Sermon Tone Analysis

Restoration

The gospel narrative begins with creation and ends with restoration.

Creation: reveals God’s power, personal nature, and persistence.

Fall: reveals the why of the problems that exist in the world, and our need for a savior.

Redemption: reveals Jesus as the answer, He did something for us and does something in us personally to make a personal relationship with Him possible.

Restoration: the topic of today.

The now and the not yet.

It seems to me most people even many Christians believe the Gospel ends with redemption and a person’s salvation.

They look at personal salvation as a destination, as having arrived.

However to think once I'm saved that's it, now I get to go to heaven when I die is a misunderstanding of the Bible.

This would be like thinking once the marriage ceremony is over that's it we're married, we've arrived, my work is done.

That perspective would be catastrophic in a marriage, the wedding is only the beginning, now comes the work required to maintain intimacy, and fulfill the purpose of that relationship, as well as the joy of realizing the depth of the joy that comes with continual abiding.

So following the act of redemption, where Jesus has paid our debt and personally joined our life to His we begin the journey of restoration.

The work of restoration involves something we call sanctification, the changing our our character from being morally corrupt to reflecting the character of God as we were intended to do as His image bearers.

This is a life long relational process, however it is not works based behaviorism, not a program, it is a Spirit led, joy filled, basking in the grace of God for calling us His treasured possession, and living out the love He has imparted on us in our daily lives.

Sanctification involves both the work of God and our response to God's grace, not in order to earn love, but out of affection for what He has earned for us.

This process starts at salvation, and continues till our death or the return of Christ when He will make all things new.

His return will also mean the end of the consequences of sin.

He will judge those who rejected relationship with Him and then recreate the earth where we will live eternally with Him as we were intended to in the garden.

For a picture of restoration in scripture lets look at as our framework, then apply this didactic teaching to the narratives of and Acts 1-2.

In these texts we see God provide life, purpose, relationship, and people respond in expectancy.

2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Life v17

New Creation

The old has passed away and the new has come.

This text tells us we have been qualitatively changed, given new life.

It tells us it is made possible through redemption, but doesn’t tell us how.

Lets look both to creation and the narrative of Act’s to see how.

In God formed man and breathed the breath of life into him.

Here we see in the beginning God was the source of life and that life was a gift.

Now in the end of the gospel accounts of John and Luke we see the resurrected Jesus give life to His followers and promise the Spirit will soon be given to them.

In it says that Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and in it seems to reveal how, "He breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit."

Just like in the original creation God's breath brought life, not just being awake but the quality of life that is abiding in intimacy with God, here after His resurrection He began the restorative act of providing life through His breath again.

Then in &8 Jesus promised the restorative power of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of restoring not just them but people throughout the entire world.

Also in the Spirit in a mighty rushing wind from heaven filled the disciples then was also promised in verse 38 to any who responded to the gospel.

The words used in Hebrew in the Genesis account and in Greek in the New Testament accounts for breath and wind contain a meaning that depicts both wind and spirit, specifically a breath that enables a spiritual response and life with God.

So both in the original creation and in God's work of restoring His creation His breath is the source of life.

He personally interacts with individuals providing this gift of life.

This is the circumcision of the heart promised by God in ; ; ; and .

Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good people but dead people alive!

Purpose v18

We also see in both the Genesis account as well as the Acts account that after giving life, God also gives purpose.

We were neither created or redeemed merely to exist, we were left to figure out what to do, God had and has a purpose for our lives.

In God placed man in the garden to work it, and watch over it.

In God commanded humanity to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, ruling the rest of the Lords creatures.

From the beginning we were given a purpose, to care for God's creation and be productive.

Then in Jesus promised the gift of the Holy Spirit for a purpose, so that they would be witnesses throughout the earth for the purpose of restoring others.

Again we see they were given life, and the purpose of multiplying, filling the earth with Spirit filled humans.

In the beginning God gave humanity the purpose of continuing His work of creation, and after Jesus redeemed us He gave His people the purpose of continuing His work of restoration filling the fallen world with pockets of heaven on earth now, and in so doing filling heaven with many souls for eternity.

I see this idea plaguing people often, both outside the church and in the church.

Many people who profess to be Christians struggle with lack of purpose, their relationship with God doesn't feel real, they don't experience Him, and He seems more like an idea on paper than a person they can relate to.

It seems to me this is all a result of either passively or actively rejecting His purpose for their lives, which involves relationships.

Relationships are necessary and they are a gift.

So that purpose for us now is first revival in me, then revival through me.

1. Revival in me

Belief in the heart results in righteousness.

Romans 12:2

We are involved, offer our lives through obedience.

Renew our mind, change our perspective/thinking.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

Word

Galatians 5:25

Follow the Spirit

2. Revival through me

The goal has always been multiplication, and using our blessing for the purpose of blessing others.

Once I have been revived, and God has started a work in me then He can and will do a work through me.

Jesus charged His disciples, and us to make disciples.

and had already given them the great promise, , the gates of hell would not prevail against them.

Relationship v18-20

Gave us a ministry, We are ambassadors.

A relationship with God was never intended to be just Me and God, it was also intended to me We and God.

We also see here that God provided relationship both in creation and in restoration.

A personal relationship with God has never been just ME and God, it has always been WE and God.

In fact in prior to sin entering the picture we see loneliness as a problem.

When it was just man and God, God for the first time in all of creation said something wasn't good.

It wasn't good for man to be alone.

He wasn't intended to just live life on his own.

Humanity wasn't complete until there was a they, and they were living in harmony together with each other and with God.

We also see this in His work of restoration.

On the day of Jesus resurrection He rounded up His scattering disciples, and commanded them to stay together in Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit before starting the work of restoring others.

Throughout His ministry He spoke of His church, the called out people of God, that had a mission.

His people had a mission and part of that mission was to work as a team, to serve one another and the world.

For us to think our relationship with God is just personal and we don't need to be part of a church community or share our faith is to reject God's commands and intentions, it is to misunderstand the gospel itself.

We are actually saying "It IS good for man to be alone" and my purpose is focused on me, rather than on what God has saved me for.

But we can’t do this task in us or through us alone.

Jesus gave instructions for accountability in the church, interceding for the sins of our family members in Christ, and carrying one another’s burdens.

Matthew 18:15-20

1 John 5:

Example of need and productivity of relationships.

cleaning my bathtub, then stove/oven

What if we had friends that loved us enough to point out the grim in our lives?

What if we loved others enough to do that for them?

Expectancy v21-6:2

So that we might become the righteousness of God.

We should expect to be transformed into God’s image, change inside out, and used to transform the world.

We are commanded to work together with Him pleading others to respond as well, expecting God will do the miraculous.

Finally we respond with expectancy.

This expectancy can be either good or bad.

For example in the garden Adam and Eve acted in the wrong expectancy when it came to God's command not to eat the forbidden fruit.