Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Welcome to Church Video

Tension

As we were getting ready for Church this morning, how many of us realized that we were coming here today to be a part of something that would be described like this?

A “Revolution of Love and Freedom” Where peoples lives are transformed by the message of Jesus.

Not just their spiritual lives, but the overflow of working of the Gospel in a person’s life draws them into caring for and reaching out to others like nothing else could.

Many years ago I was meeting with a teenager at the mall and as we were talking I happened to look over his shoulder and there was this older woman looking at me in the strangest way.

The best description I can offer is that she was giving me the “stink eye”.

I mean, she clearly did not like me for some reason, but I had never seen her before in my life.

I don’t know how I realized it, but it suddenly dawned on me that she was taking offense at my t-shirt.

It happened to be a cooler spring day so I was wearing a light jacket that was open in the front so the only part of my t-shirt that she could read was the part that read, “Don’t go to Church”.

A rather striking t-shirt for a pastor to be wearing don’t you think.

I figured it would start up conversations and get people thinking, especially when I turned around and revealed the rest of the sentence on on the back of the shirt.

Well realizing that this is what was offending this woman, I stood up and took off my jacket and very intentionally turned around to place it on the back of my chair and reveal what it said on the back.

The message of “Don’t go to Church” was further clarified with the message of “Be the Church” on the back.

When I turned back around again to sit down I looked over at her direction and she had this big smile on her face and she was nodding her head as if to say, “Oh, I get it.”

It is true though that Church was never meant to be just something that we go to.

It was designed to be something that we are.

The Christian Church sits as one of the most influential forces in world history.

As we were reminded in the video, the Church has played a major role in improving health care, providing education, caring for orphans, combatting slavery and many more offerings that have had world wide impact.

Why has the Christian Church been engaged in so many different things?

Because every aspect of our life is important to God, not just the zones that we have labeled “spiritual” or “religious”.

If anything, any movement in a zone that we have labeled as “spiritual” should serve as a catalyst that prompts us to movement in the physical realm.

I was reading in the book of Acts this past week in my personal devotional time and I read this story in the early church where a man named Agabus, who was known to be a prophet came down to the Church in Antioch from Jerusalem and stood up and prophesied that there would be a great famine over all the world.

What do you think was the response of the early Church?

in countless ways?

In Health care, in Education, In protection of children, in combatting evils like slavery

Did you know all those things about the Church?

No single group in human history has contributed more to education than Christians have

Did they just pray that God would would intervene?

No

No group in human history has contributed more to healthcare than Christians have

Did they cry out to God, “No God, let it not be?

” Nope

Christians, more than anyone else, have contributed to the welfare and protection of children

Did they grumble against, argue or dismiss the prophet because he brought bad news?

God would never do that to us! Nope -

No other group in human history has fought the slave trade more than Christians have

No other single group in human history have contributed more to the cause of charity than Christians.

Listen to what it says that they did:

had just become a Christian prophesied that there would be a famine, and they took up a collection right then and there.

We have always been about helping people.

The famine hadn’t even started yet, and these early Christians were already sending relief to those brothers who would be the most affected by the upcoming disaster.

The one that was only known about because a prophet stood up and told them it would happen.

Sometimes I wonder if we have so seperated the supernatural

One of the biggest dangers for a Christian is when they start building a divide in between the “spiritual” parts of our life and all the other ones.

So many people have wandered from the truth because they thought that one need not affect the other.

Sometimes this looks like being very good at pretending when we come to Church on Sundays.

We put on a good face, even while we are living the rest of our lives in rebellion against God and his commands.

No one from our “Church World” really knows about the rest of our life so they think we have it all together.

Other times the difference is more of an external/internal thing.

Maybe our friends at Church have access to the rest of our week and we like it this way.

We live our lives in such a way that everything that someone might see on the outside appears honorable.

Inside, however, our motives for our “right” behavior are all twisted, but it seems that we have it all together.

“It’s just business, ok”

“That is how things work out here in the real world”

“It’s a dog eat dog world, and if you can’t hang with the big dogs you better stay on the porch.

Sometimes it’s more of an external/internal thing.

People have access to all of our doings inside and outside of the Church.

We need them to be aware of such things.

We pride ourselves on being morally disciplined as far as anyone else can tell on the outside, but inside we are doing it all for the wrong reasons.

We are either motivated by the approval of those who see our good works, or we think that we have somehow earned some sway with “The big man upstairs” because we are putting in a lot of time an effort.

Unlike some other people I can mention.

The problem with coming across as if you don’t need anything, as if you got this all together is that:

The problem with coming across as if you don’t need any help, as if you got this all together is that:

Jesus only rescues lost people!

Have you ever thought about that.

The only thing that qualifies a person for being saved by Jesus is that you are lost without him.

The only thing that makes us “worthy” of being saved by Jesus is the fact that we are sinners in need of being saved.

We bring nothing to the table but our need for salvation.

But often we like to pretend that all the sinners are out there, outside the Church, but in here we are the saints.

Now we could make a case for that label, as the New Testament often refers to Christians as “the Saints” but I don’t see any where in Scripture where it tells us that we should forget that we were once sinners.

In fact, the Apostle Paul says it this way:

Some translations say, “Worse”.

Notice Paul didn’t say that he “was” the worst sinner but that “I am the Worse”.

Clearly, he has not forgotten how he once acted in open rebellion against God, even though at this very moment he stands in a right relationship with Him.

Some people would say that when a Christian says that he is still a “sinner” when he has been saved by God’s grace then it lessens the fullness of what Christ has done for you.

I can understand that perspective.

As “New Creations in Christ” we need to both recognize and live in our new identity.

I get that.

So consistently referring to ourselves as sinners might not be the best practice.

maybe the best thing would be to just remember that we were once sinners.

So we were previously sinners, now becoming saints by God’s grace.

To the Church in Corinth Paul wrote:

You were these things, but now you are not.

I wonder though, if we are going to qualify ourselves with a reference to what we once were, would it be appropriate then to reference others by what they may become?

At times, I have become fond of using the term “Pre-Christian”.

How does that sit with us?

Or do we prefer to just call them sinners?

15 minutes into my sermon and I haven’t even gotten to our text yet.

Don’t panic, It is part of a plan.

I felt the need this morning to lay a solid foundation because we are going to tackle a very well known parable of Jesus.

I wanted us to start with some personal reflection to help orient or position ourselves in such a way that we could better understand what Jesus is trying to say.

If 15 minutes is all the attention span you have this morning, then let me give you the rest of the sermon in just one verse:

10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Transitional Statement

One of Jesus’ favorite ways of refereing to himself is “the Son of Man” so here he is saying that this is the reason that he has come - to seek and save the lost.

That is the big truth for today, that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

That is the basis for the rest of Jesus’ teaching this morning, the only questions that I am going to ask is as followers of Jesus, how are we doing following Him into this?

The New International Version.