Sermon Tone Analysis

When We Gather...

Introduction

Good morning, once again.

It's a privilege and a joy to open the Word of God with you today.

Go ahead and open your Bibles to Acts chapter two.

That's where we are going to begin this morning.

Now if you're new to us or it's your first time joining us online, I normally preach straight through books of the Bible expositorily.

But for a few weeks here at the beginning of 2023, we are covering the mission and vision, the why's and how's of what we are doing here at Hope.

Last week I talked about our mission as a church and told you that:

The mission of Hope Bible Fellowship is to make disciples of Jesus Christ by gathering together, growing deep, and going wide with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We boil down our vision for how we are going to accomplish the mission as three words: Gather, Grow, Go.

Gather together, grow deep, and go wide.

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I also talked about how the values that drive us or move us to action.

We are a gospel driven church and all of this comes from our commitment to the gospel.

Today I want to cover the Gather together portion of our vision.

Today we talk about specifically, our worship.

Why is gather the first step in our process and our vision of how we make disciples who make disciples?

John Piper has suggested that many of us who gather here on Sunday morning possibly grew up in churches with a very shallow view of the significance of what is happening right now in this hour and twenty minutes or so.

When the people of God gather, He is there among them and we sing the wonderful truths of scripture to God and to one another and a man opens the Word of God and exposes the meaning of the text and shows us the truths of the Gospel therein and calls for us to respond with faith and to repent and believe!

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This is the Word of the Lord.

Let's ask God to bless our time this morning.

• Context: 50 days after crucifixion; Holy Spirit has come; Peter has preached; three thousand become Christians (v.

41)

• So what characterized this first church?

o Loved God’s word, loved each other (even sacrificed belongings for each other).

o Praised God, shared good news with others.

o We want to see all that here at Hope.

• And as is so often the case, the exciting fruit that we see is supported by some important things underneath.

1. Gathered together regularly.

2. Lived life together in intentional relationships (met in homes, shared with each other).

3. Enjoyed and supported leadership God gave them (apostles).

4. Spent time together in prayer.

Who Gathers?

The church - Those who have been bought out of their sin by the blood of Christ on the cross.

• According to Scripture, the main purpose of the Lord’s Day gathering is not evangelism but edification.

Ultimately, what we do here on Sunday mornings is primarily, that means firstly, is for the gathered children of God to glorify and honor His name being edified and built up.

Now, we always do this with what the Bible calls, the outsider, in mind.

You’ll hear this in my preaching.

Sometimes I will speak to those in the seats who may not know Jesus or may not know what I’m talking about because of their background.

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• Sunday morning is the main feeding time.

Worship is a response to revelation so this is where the meatiest expository meal is served.

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• As such, the main gathering should not be set up based on the preferences of unbelievers and what they will find attractive but instead should be set up and calibrated to the parameters given to us in scripture for the edification of believers.

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• The sermon, which we will get to in more detail later on, should be an exposition of scripture.

But since all scripture is about Jesus, the preacher should expose the good news of the gospel and it’s implications in the passage.

This kind of preaching will encourage others to bring their unbelieving friends to the service with them because they know they will hear the Gospel presented clearly in relation to whatever passage is being preached on a given Sunday.

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Personal Worship

• I once heard a pastor say that the reason worship often doesn’t happen on Sunday morning is because it isn’t happening on Monday.

In other words, the reason that some of us don’t worship on Sunday is because we haven’t been practicing personal worship the rest of the week.

If this is your only time with God all through the week, it’s not enough.

We need to be worshipping individually spending time in prayer and the Word as we deepen our own personal discipleship.

John 4:21-24

Why Do We Gather?

1. Worship

• Worship is understanding who God is and valuing God’s worth rightly.

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- The Holy Spirit enables us to worship.

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• The word Worship meant WORTH-ship.

We are ascribing worth to the object or person being worshipped.

IT is a treasuring of God above all things.

Piper puts it: “know him truly and treasure him duly.”

We are giving him what he deserves.

What he is worth which is everything and so much more!

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• We worship through acts of the mouth - songs, confession of sin, praying, repenting

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• and through acts of love - these show God’s value to us, his supreme value, in that we are willing to sacrifice for others.

Think: Acts church selling their possessions to provide for others.

2. Obedience to God's commands.

3.

Because of the price Christ has paid for us.

4. Because of what we have in Christ.-

family

• Our whole life should display the worth of God.

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• Worship is the purpose of redemption

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• Many times in the book of Exodus chapters 3-10 corporate worship is pointed to as the purpose of redemption.

What Happens When We Gather?

Regular Sunday morning gatherings:

2. Main worship service

o Follows basic storyline of the gospel (God’s goodness; our sin; God’s mercy in Christ; our response).

o We sing the gospel (see article on music in membership matters booklet).

o We are led in prayer (praise, confession, petition, thanks).

o We hear God’s word read.

o We hear God’s word preached.

And we celebrate baptisms.

 Sermons are generally expositional (preacher takes a passage of Scripture, explains what it means, and applies it to our lives).

 Read the passage through the week.

4. Members’ meetings

o Six times each year after Evening service on 3rd Sunday of every other month.

o For members only.

o Discuss church business (reports from ministries, updates on finances, voting members in/out).

Life groups this wed at 630

the plan moving forward

The Regulative Principle vs the Normative Principle

• The Normative Principle says that as long as a practice is not biblically forbidden, a church is free to use it to order its corporate life and worship.

In short, the Regulative Principle forbids anything not commanded by Scripture, whereas the Normative Principle allows anything not forbidden by Scripture.2

• For our purposes today we are going to stick primarily with those things that are either directly commanded or implied by scripture.

In other words, we’re going to ride on the regulative side.

Dever, Mark.

The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel .

Crossway.

Kindle Edition.

- D. A. Carson notes that “theologically rich and serious services from both camps often have more common content than either side usually acknowledges.”3

Carson goes on to observe that “there is no single passage in the NT that establishes a paradigm for corporate worship.”

- I would agree with this but we also must note that when we lead people in corporate worship or when you come to corporate worship your consciences are in some sense bound to participate in each part of the service.

The argument of those who ascribe to the Regulative Principle is that this binding of the conscience only works if the element of worship is warranted by scripture.