Sermon Tone Analysis

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All right, we're in Ephesians Chapter 4 and this is what I like to call a list sermon.

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They're oftentimes one of my favorites because there's often not a a lot of like a grammar issues and translation issues.

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You have to work through, but frankly you get to preach through a list of items, each each one, oftentimes.

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Being really fun to kind of explore different illustrations and things like that.

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So this is a list sermon.

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And I've been thinking a lot about the subject of unity, since it will be a list of things that we are united in.

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And as I've been thinking about unity, one of the reasons I even chose the book of Ephesians was to get to this passage.

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So this is sort of the years in coming.

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I've been wanting to talk about our oneness because we've lived and gone through a very fracturing polarizing time, not only.

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In our churches, but in our nation and in the world.

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And So what a better subject to try and speak into than the sun.

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Object of unity.

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So I was going to hit it really hard.

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This idea of.

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You know, pulling together as a church.

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But as I got closer and closer to getting to Ephesians 4, it just became clear.

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You know you're if you're looking for like a silver bullet like you just preached a couple of sermons.

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On unity and all of a sudden, everyone's going to be united.

Just think about all the other things you preach about.

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Does that you know?

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Is it just you preach once about putting your hope in Christ and all of a sudden no one ever has any trouble putting the hope in Christ you you preach a couple of times about, you know, loving your neighbor and all of a sudden we're perfect at loving your neighbor.

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So I had kind of this false idea coming into this, as if there is a instant remedy or shortcut.

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To being united as Christians, it's just like any other subject of Christ.

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And belief and and faith that you oftentimes need to hear it multiple times in different ways and have God bring that that that conviction to you from this angle and that angle.

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And from this portion of your life and through this trial, so on the one hand I'm I'm really excited to talk about church.

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Andy and it's important to Paul because he's leading.

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He is himself leading up to it.

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You have 3 chapters of of theology and doctrine about who God is and and the pinnacle conclusion he has or the first conclusion he has in terms of application is you.

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Sitting at the same time, I know that in our hearts it's difficult to sometimes truly grasp anything and so I I say all that because there was a a pull in my heart to think, OK, you're going to preach about this and then you're going to launch into this whole thing.

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About church unity, you got the business meeting coming out at the end of February going to.

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You know, cast this.

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Vision about our church.

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United and standing against the culture and all this stuff.

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We don't have to do.

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I mean, if you can just make it through the sermon this morning, not fall asleep.

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If if you can.

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If you can make it through and just and just have been compelled by one word or one sentence, that's enough for me.

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I I really hope.

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I don't ever.

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Come across like I'm trying to bully people into obeying the Lord.

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Now, should we obey the Lord?

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Yes, but no one should ever have to be bullied into that.

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So I do want to ask start by asking a few questions though and you can write down the answers on your notes.

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We can talk about it a little bit more.

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You know, during fellowship time, but in your mind what?

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What does unity look like in the church?

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I I can't tell you how much I've thought about this over the past weeks and months and even years.

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Just what?

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What would unity in the church look alike?

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Does it mean that there's no cliques, because every church has cliques?

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Every church has little groups that do this, and and a group of friends that does that.

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People who came to the church together and so they naturally gravitate towards each other.

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There's people who form based on mutual age range.

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You got the young marrieds or the young families together.

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Is unity in a church?

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Meaning there's never any cliques.

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Little little groups that kind of naturally form together and have sort of, you know, not not completely closed off to other people, but this is this is your group is that unity.

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Is it unity if?

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All of us.

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Looked and acted the same.

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In other words, it was very clear that we.

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Were all of.

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Say 1 ethnicity, and in fact we're one subsection of it that looked the same way.

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I mean, would it be you truly united if we all came in and we're all wearing even the same clothes?

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And the same outfit, just like teams, have a a uniform to show that they are.

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Would that be unity is unity that we agree on everything that we don't do anything until 100% of the people of ICC say yes we are behind this?

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Or is unity?

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When only when everyone is fully participating in in an event, so we don't have unity unless everyone is here Sunday morning, they can they can be.

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And So what does that mean about Sunday evening, where it's much smaller group or a Bible study?

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I mean, is it only unity if we're all there?

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So I I've been trying to figure this out.

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The elders have been sometimes racking our brains about how do we.

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How do we draw people together?

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How do we convince and persuade people?

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It's worth it to get involved in each other's lives or break down some of these walls.

And it's funny because that quote last week was in last week's bulletin.

I think I mentioned in the sermon to that Johnny Erickson taught.

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Gave completely, just blows up all of those questions and thoughts, and even when I prefaced about yeah, I'm going.

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To you know.

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I'm I'm waiting to get to effusions for and talk about unity and urges to unity and and she said if you forgot the quote.

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Believers are never told to become one.

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We already are one and are expected to act like it.

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I don't need to try and make US1.

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We already are.

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Are we acting like it?

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Maybe that's where we could use a reminder, but if I need to do some big push or drive for unity or Oneness II in a sense, I don't need to.

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If you're a Christian, we're already in it together.

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Whether you like.

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That or not 41.

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But there is a benefit to acting like it.

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In fact, we could very much define the Christian life of acting like what Our Calling is.

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Remember, that's how Ephesians four starts.

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I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.

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You are already called a child of God as we have been memorizing.

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Moments 816 and 17.

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We are already heirs with Christ.

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Fellow heirs with him.

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That is true.

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You don't earn that you don't get there.

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We are that.