage, right? Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, all of the above.

And here's how it's logical. Verizon's here like, hey, look at all of the spots that we cover. Do you not see it clearly with your own eyes? How many more spots we cover than our competitors? Just look. It's right there. It's logical. It's extremely logical to take a look. We cover more spots by our product. Let me persuade you into buying our product. It's right there in front of you. And pathos. Tapping into the emotion. Tapping into the emotion. Apple is really big on pathos in all of their advertisements. They want to make the person watching their commercial feel something. They want to make them feel something. And if you've seen this Apple Watch commercial, it shows multiple examples of how Apple's watch has saved people's lives because they've been able to make an emergency phone call from it during a very serious time. And in these commercials, they play the 911 audio clip from these Apple Watch calls. And essentially what they're saying is like, hey, you should get an Apple Watch because it might save your life someday. Have you ever felt that? And you need to think about that deeply. So that's an example of pathos. Anything that makes you feel something inside and maybe cause you to change your mind. Let's look at I want to look at and think about which one of these tactics Paul is writing to the Romans with ethos, logos or pathos. So think to yourself, okay, which one do you think he is using to the Romans? What we know about these scriptures.

We can go to that next slide. I think it's pathos. And whether Paul realizes it or not, he's using words. He's using language that could be viewed as heavy and serious and sentimental, that would cause somebody to feel something strongly and ultimately change their mind. Let's look at a few of these words Paul chose here. So if you just look through Romans six here, he uses the word death eight times. He says the word died five. And he says buried. He says crucified. It's heavy. It's emotional language. Like I hope you hear me saying this, whether whether he realizes it or not, I think this is the approach that Paul took. So moving forward. Looking at this text, looking at this chapter, my biggest takeaway and what I want us to reflect on today is the relationship, our relationship between sin and grace. What shall we say then? Shall we continue sending so that grace may increase? I want us to look real specifically at this today. And the question I want to ask is, hey, though, Paul is telling the Romans to get a proper handle on their view of grace, their perspective of it, how many of us in here today would it be beneficial to hear that question asked as well? How many? How many of us? I mean, it's a it's a real thing. And so what I want us to think about next is what if someone asked you that question today, like, hey, have you ever had that thought go in your head? Like, I know this is sin.

I know I'm about to sin. I know this is sinful, but. I know I can get away with this and be okay. So I think I'm going to do that or I know I can make this choice. And there might not be severe consequences. So that's what I think I'm going to do. Do we do this? And look, I get it. It's like, hey, it's a hard it's a hard question. It's not a fun question. It's not an easy question. Like, hey, have you ever sinned because you know, you have grace. That's not fun. That's not easy to think about, but I think it's real. I really think it's real. Maybe you hear me say this and you think to yourself like, that's ridiculous. That's such a harsh assumption to make. Do you not see the text? It says We're slaves to righteousness now. Yes, that's correct. I agree. That's exactly right. But I wanted to reflect about that to myself personally. And I reached out to some other people. I reached out to some other people. And I essentially asked them that question, Hey. Have you ever had those thoughts in your head when the when the time of temptation comes when sin is knocking at your door? Have you ever found yourself justifying it? With Grace. And so I reached out to some people that I know.

Some of them in their twenties and thirties and forties. And I wanted to share a few quick examples from what they had to say. Let's go to that first one, if we can. I have definitely had that thought. The idea that I can repent later is something that often leads me to letting my guard down in years past. I've even had the thought of I can get my life together later. There will be time and God will accept me down the road when I decide to live for Him. That next one, please. I sometimes fall into a sort of procrastinated repentance or I'll change next time because I know I'll be forgiven. If you go to that next one, please. Often I think tomorrow is another day and mercies are new every morning. One more. On my good days, when the temptation comes, I'm able to say, This is not a kingdom thing. God is not reigning in this. I'm thankful to be able to think in that and walk in it. But there are some days where I am able to make it seem. Sen like it is not as big of a deal. So these are what some of the people I reached out to had to say. This is how they had to feel. And I know this is a small sample size, but I find it fair to assume that that this is more than just me and more than just the people that I reached out to.

More so I think Paul knew the importance of this to such a high degree that he essentially says the same thing twice in Romans six. You'll see it on this next example. He essentially says the one more, please. He says the same thing twice. He says it in verse one, he says it in verse 15, and that's pretty much right in the middle. I think Paul knew the importance of this, that he went ahead and say it twice there in 15. What then shall we sin? Because we are not under the law, but under grace? By no means. By no means. And listen, I know it's easy to get comfortable. It's easy to get complacent. It's easy to fall in the routine of of listening to church, give these encouraging narratives and these messages of grace over and over and over again. But I think we've got to be careful. I think we've got to be careful. And I know I showed some of the darker, more serious language. That Paul uses in Romans six, but he also provides great hope and he provides great optimism. And I'm going to explain some of these verses. Just real briefly, verse four, Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Verse seven Anyone who has died has been set free from sin. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

23 But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ, Jesus, our Lord. I know you all saw the the bulletin and you all saw my title. And you all, some of you are probably thinking to yourself, is this guy going to talk about Tim McGraw? Like, we're in Texas, we talk about country music around here. When's that come? And I haven't heard it yet, but I love this series that Carl explained to me that y'all are doing the Epistles Greatest Hits, Taking It Epistle and kind of correlating it with a well-known song, a well-known song or something classic that a lot of people know. So I went with Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying. And what I want to do is read this first part of the song. I'm going to read the lyrics to you, and I think we have a slide for that one as well. These are the opening lyrics. I was in my early forties with a lot of life before me. When a moment came that stopped me on a dime. I spent most of the next days looking at the x rays, talking about the options, and talking about sweet time. I asked him when it sank in that this might really be the real end. How does it hit you when you get that kind of news? Man. What did you do? And so he gets this news from the doctor, right? He gets this life changing, sad, unfortunate news that his life is going to be different moving forward and his life is probably going to come to a conclusion earlier than he thought.

So what does he do next? He he goes on this adventure. He does all of these things that he wanted to do at some point in his life that, you know, he might not get that opportunity because his life's going to be shorter. He does all of these exciting things. The news that he received created an alteration in his life. It created an alteration in his habits. And where I point this back to Romans six is here. The news of God's grace and Jesus sacrifice does not provide us with an excused alteration to the way we live our life. It does not give us any room. For justification. Because I have grace. I know I can do this. There is no room for. I know I can get away with this and be okay, so I think I'm going to do that. I'm not worried about the consequences here, so I'm just not going to think about it today. There's no room for alteration. Because of what Romans six one tells us. The habits of our life are not changed. Because we receive the Lord's grace. Grace is the foundation of who we are, and we operate through our virtues because of that grace and we extend it to other people just as it's been extended to us. But let us also remember what the text says, that we are granted the privilege to move from slaves to sin, to slaves of righteousness.

We have the honor to operate within the Kingdom of God with him baptized full of His Holy Spirit down here with us. No alterations, no excuses. No. Get out of jail. Free cards. Slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness. And let's be mindful of that as we navigate the rest of this day and tomorrow and this week and this month and the rest of this year, let's be mindful about how we view grace, how we're thankful for it. Our relationship with. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. Jesus, our Lord. Let's pray. God. Thank you for Broadway, Church of Christ. Thank you for everyone that is here today. I pray for those that couldn't be here. Father, thank you for Romans six and the wisdom that though Paul wrote it over 2000 years ago can still apply to us. We're thankful for Your Grace, and I pray that we hold that in our hearts. And I also pray that we never take advantage of that beautiful gift. I pray that we're able to share that with others. Share it with others that might not know you and might not know about that gift. Thank you for who you are. I pray that we look more like Christ tomorrow than we did today. I love you, Lord. Love you, Jesus, and love you, Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.