Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

God’s Purpose for His Church

What is God’s purpose for His church?

To reflect to the world His fullness and His sufficiency.

To show forth His glory.

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Taking a glimpse of the future, we can see that this is His purpose for His church.

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The purpose for His church is set forth clearly in the Scriptures:

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Isa

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Israel ancient and spiritual, were to be as the tree of life, as the water life to bring a knowledge of God through word and life, and be a means of healing the nations.

Through Joseph Egypt was saved and Joseph was as the fountain of life to the Egyptians.

Daniel was the means of saving all the wise men of Babylon from execution.

Paul was the means of salvation to the 276 men on the ship sailing to Rome.

These are illustrations that God has given to teach us of what the church is to be to the world.

It is through the church that God designs to save many from perdition, from eternal ruin.

What opposes God’s purpose for His church?

Why was there a need for the New Testament church?

Why did not Israel fulfil God’s purpose when it was so clearly set forth in Scriptures?

The answer: Pharisaism.

Their religion became legal.

They became inward focused, instead of outward focused.

They thought that the world that God wanted to bless with salvation was only Israel.

The Jewish nation had claimed to be the special, loyal people who were favored of God; but Christ represented their religion as devoid of saving faith.

All their pretensions of piety, their human inventions and ceremonies, and even their boasted performance of the outward requirements of the law, could not avail to make them holy.

They were not pure in heart or noble and Christlike in character.

A legal religion is insufficient to bring the soul into harmony with God.

The hard, rigid orthodoxy of the Pharisees, destitute of contrition, tenderness, or love, was only a stumbling block to sinners.

They were like the salt that had lost its savor; for their influence had no power to preserve the world from corruption.

The only true faith is that which “worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6) to purify the soul.

It is as leaven that transforms the character.

True religion has never been found in mere formalism and ceremonialism.

But true religion has always been found in the heart and expressed through words and deeds of love.

Micah

The prophet Hosea had pointed out what constitutes the very essence of Pharisaism, in the words, “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself.”

Hosea 10:1.

In their professed service to God, the Jews were really working for self.

Selfishness motivates Pharisaism.

Pharisaism has knowledge of what is right to do (“to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God”) but because this requires the surrender of carnal self to God and this, the prideful heart objects to, they replace this requirement with man made ones to demonstrate their relationship with God.

All such religion is vanity.

Read Isaiah 58, ye who claim to be children of the light.

Especially do you read it again and again who have felt so reluctant to inconvenience yourselves by favoring the needy.

You whose hearts and houses are too narrow to make a home for the homeless, read it; you who can see orphans and widows oppressed by the iron hand of poverty and bowed down by hardhearted worldlings, read it.

Are you afraid that an influence will be introduced into your family that will cost you V 2, p 36 p 36 more labor, read it.

Your fears may be groundless, and a blessing may come, known and realized by you every day.

But if otherwise, if extra labor is called for, you can draw upon One who has promised: “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily.”

The reason why God’s people are not more spiritually minded and have not more faith, I have been shown, is because they are narrowed up with selfishness.

The prophet is addressing Sabbathkeepers, not sinners, not unbelievers, but those who make great pretensions to godliness.

It is not the abundance of your meetings that God accepts.

It is not the numerous prayers, but the rightdoing, doing the right thing and at the right time.

It is to be less self-caring and more benevolent.

Our souls must expand.

Then God will make them like a watered garden, whose waters fail not.

The cure for Pharisaism and cold formalism is a practical religion.

This is found in and reveals not only the cure, but the results of such a religion.

The Great Commission

Before Christ ascended to heaven He gave the great missionary charter of His kingdom.

Mark 16:15

“Go ye into all the world”

Where do we begin?

Our work begins where we are.

faithfulness in little things is one of the keynotes of success.

The disciples were to begin their work where they were.

The hardest and most unpromising field was not to be passed by.

So every one of Christ’s workers is to begin where he is.

In our own families may be souls hungry for sympathy, starving for the bread of life.

There may be children to be trained for Christ.

There are heathen at our very doors.

Let us do faithfully the work that is nearest.

Then let our efforts be extended as far as God’s hand may lead the way.

The work of many may appear to be restricted by circumstances; but, wherever it is, if performed with faith and diligence it will be felt to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Christ’s work when upon earth appeared to be confined to a narrow field, but multitudes from all lands heard His message.

God often uses the simplest means to accomplish the greatest results.

And while we are to do our work faithfully where we are, we must not be unmindful of the great work to be done in regions beyond.

But the command, “Go ye into all the world,” is not to be lost sight of.

We are called upon to lift our eyes to the “regions beyond.”

Christ tears away the wall of partition, the dividing prejudice of nationality, and teaches a love for all the human family.

He lifts men from the narrow circle which their selfishness prescribes; He abolishes all territorial lines and artificial distinctions of society.

He makes no difference between neighbors and strangers, friends and enemies.

He teaches us to look upon every needy soul as our brother, and the world as our field.

What does it mean to “preach the gospel”?

The preaching of the gospel is by no means limited to a minister preaching from a pulpit.

What does gospel mean?

Good News: Positive information about recent and important events regarded as worthy of celebration.

Gospel of the kingdom: Good news proceeding from God concerning the imminent instantiation of a new sphere of divine dominion and its King, Jesus Christ.

The gospel can be summed up in that God created us in His image, for His glory to reflect His image, the beauty of holiness to the universe.

God has a purpose that man should live with this purpose according to His will.

Man rebelled and fell short of the glory of God.

He became depraved and wholly unable to save himself.

He became a slave to Satan and to sin.

Because of our rebellion, we deserve to die eternally, for the wages of sin is death.

But in the counsels of God in times past in eternity God, in His mercy, promised to give His Son, Jesus Christ to the world in order to pave a way of escape for sinners.

He is to us now the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Christ is the atonement that can bring back together earth and heaven, prodigal son and Father, lost sheep and Shepherd.

In order to do this He had to live a perfect, sinless life amidst corruption and as a sinless Being offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world.

He resurrected to break the fetters of death and the power of Satan and to minister to us in the heavenly sanctuary.

Through His life, death, and resurrection we now have the hope of fulfilling God’s purpose of reflecting His image, now through the transforming power of His Spirit and grace.

We can enter this new life through faith and repentance for sin.

This is what Paul may have had in mind when he wrote that he was “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

This is what is to be “preached” or shared with the world beginning with those around us.

But is preaching limited to only theoretical truth?