Sermon Tone Analysis

150 Years...

Next year we celebrate 150 years of Christian ministry - years of growth, years of stagnation and even loss.

Years of active involvement in the community, and years of passive observance of the community.

Ministries have been planted, sprung forth, and died in that time.

Church buildings have been built, sold to others, and abandoned to the elements or even torn down.

We might not be the biggest, the wealthiest, or the loudest, but we have been here, through thick and thin, as this city of seekers from various places and spaces developed and grew.

God started with George Toll’s desire to erect a community that included the presence of God’s pure Gospel, and added people with each generation, building a house that was not made with hands to worship in buildings that eventually became this hallowed space.

We aren’t celebrating what St. John’s has accomplished by staying open.

We are celebrating what the Lord has done in watching over His Word to perform it, generation after generation, and praying that by His grace and mercy, He will continue to do so until He comes again with glory to judge the living and the dead.

Lord God, bless Your Word wherever it is proclaimed.

Make it a Word of power and peace to convert those not yet Your own and to confirm those who have come to saving faith.

May Your Word pass from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip, and from the lip to the life that, as You have promised, Your Word may achieve the purpose for which You send it, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

The Perfect Church

I think that I shall never see

A Church that’s all it ought to be:

A Church whose members never stray

Beyond the Strait and Narrow Way:

A Church that has no empty pews,

Whose Pastor never has the blues,

A Church whose Deacons always deak,

And none is proud, and all are meek:

Where gossips never peddle lies,

Or make complaints or criticize;

Where all are always sweet and kind,

And all to other’s faults are blind.

Such perfect Churches there may be,

But none of them are known to me.

But still, we’ll work, and pray and plan,

To make our own the best we can.

Some people truly don’t understand why the church exists.

They look at the various buildings that bear witness to the existence of the Kingdom of God in a nation that rejected the authority of kings.

They observe the activities of people who are little different than they, living as “in the world but not of the world.”

They consider the sacrificial giving of those who gather around the Gospel in Word and Sacrament, who in their poverty make the community rich.

Some believe that preaching the Gospel is a way of demeaning non-Christians as evil people, inferior to the “good church-folk.”

Some believe that declaring God’s Law in all of its harshness is done out of a desire to make others feel guilty for the shear pleasure of watching them squirm.

The truth is that those who have heard God’s gracious message of love and forgiveness that comes through the shed blood of Jesus Christ our Lord only want to share the same life-giving message with others, to the praise of God’s glorious grace.

God calls us, through the Gospel preached by the Church of Jesus Christ, to repentance, and he uses people just like you rather than angels, so that you can know that the message of salvation is for you.

God proclaims His Holy Law to saints so that they can remember that the difference between them and sinners is not measured in dollars and cents, wardrobe styles, or even time spent in Church.

Instead, it is whether their sins were washed away in the waters of Holy Baptism, whether Jesus’ offer of a new life was accepted or rejected.

As Christians, we know that the wages of sin is death, and as humans we know that we would desire to put off payday for as long as possible.

Jesus knows that sometimes His people struggle to tell others that “Jesus saves.”

One of the measures of whether something is alive or not is whether it can reproduce.

Movement isn’t life - water moves, sand moves, crystals move.

Noise isn’t life.

The rapid expansion of air along the path of lightning produces an explosive sound - thunder - but lightning isn’t alive.

The ability to reproduce is the ability to project oneself forward while maintaining continuity.

It is for that reason that the Israelites viewed barrenness as a curse.

The biblical example of a “dead church” is found in

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of Christ.

For others to hear, some must speak.

Paul proves this in when he shows the relationship between the preaching of the Gospel and the righteousness of faith.

A church with no Gospel to preach, no matter what level its activity, is a church that has a name that it is alive, but it is dead.

It cannot reproduce.

Social activity does not replace sowing the seed.

To the Church in Sardis

3 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

The Church on the day of Pentecost numbered about 120 () when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.

By the end of the day, through the preaching of the Gospel, about 3000 souls were added (), and more additions came as the church continued the work of teaching, fellowship and prayers.

“ ‘I know your works.

You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard.

Keep it, and repent.

If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

There are some people who are ripe for the taking - Low hanging fruit.

You don’t have to invest much in their coming to faith in Christ.

That is a wonderful thing, but it isn’t the usual thing.

More often than not, it will take time, energy, and work.

You will have to develop a relationship with most of the people that you share Christ with.

e to invest much in their coming to faith in Christ.

That is a wonderful thing, but it isn’t the usual thing.

More often than not, it will take time, energy, and work.

You will have to develop a relationship with most of the people that you share Christ with.

Jesus spent three years with the 12, knowing that, as He said, “one of you is a devil.”

He also spent three years dealing with HIS own people, the Jews.

While large crowds attended His preaching, there were few who were with Him at His death.

The Church on the day of Pentecost numbered about 120 () when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.

By the end of the day, through the preaching of the Gospel, about 3000 souls were added (), but more additions came as the church continued the work of teaching, fellowship and prayers.

Jesus spent three years with the 12, knowing that, as He said, “one of you is a devil.”

He also spent three years dealing with HIS own people, the Jews.

While large crowds attended His preaching, there were few who were with Him at His death.

The Church on the day of Pentecost numbered about 120 () when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.

By the end of the day, through the preaching of the Gospel, about 3000 souls were added (), but more additions came as the church continued the work of teaching, fellowship and prayers.

The Church on the day of Pentecost numbered about 120 () when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.

By the end of the day, through the preaching of the Gospel, about 3000 souls were added (), and more additions came as the church continued the work of teaching, fellowship and prayers.

The Gospel delivered us from “the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

Peter continued, saying:

The gardener told his master, “Let’s give it another year.

I’ll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year...” Let’s put in some good work, let’s put in some effort.

The ground might be good, and the rains plentiful, but sometimes you need a little extra TLC.

This tree might need a little something extra.

The gardener told his master, “Let’s give it another year.

I’ll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year...” Let’s put in some good work, let’s put in some effort.

The ground might be good, and the rains plentiful, but sometimes you need a little extra TLC.

This tree might need a little something extra.

Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), .

I won’t sin against God and before you by saying that it will be easy.

Satan isn’t just going to give up his hold on Gary like that.

There is fruit that will come as we faithfully take what we have been given and apply it.

The gardener was confident that a living fig tree would respond to his actions, and one that didn’t was clearly not alive, leaves notwithstanding.

I am confident of Gary’s Lutherans, as Paul was of the Philippians: