Sermon Tone Analysis

We have been waking through a series called Your Church it Too Small, and our concern is not necessarily about church growth, although what we are proposing would mean that a church will grow.

But it is not through new programs, it is not from a new ministry, it is from THE ministry, THE central call of Christ to go in to ALL the world and make disciples baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything that Jesus has taught us.

Or as Paul, the early church leader wrote ..

But here is the thing....when Paul writes that WE are ambassadors of Christ, he is saying something very important!!

He is throwing a very wide net!!

He is saying, as he does elsewhere, that ministry is not confined to what happens in this building.

And the work of evangelism of inviting others into the gospel story, of inviting people in the Church community, is something done by the ENTIRE church community, and that if we call ourselves the church, and are not living as ambassadors, are not living with the great commission in mind, we are not actually the church.

______

Christianity has it beginning on the margins of society.

It was born out of Judaism under the world power of the Roman Empire in the petri dish of the Middle East.

It was spurned and rejected by the prominent spiritual leaders of the day.

It was a target for annihilation from both Jewish and Roman powers.

out of Judaism under the world power of the Roman Empire in

the petri dish of the Middle East.

It was spurned and rejected by

the prominent spiritual leaders of the day.

It was a target for annihilation

from both Jewish and Roman powers.

However, under the rule of Constantine, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

This began the age of Christendom where there were Christianized civilizations.

This changed how the culture viewed Christianity, but it also changed how the church functioned.

It gave rise to professionalism and nominalism.

Professionalism developed as people began to see the church as having two primary classes: the professional ministers, and everyone else.

The professional ministers were expected to minister, and everyone else’s job was to just show up and watch the professionals.

Nominalism is being Christian in name only.

this developed what we call Christendom!!

Where Christianity was the rule of law, imposed on everyone!!

A powerful force often used to oppress.

Where Christianity was the understood system that held everything together.

NOT ANYMORE

With the enlightenment movement of the 17th and 18th Centuries we saw a shift from God as centre of all creation to man as centre- and so meaning and purpose are ours to create and identity is not given it is created, and with that come not only as a result but as a necessity individualism, materialism and consumerism.

“Given its emphasis on man as the center of life,

the Enlightenment was the source of modern-day

individualism, materialism, and consumerism.”

(p.

28)

The reign of Christendom is over, the Judeo-Christian ethic is not the acceptable norm, pray and bible reading in schools, no more.

That is the current reality.

Or what some call our cultural moment.

The very idea being that culture shifts, it always has, and the one we find ourselves in right now on the whole is antagonistic to Christianity.

The current reality is this......

I. THE GOSPEL IS UNWANTED

Um, that is the nice way to put it!

The Gospel is despised, reviled,

Strong antagonism to Christianity

And this is a good thing, it is a frightening thing and it is a good thing.

a. this is frightening

It is frightening because in our lifetimes we have never witnesses, experienced maybe first hand the hatred and vilification of our faith.

In most cased without conversation, or real interaction, just assumption and dismissal.

Some of you maybe have followed the story out of UC Berkley, the (bastion of morality in California) that has unfolded over the last few weeks surrounding a vote to denounce a federal bill proposing a clear definition of sex; mainly that sex is determined at birth.

Fox News

A student senator at the University of California, Berkeley, who was kicked out of her own party and is being pressured to resign or face a recall because of her religious views, says she won’t back down.

Isabella Chow, a daughter of Malaysian-Cambodian immigrants and a junior double majoring in business administration and music, told Fox News she abstained from a largely symbolic student vote Oct. 31 because she did not fully agree with certain clauses, not the majority of the pro-LGBTQ+ bills, which passed from the support of 18 of the 20 senators (another being absent).

She was labeled “homophobic” and “transphobic” and within two days felt like the whole campus was against her.

Being very careful to show grace and love and acceptance…she wrote these words to the Student Senate ...

QUOTE

May we all articulate ourselves like this when we engage with the world around us; show this level of love and grace, AND acceptance.....

Nowhere does she lay judgment, nowhere does she spew hatred.

But the very fact that she obtains (not votes against) she is labelled “homophobic, transphobic, bigot”

In an interview Chow said.....“No matter how much I tried to say, ‘I can love you and still disagree with you,’ people still interpret my disagreement with being a bigot and a hater,” she lamented

She was accused of

“Those who were upset with Chow accused her of “shrouding hate in ‘love’”

She has been dragged through the mud and given no platform to respond to the hate that is being thrown at her, for being a Christian; and all that is assumed because of it.

She says this.....

“I realize that behind all the hurtful words and anger spewed at me are wounded hearts and traumatic narratives that only God can redeem,” Chow said.

“Through all this, I pray that the Lord would use my story to spark a greater dialogue that would cause the church to more deeply wrestle with how we can more deeply love our LGBTQ+ neighbors.”

“As a Christian, I believe that God redeems and he uses all situations for the good of those who love Him,” she told Campus Reform.

“There is so much happening, and even though it's been a really, really rough week for me, I know that God is working and I know that he is using this to strengthen the church, to awaken the church in a sense.”

That is what Jesus meant when he said that to follow him would mean turning on family, turning on friends, turning on your culture.

That is what Jesus meant when he said that:

Now the easy road for Isabella Chow would have been to vote yes.

No one would know.

No hatred invoked, no one throwing horrific slander at her.

That is the lure and invitation of Nominal Christianity.

She but she hints at something important...

And that is why the new reality is...

b. this is good

the new reality means a wake up for the church!

We are not citizens of Christendom, We are citizens of the Kingdom of God, and members of the body of Christ, his ecclesia, his church.....

And here is the thing.....the church dies under Christendom.

The Kingdom of God starves and atrophies under Christendom!!

But when the church is pushed back upon, when the church is told to be quiet and is persecuted for its beliefs is when is stands strongest and grows mature; and I would say and scripture would say…is pruned.

“The church thrives on the margins of society.

Living on the margins has a way of helping people prioritize what really matters to them, especially if it has

of helping people prioritize what really matters to them, especially if it has

the potential to cost them something.

When Christianity is marginalized, being a Christian comes with a cost.

Those who claim to be followers of

religion of the Roman Empire.

This began the age of Christendom where

being a Christian comes with a cost.

Those who claim to be followers of

Christ must then be committed.

In this way, the church is stronger when it is on the margins.”

Matt Chandler

is on the margins.

We lament the suffering of the underground church in places like China and we are burdened in prayer (hopefully for the health and safety of the saints) but interestingly those who lead the churches in countries where Christianity it illegal are not praying that Christianity would become legal.

They are definitely not praying that Christendom would reign.

Why?

Because they know what history has taught us ....that the church in its truest sense does not grow in comfort.

I peter

What Peter describes in this text, the church he is writing to, is a church in exile.