Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
We all seek a place / a community in which to belong.
There can be a sense of isolation when new, not fitting in, or wrestling with matters not understood by others.
This can lead to problems as one who feels isolated feels desperate to belong … hence the appeal of gangs, Islam, terrorism, promiscuity, drugs and alcohol, acting out … all to fit in / to belong.
God offers a place / a family to belong.
Do we find belonging in the family of God?
How do we extend this belonging to others (especially to those who do not appear to fit)?
How are we living it out?
In what way do we cling to our belonging in Christ even when feeling isolated?
We are studying the book of Ephesians, which focuses on unity - being ONE With Christ and ONE With One Another.
A side topic of gender identification and sexuality preferences is playing in this discussion … as it is so before us within our society and especially with the changes to our school curriculum.
We conversed around this subject last Sunday in the adult Sunday School class.
Chapters 1-3 focus on our identity in Christ … with chapters 4-6 focusing on how we live that out.
Thanksgiving is a season where this sense of belonging is expected … but when you do not belong, the isolation can be daunting.
This is intended as a season of recognition / of giving thanks for the ways in which the Lord has provided.
Thankfulness is found much easier in belonging than in isolation.
All three of these collide on us this morning.
Collisions are not neat and tidy.
There is not necessarily a neat solution to these three … but, whether we have trusted Christ or not, our Bible passage offers the solution.
It continues to clarify who we are in Christ ...
… but also who we are together as the people of God.
There is a movement in our passage from isolation to belonging.
is a movement in our passage from isolation to belonging.
is a movement in our passage from isolation to belonging.
We are being called to consider who we are or were without Christ.
We are being shown who we are or could be with Christ.
The Practice of Remembering (11-12)
Our passage opens with a call to “remember” … read .
Thanksgiving can bring on memories … both pleasant ones and difficult.
Farmer friends give thanks at Thanksgiving whether the harvest is in or not … while acknowledging the struggle when it is not yet in, recalling past harvests (both when it was in and when it was not).
Being a season when we often get together with family, we remember those not with us, particularly mourning those no longer with us.
Here we are called to remember.
Last week Derek said the original word used for “all” actually meant “all”.
It is the same here … the original word for “remember” actually means “remember”.
It is a verb / an action.
We are to call to mind / to hold in our memory.
We are to “make mention of” / to tell our memories and experiences.
In the way we are called to give thanks in all things, we are called here to remember not only who we are in Christ but also who we were and will be.
Outside the Family of God (11)
I was pointed to a recent article in Christianity Today … a screen shot is on the screen if you want to be able to find it.
It is a testimonial account of a lady who came to Christ while living a lesbian lifestyle.
She had a significant God-experience in which she saw who she was apart from God while being given an understanding of who God was calling her to be.
She gained a fresh understanding of God’s love for her (even from within her life apart from God).
She was being given a sense / a reality check of the love and belonging God offered her … which surpassed what she was experiencing in her lesbian relationship.
She was outside the family of God and was being invited in.
Part of our Sunday School discussion last week was over how we respond / how we should respond to a lesbian or transgender or someone who wears clothes that (in our opinion) does not suit their gender.
Our tendency is to judge the person by our presumptions of their sin.
This is what the 1st c.
Jews did to the Gentiles (which simply means “other than Jewish”).
They focused on physical differences (particularly circumcision).
They focused on keeping the Gentiles out rather than on bringing them in to Christ.
We must also remember the contrast of who we are now with who we used to be.
We were outside the family of God but have been invited and adopted in by God’s grace as expressed in the person and work of Christ and by our faith.
If we are still outside the family of God, we are being invited in … we need only to receive and believe.
Separated From God (12)
Paul offers further description in v.12.
Some translations repeat the word “remember” to show Paul’s emphasis on this.
For us to understand who we are in Christ, we must know who we were without Him.
To grasp who we are in the family of God, we must recall who we were when separated from Him.
He uses three key pictures here to remind us.
Without Christ we are separated from Him.
Without Christ we are alienated from God’s people.
Without Christ we are strangers to the promise and hope of God.
There is a sense / a picture / a reality of isolation here.
Paul himself, in his isolation, had filled the gap with a violent and destructive opposition to Christ … and yet Christ met him uniquely and clearly on the Damascus road in .
In the article I referred to earlier, Jackie Hill Perry tells her own story of just such an experience - a very personal encounter with God, a coming to faith out of an opposite lifestyle.
In our isolation from God, we turn to other things to fill the void.
We work or exercise, busying ourselves with tasks.
We allow temptations / sins / addictions to take over.
We become idle or a meddler.
What is it we tend to turn to instead of God?
In many movies there is a canyon or river or danger where safety is on the other side but the bridge is missing or unsafe.
What will bridge us from separation to the hope and promise He offers / from isolation to belonging?
He has provided the bridge, but we must step out in faith.
Are we remembering?
Do we know the isolation we face without Christ?
Are we testifying to the hope and promise of belonging to Christ?
Embracing Who We Are in Christ (13-22)
V.13 opens with the words, “But now ...”
If we are a Christ-follower, we are clearly called in passages like to live like one.
When we get married, we no longer get to live like a single person.
When we move to a new home or community, it does not work to re-create our former way of living.
As we age, we are best off to accept the changes; it does not work to live like when we were younger.
“But now ...” we are no longer isolated, we belong; we are no longer unsaved, we are saved; we are no longer lost, we are found.
We are called here to embrace who we are and where we are at.
Let us embrace our identity in Christ.
Let us fully accept it / fully live it out.
Let us engage with enthusiasm.
Read .
As Individual Believers (13-18)
There are two aspects to who we are in Christ.
It is both an individual and corporate reality.
Paul addresses both and both are an essential part to our identity in Christ; to fully be ONE With Christ, we must be ONE With One Another.
Let us embrace who we individually are in Christ.
This means putting aside our sin and living holy lives.
It means putting aside false realities and misconceptions and former ways … not allowing them to define us any longer.
It means being who we are in Christ.
As Ryan ...
As a child of God ...
“brought near by the blood of Christ” (13)
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