Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I have two trees.

They are here today.

They are a similar height.

They have similar leaf colour and shape.

They both have barbs on their branches.

One looks like it is better cared for than the other, but from here it looks like they could both be the same type of tree.

Yet there is one glaring difference between these two trees.

What is it?

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Yes!

One has fruit growing on it’s branches!

Now I know what type each tree is, because I am the owner of these trees (and I've got their labels!).

But to most of you looking on from over there it will be hard to see from the outset that these trees are different.

It would be even harder before the fruit started to show on this one over here.

Yet these two trees are radically different!

They belong to the same family of trees, and they have both been living and growing in the same environment, and they both have been fed and watered from the same source.

Yet I can tell you now that one will produce beautiful sweet orange fruit later in the year, and the other will produce none.

And if and when it does produce fruit in future years, it will be sour.

Imagine I gave you both these trees, without their labels, without fruit.

For someone who is not familiar with the intricacies of fruit trees, the only way you are going to be able to tell what kind of tree they each are, is to wait and see what kind of fruit it produces.

Unfortunately this can take months, or more often years before the trees successfully bear fruit.

Now where am I going with this?

Today I want each of you conceive of yourself as a tree, like these ones over here.

And you are growing in an orchard of other trees, which is everyone else here today; the person next to you.

The person who greeted you this morning when you walked in.

The person who read the Bible for us earlier.

The person who played the music.

We are all trees in the orchard together.

But none of us have labels.

All of us look kind of similar.

Not physiologically speaking, but spiritually speaking.

We all live in a similar environment, and we all share the same Bible for our spiritual nourishment.

We all turn up regularly for Sunday services, singing the same worship songs together, saying “Amen” to the same prayers, and nodding our heads in agreement with the words proclaimed from this pulpit.

Yet not all of us will bear, beautiful sweet juicy fruit.

Many of us know people who have walked the christian walk and talked the christian talk, lived and grown with us in this orchard together, yet they have turned out to be fruitless or or sour.

They may have turned their back on the faith publicly, or for some they have just coasted along, going through the motions yet never really grasping faith for themselves.

We know by experience, and by what the Bible says, that there will be false converts, people who look like Christians for a time, but are not authentic believers.

There is a scary verse in Matthew 7 where Jesus says:

This is frightening, that perhaps the person beside us, or our family, or our friends, the people who teach you from this pulpit, or even you yourself might come face to face with Jesus only to find out you never really knew him as Lord and Saviour all along.

It’s scary because when you come face to face with Jesus there is no more chances, no more opportunities to be saved from the punishment we deserve.

It’s scary because God takes Justice seriously, and we deserve God’s justice.

This verse is meant to shake us out of our complacency and think about this.

It should make us question our faith.

This verse and others like it make us ask:

“How can I know that won’t happen to me?”

“How can I know my Christianity is real?”

“How can I know I’m saved?”

This is the main question we want to answer here today; “How can I know I’m saved?”

For many of us we see the brokenness and sin in our own life, or we see others fall away from the Christian faith, and we wonder “How can I know I’m saved?”

To answer this question we need to ask follow up questions.

We will look at 2 questions that will reveal whether or not we are saved.

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We must ask

How do I get saved?

How do I know it’s for real?

Hopefully the answers to these questions will illuminate to you where you stand in relation to God, and either give you comfort, or stir you up to action.

You should either walk out of here in peaceful joy or in fear of what being a false believer means for you.

How do I get saved?

If we’re going to answer the question “How do I know I am saved?” it’s a good idea to figure out how God saves people to begin with.

Being “saved” means that there is something that we need saving from.

So the Bible portrays Salvation...

as a rescue from the Kingdom of Darkness, that is the world influenced and ruled by Satan,

as a rescue from Sin which is like a cancer that has infected our whole being,

as a rescue from Death which is both the wages of our Sin, and a punishment of God for our rebellion.

Salvation also means being...

saved into the Kingdom of Light, ruled by Jesus Christ,

saved into purity, holiness and righteousness of character, attitudes and actions,

saved into eternal, joyful life with our King forever.

So how do we make the switch?

How do I get saved?

Well, Jesus himself tells us the good news (the Gospel) about how to be saved.

Mark records it:

Mark summarizes Jesus message of getting saved into that one phrase; “repent and believe in the gospel.”

It’s that simple.

You must repent, you must turn away from sin and disobedience, give up life in opposition to God so that you may then turn towards God and believe the Good News that he has saved you.

You see the actual act of being saved is accomplished by God.

He does that saving through Jesus Christ, but you have to claim that, grab that, receive that Salvation he has given you by putting your faith and trust in Jesus.

He redeems, we receive.

Jesus says something similar in John 5, but he even breaks down what that faith looks like:

The saved person must hear Jesus words and believe the one who sent him.

Essentially Jesus is saying you have to not just comprehend, but receive Jesus message, and believe that he was on a legit mission from God.

I was hanging out with my nephews the other day and they were “helping” me.

One of them, a very inquisitive fellow, was investigating all the items in the shed, picking stuff up and looking at it, moving things around.

At first it was harmless, but soon it became problematic, as he began to move things out of place, create trip hazards, potentially hurt himself with some of the objects he was discovering.

So I had to speak to him to save him from himself and to save him from kindling my wrath.

I said “Don’t move that please.”

Now, he heard me.

It wasn’t noisy in there, and I spoke quite clearly.

He heard me, but he didn’t “hear” me.

See what I’m saying?

He did not acknowledge or act on what I said.

I said to him again; “Please don’t move that”.

Still no change in action or response.

Next, I got down on his level, looked him in the face and said “Look me in the eye.

Please don’t move that.

If you don’t listen to me you won’t get to be in here with me.”

Now before I could even get the whole sentence out of my mouth, he said “Yes, I know.

I know that!” with almost an insulted tone.

You see my nephew had “heard me” but he hadn’t received it.

He had heard, but he didn’t listen.