Sermon Tone Analysis

A church which lost its integrity as people of God

Reason for Reformation

!!! 10-07-05am

!!! Announcements

!!! Bible presented

!!! Doxology Hymn 92:                  /“Glory be to God the Father” (only verses 1, 4)/

!!!

Call to worship

\\ Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

(Isaiah 55:1-2)

!!!  

!!! Blessing

!!! Prayer: Adoration, Invocation and Thanksgiving.

Worthy of praise from every mouth, of confession from every tongue, of worship from every creature, is your glorious name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who created the world by the word of your power, and in love wonderfully redeemed it.

And so with angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven, we adore and magnify your holy name, evermore praising you, and saying:  “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and earth are full of your glory: Glory be to you, O Lord, most High.”

Loving heavenly Father, your greatness is beyond improvement, your goodness is beyond description, your grace is beyond measure.

We could no sooner count the grains of sand on the seashore as count your blessings toward us.

We know only a fraction of your blessings, still that part exceeds our praise.

We acknowledge with grateful thanks your mercies towards us:

for the measure of health and strength we enjoy;

for soundness of mind and body;

for the comforts of house and home;

for the ample provision of food and clothing;

for the powers of intelligence, intuition and imagination;

for the mutual help and support of family and friends;

for the favour of domestic harmony and peace;

for the enjoyment of plants and animals, flowers and fruits;

for the pleasures of music and creative expression;

for the richness and diversity of cultures that make this country what it is;

for the freedom, peace, prosperity and stability we enjoy in our land;

for the fellowship and encouragement of your church;

for the comfort, assurance and hope of your Word; and for the certainty of faith.

The extent of your blessings becomes even more greatly magnified in light of our own unworthiness.

Father, please accept our prayer as a pleasing aroma of thanksgiving and praise in and through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

!!! Hymn No 305:                            /“We love the place, O God”/

I love the house where you live, O Lord, the place where your glory dwells.

(Psalm 26:8)

!!! Scripture Reading                     /Ephesians 5:8-21/

!!! Tithes, offering and dedication

While the offering is taken up, remaining seated, all sing:

!!! Hymn 611                     /“Come, you thankful people, come”/

Isaiah 9:3:  You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.

(Isaiah 9:3)

!!! Prayer of Confession of sin

Dear Heavenly Lord,

Upon reflection, in moments of complete openness and honesty before you, we realise what grief we cause you continually.

Not a day goes by in which we do not sin, or act with ingratitude towards you.

Not a day goes by in which we do not add to our guilt either in thought, word, or deed.

Father, we dare not deny our sins, we make no excuses for them, we humbly confess them before you, we repent of them and return to you for forgiveness and cleansing.

This we do, knowing that you will not turn us away, for in Christ we are accepted.

You will not condemn us, for Christ died in our place.

You will remember our sins no more, for they are cast into the depths of the sea.

Your grace covers all our sins.

So we resolve to put sin to death.

We commit ourselves to a life of grateful thanks for all your blessings and of humble obedience to your Word, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

!!! Forgiveness

If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

(1 John 1:7-9)

!!! Hymn No 397:                            /“Out of my bondage, sorrow and night”/

!!! Prayer for others

·         Bereaved:  Edwards family, bomb victims

·         Sick:  Cassey Pickersgill;

·         World leaders

·         MAF

That their conference will be a time of spiritual encouragement and strengthening; for protection over all our families, national and expatriate; for Wisdom and Discernment for our leadership team as they carry out their normal management duties as well as all the other Humbug that comes their way.

(There is not such thing as normal in PNG!!!)  That in everything we do and say, the Lord God will be glorified and be evident to the people we serve

·         Christian education, RE Teachers, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders

·         Congregational activities.

Kwangho Song an his family.

!!! Scripture Reading                     /2Chronicles 34:1-7/

!!! Sermon          /Unfaithful worship the root of lost integrity as people of God/

;  Road sign

;  Road sign

;  The picture of the ruins of Jerusalem.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

!!!!!! Introduction

Someone once said:  “Man’s problem rises from the fact that he has not only lost the way, but he has lost the address.”

Someone else added:  “The only complete mistake is the mistake from which we learn nothing.

When a winner makes a mistake, he says, ‘I was wrong.’

When a loser makes a mistake, he says, ‘It wasn’t my fault.’”

When does the church lose its integrity as the people of God?

When does it begin to lose ground in the sight of God?

The short answer is:  when it begins to win the favour of the world.

The Bible is clear, you are a friend of God and an enemy of the world; or you are a friend of the world and an enemy of God.

!!!!!! ; Bewilderment

I want to share with you this morning an extract from a book by John Bright titled /A history of Israel/.

It deal with the time in the history of Judah just before the reign of king Josiah, the portion from the Word of God we read this morning.

Bright writes of a time of massive spiritual unfaithfulness, and I quote:

“It is, to be sure, probable that much of this [corruption of faithful worship] represented no conscious abandonment of the national religion.

The [true] nature of primitive Yahwism (worship of God) had been so widely forgotten, and rites incompatible with it so long practiced, that in many minds the essential distinction between Yahweh and the pagan gods had been obscured.

It was possible for such people to practice these rites alongside the cult of Yahweh without awareness that they were turning from the national faith in doing so.

The situation was one of immense, and in some ways novel, danger to the religious integrity of Israel.”

(Unquote)

In other words, the old was still there, but something else was added to it.

The true nature of faithful worship as instituted by God had been forgotten.

The people of God then started to worship Him with rituals borrowed from the pagans.

These rites and practices were sugar-coated with good-sounding words of the so-called prophets, and the people swallowed it up for gospel – and the devastating fact is, they did not even notice that they have lost the way, but that they actually forgot the address as well.