Sermon Tone Analysis

*Real** Church** VI – /A Real Church Stands/*; nv 9~/5~/04 a.m. - Ephesians 6:10-20

*OS:* *A* Wayne Cordeiro, preacher of New Hope Christian Fellowship O'ahu in Honolulu, Hawaii, writes: Some time ago some wonderful people in our church gave Anna, my wife, and me a dinner certificate to a nice restaurant for $100.

We thought, /Wow, a hundred bucks.

Let's go for it./

We found a free evening.

We dressed up.

I took a bath, used deodorant and cologne—the whole thing.

I even washed and waxed my car, because we wanted to take it through the valet, and I didn't want my Ford Pinto to look bad.

The night came, and we were excited.

We went to this ritzy restaurant and walked in.

They gave us a nice, candlelit table overlooking a lagoon adjacent to a moonlit bay there in Hawaii.

Oh, it was nice.

And we thought, for a hundred bucks for just the two of us, we could eat high on the hog.

So we ordered the most expensive thing there.

It was wonderful.

When the bill came, I said, "Honey, why don't you give me the certificate."

She said, "I don't have the certificate.

I thought you brought it."

I said, "You have to have it.

You're supposed to have it.

You're the wife!"

She said, "I don't have it."

And I thought, /We are in deep yogurt.

Here we are.

We look rich, we act rich, we even smell rich.

But if we don't have that certificate, it invalidates everything./

There are times in our lives when we can look holy, we can act holy, and we can smell holy.

But without a relationship with the Lord, we've forgotten something.

It's relationship that validates everything else.

*I.       **:A real church is real because of a relationship with Jesus and that is really what this series of lessons have been all about.*

*Synopsis of Series:*

1.      *B Jesus makes His Church Tick*.

Jesus is incarnated in this world all over again, not in His flesh but in the flesh of His assembly.

The real church is Jesus to this world.

– Ephesians 122 /And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church,  23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way./

2.      *:Jesus has destroyed every barrier* to keep that from happening – Ephesians 213 /But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,/

3.      *:*A church is a real church only when her *members live worthy of the calling*.

Ephesians 4 /As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace./

4.      *:*A church is a real church only when her members *live a life of love* through *thinking* like Jesus, *talking* like Jesus, and *working* like Jesus.

Ephesians 5 /Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children  2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God./

5.      *:*A church is a real church only when her members *stand up in this dark world* *as a light through holy living*.

Ephesians 5 8 /For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Live as children of light  9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)/

6.      *:*A church is a real church only when her members do not have a cold stiff religion, but rather *a passionate love relationship with Christ*.

Ephesians 5  23 /For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything./

7.      *C* A church is a real church only when her members stand strong against Satan!

Ephesians 6 13 /Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

14 Stand firm then…/

*TS]* As Paul begins to draw this letter to a close he reiterates all that he has said earlier, and he does so in the context of spiritual warfare.

The text is very positive evidently because he feels the Christian readers need confidence.

*II.

**If there was ever a time for this lesson today is the time!*

A.     I needed the confidence found in this text.

B.     We are under attack whether we want to admit it or not.

*TS]* Don’t get me wrong – we don’t have major problems with division and anger within the family.

It is absolutely amazing, and absolutely an act of God that we are doing as well as we are under the circumstances.

*III.

** D We better understand that Satan is real!*

A.     Reality text:

                       1.       *:*Ephesians 120 /which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,  21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come./

2.       *E* Ephesians 2 /As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,  2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.

Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath./

3.       *F* 1 Peter 5 8 /Be self-controlled and alert.

Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour./

B.     Illustrate – Charcoal fire and the poker.

(church & family)

C.     Satan is the deceiver, tempter, and that is done with the thoughts of our minds.

His chief objective is to divide us up, and get us to believe we don’t have anything to get excited about.

1.

My five-year-old daughter, Barbara, had disobeyed me and had been sent to her room.

After a few minutes, I went in to talk with her about what she had done.

Teary-eyed, she asked, "Why do we do wrong things, Mommy?" "Sometimes the devil tells us to do something wrong," I replied, "and we listen to him.

We need to listen to God instead."

To which she sobbed, "But God doesn't talk loud enough!"

                       2.

The Volume of God in our minds and our lives is up to us, and that’s really what our text is about this morning.

*TS]* Let’s read the text and especially notice mentions of previous themes in this letter, and the obvious focus on Standing – *G H I* Ephesians 6:10-20.

---on the side, the first obvious thing about this text is that our fight is not against flesh and blood.

If your problem is somebody you battling the wrong battle.

*PQ:* *J* So, how do we stand against the schemes of Satan?

How can we win as a congregation – be a real church?

How can we stick together during this time we face as a church?

(two points from the text)

*I.       **K Maintain a Connection with God.*

A.     All power, strength, and weapons of war are all freely provided by God.

                        1.       *L* 10 /Finally, be strong in the Lord and in *his* mighty power.

11 Put on the full armor *of God*/

                        2.       *M* Ephesians 1 18 /I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know … his incomparably great power for us who believe.

That power is like the working of his mighty strength,  20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead/

                        3.       *N* Ephesians 3 16 /I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith./

4.       *O* 1 John 4 4 /You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world./

B.     All that we need to make it through this time, to overcome the schemes of the Devil, are freely available from God – we must make the connection.

1.

Like plugging in a lamp…

                       2.

During Superbowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie /Castaway,/ in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years.

Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the commercial goes up to the door of a suburban home, package in hand.

When the lady comes to the door, he explains that he survived five years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her.

She gives a simple, "Thank you."