Sermon Tone Analysis

Illus: right tools matter--doctor vs carpenter

Illus: right tools matter--doctor vs carpenter

Illus: Mall?

Augustine “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Christian Worship is nothing less than an invitation to participate in the life of the triune God.

What is the Church?

Gathered Worship

God is both the subject and the object of our worship; the whole point of everything we do.

MEANING: God is both the subject and the object of our worship; the whole point of everything we do.

Worship is not for me—it’s not primarily meant to be an experience that meets the felt needs I have, rather worship is about and for God.

To say that God is both subject and object is to emphasize that the triune God is both the audience and the agent of worship: it is to and for God, and God is active in worship in the Word and the sacraments.

We are not gathered here today because of abstract ideas or teachings or ideals, we are a people gathered to the historical person Jesus Christ.

We are a people who worship God who broke into and inhabited time, who suffered under real leaders, and who rose again on the 3rd day.

The church is also a people oriented to the future.

We are sojourners and strangers waiting for the return of our King who will make all things new and under whom every knee will bow and tongue confess that He is Lord.

The church is also a people shaped by and remembering the past.

We are not just a CNN/Fox News Breaking News people who only focus on and contemplate the present.

The gospel has been passed down to us and the redemption of God story goes all the way back to Adam an Eve in the Garden.

A. A Call to Worship

A. A Call to Worship—The Kingdom of Christ.

Illus: How did we get here?

Arguing in the car, fighting with the kids to get up.

Depleted from a long and tiresome week.

The call of worship directs our attention away from all of the possible distractions and draws our heart to one.

The One. Jesus Christ who is worthy of all praise.

The word used most frequently in the New Testament for “church” is ekklēsia which literally means “called out.”

This means we are not just a club like Sam’s Club, that we do not just meet together for companionship or because we have similar hobbies.

Rather, the church is a society of those who have been called, redeemed, justified, and are being sanctified by the blood of the Lamb until oneday we will b glorified in His presence.

ēsia

We are a gathered people.

From different homes, different families, nationalities and cultures.

From different financial backgrounds.

Yet we are constitued as a new people united in Christ in order to praise and bring glory to Christ.

As we looked at last week.

To be human is to worship because we are created in the image of God.

Therefore when we say “Good morning, lets stand and sing.”

What is really being said is let’s and stand and be human.

Let’s stand and do what we were created to do.

Of course sin has wrecked us and so now our hearts long to worship something but our idols never satisfy.

We lack wisdom and discernment to do what we were created for and instead bow before false gods.

Thus, a call to worship is a call back to the Lord in order to find renewal, restoration, and reordering.

It is to find peace admits the chaos of our lives.

To find our rest in Jesus.

G.K. Beale “You become what you worship either for ruin or for restoration.”

B. Singing—Learning the vocabulary and language of the Kingdom

Illus: Love songs.

First—singing is a full-bodied action that activates the whole person.

Stomach muscles, vocal chords, lungs, and tongues.

For some of us our feet, or our hands in clapping or raising…dare I say dancing.

Being created in the image of our Creator we are made to worship but also to create to be sub-creators.

Being created in the image of our Creator we are made to worship but also to create to be sub-creators.

Therefore we create music, poetry, drama…we paint and write, we build and mold, we train and reproduce.

Music is a way to shape or reshape or reorder our desires.

There is always a tune that I am humming or a rythem I am tapping.

Music gets inside of us and stay within us in ways that other forms of communication doesn’t.

Watch a movie without music—boring!

This is why Paul admonishes us in

It is through songs that we learn to speak the language of the kingdom.

(Nothing but the Blood of Jesus—In Christ Alone my Hope is found—Oh Victory in Jesus my Savior forever).

What we sing matters.

The content of our songs matter.

The trend now a day is to focus on the experience of the song instead of the content of the song.

Jesus is my boyfriend without theology from the Scriptures quickly produces Christians who are illiterate in the Bible and focused on themselves.

Quite frankly—some songs we claim as “Christian” can be sung by any religion or to any false god.

What we sing says something about who we are.

And more importantly WHOSE we are.

The practice of singing theological-Christ-centered songs where I begin to be reshaped and reordered into the image of Christ as I look forward to the coming of Christ and the full installment of his kingdom.

C. Scripture—Learning what my part and role in the Kingdom.

When some think of the Bible they think of a book filled with rules preventing them from having fun.

Others see it just as a manual to reference every now and then.

This could not be further from the truth.

The Bible is where we see reality as it really is.

We look in the world and see chaos and within us we know that something is wrong.

In the Bible we have the story of reality and the story of Creation and Redemption.

Laws and rules then are not just guardrails to protect us…they are the means in which we flourish as a race made in the image of our Creator.

The Bible tells me that the is an end to which I must be directed in order to live a blessed life.

We flourish when we are rightly ordered to an end (telos) that is not of our own choosing but is rather stipulated by God.

Creation is created for something for a particular end envisioned by the Creator.

Reading the Bible during our worship service represents a significant challenge to desires of our own flesh to build up the kingdom of me and instead calls us to take up our cross and follow Christ and in doing so we see reality as it really is we see the story of the world as it really is and we flourish as we obey.

D. Prayer—Learning the Language of the Kingdom

Part of learning the language of the Kingdom is learning that there is more going on that what meets the eye.

Prayer is a visual reminder of that as we speak to Jesus with whom the world would say is not present.

We pray for one another; for healing and comfort and we also pray for forgiveness and reconciliation, we pray for illumination from God’s Word and for Him to be pleased and welcomed among us.

Prayer teaches us to be other focused.

“Your will be done, your kingdom come.”

We forgive and we have been forgiven.”

Prayer teaches us to be missional and to pray for our community for our neighbors and those who do not know Jesus that God would be merciful in opening their eyes to see the truth.

Prayer reminds us of our need for a Savior, for each other, and it humbles us as we lift our request to our Heavenly Father.

E. Fellowship—Hospitality, Community, and Grace: Life in the Kingdom

Worship is not just something we think it is something we do.

Having been called to worship, we are now welcomed.

God is a relational deity.

He is one God in three persons and worship is an invitation into that fellowship.

We are made to be relational beings.

When our relationship with the Lord is right and when our relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters are right then their is a flourishing that takes place.

In other words, during the welcome and greeting time we come face to face with the reality that we are people of depence.

The world has told us all week long that we can be self-sufficient.

(have it your way, just do it, get yourself a Christmas present).

But here is a few moments we are graciously reminded that we need each other.

During the greeting we extend greeting because God has greeted us.