Sermon Tone Analysis

SERMON OUTLINE, SESSION 7 Chapter 7,

“More Than Survivors”

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Guiding theme: People in exile still have an important mission from God.

Review of week’s past

Strangers in a Strange Time

Now You Are God’s People

This Is My Story

Holiness Takes Practice(s)

Blessing Babylon

Raising Resident Aliens

Scripture reading:

Introduction:

• Illustration: Waiting out a storm.

• Our instinct is to form a holy huddle and wait for the winds of Nebuchadnezzar to blow over, for God to redeem us, for us to get back to the land, for everything to be okay.

(Lance)

• Prophetic voice instead calls us to rediscover our story and our practices, and work through our “we” confusion.

One of the things Israel failed to understand was that God did not choose them because they were wonderful people.

In fact, God calls them a stiffed-necked people.

It was never about who they were about about who God is!

They (We) are vessels to which God intends to work through to reveal Himself to the world around us.

I have to say that I have never felt so sure about a series of sermon series as I have this year.

God so impressed upon me to to the “persecution” series, then this “exile” series and next the “Teachings and Parables of Jesus.”

I feel that God wanted us to see how the folks under persecution responded to that persecution.

The persecution did not shut them up, it opened them up.

They became missionaries to the very people who persecuted them.

They acted out of love to the enemy around them.

I believe the series was meant to help us to do the same where we are.

We should not wait for persecution to happen to do what we have always been called to do.

Now God is revealing to us, that even though we have not had strangers invade our land and put us in prison, we do feel like exiles in our own land.

It is not a new political regime moving in, but secularism.

We are no longer admired and listened to, but viewed with hostile criticism.

Christianity has been painted with a brush of those who bomb abortion clinics and cry out in loud voices that God is coming to judge the earth.

We are not that, but the world only knows to lump us in to one category.

We have become the church (c) a building housing another religion instead of THE Church (C); The people of God!

In two weeks, we will be begin studying the teachings of Jesus so we can learn to become what Jesus wanted us to become instead of what the world has shaped us to be.

Later this month, Bill Smith is coming to teach a seminar helping us to see the historical events that shaped the church into what it is today; Protestant and Catholic and all those practices in between.

I do not think that is by accident either.

(Please let me know if you can attend).

God is working on changing us.

He is tearing down the church to help teach us to be His Church, for it is only HIS CHURCH that can truly be the light to our community.

That is what God was trying to teach the Israelites in exile.

• “It is not enough,” God says, to simply protect you; I want to “appoint you as light to the nations” (, CEB).

As I was reading from Rev. Daniels book this week and as he discussed this idea, I remembered Nebuchadnezzar’s response when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood their ground in faith and God delivered them.

They had become a light among Babylon and God was revealed for who He is!

We have become accustomed to living in and viewing the world in certain ways.

Embracing exile requires a transition in our missional imagination.

Embracing exile requires a transition in our missional imagination.

We have to relinquish and repent of relying on the following: • Colonialism: Evangelism in the Western church often came from a place of power, so that as we discovered new lands and “proclaimed the gospel” within a culture, we also Westernized those cultures and often ended up abusing our power and misusing the people we encountered.

• Revivalism: The assumption in a Christianized culture is that something in people’s hearts simply needs to be revived.

In a post-Christian world, however, the language, the beauty, and the realities of the gospel are foreign to most people that we encounter.

Four images may help us reimagine what it might look like to be a missional people in exile: 1.

The Embodied Word • : “Eat this scroll” (CEB)—embodies the word.

• God, who created all things, chooses to reveal himself through the people he has formed in his image.

• We can’t just go to church; we have to be the church.

• God’s great evangelistic strategy, maybe especially in exile, is for people to look at us and say, “Whatever that is, that’s what I want.”

We used to think...

Open the church doors, they will come.

Have a potluck, they will come.

Have an evangelist, they will come

But those things do not work anymore and too often we have tried other things that have not worked either.

The church became more about changing to look like them, or to appeal to them through entertainment.

I knew a church who heard that Gary Busey had become a Christian, so they invited him to their church thinking he would draw a crowd.

However, they did not question Gary about his faith and beliefs.

He accepted and came to speak at their church and it was a total embarrassment.

He used very in appropriate language and taught things that were not right.

We have to relinquish and repent of relying on the following:

We have to relinquish and repent of relying on the following:

• Colonialism: Evangelism in the Western church often came from a place of power, so that as we discovered new lands and “proclaimed the gospel” within a culture, we also Westernized those cultures and often ended up abusing our power and misusing the people we encountered.

Too many times we tried to make “mini-mes” out of them.

We blurred the lines between what was “Christian” and what was “American.”

• Revivalism: The assumption in a Christianized culture is that something in people’s hearts simply needs to be revived.

In a post-Christian world, however, the language, the beauty, and the realities of the gospel are foreign to most people that we encounter.

It used to be that we taught assuming that people at least had some Sunday school in their past and had some knowledge of the terms we use, the stories we tell, and a basic understanding of salvation.

That is not the case anymore.

People often say to me, “people do not see the need to be in church anymore,” however, I do not think it is that they do not see the need, they just have no idea what the church is or what it is about.

Any knowledge they do have is colored by the attitudes of the television who make us all look like crazed fanatics!

The truth is, most often, the only people we attract are other Christians.

We have had some growth here in our church over the last three years, but every new person attending already knew the Lord when they came.

They are Christians who just did not have a church home.

Now do not get me wrong, they needed a church home and I am glad they feel at home here.

We may see more like them considering there are three churches that have or are possibly about to close their doors.

We need to continue to pray for them and they are welcome to join us, however, we are not doing our job if we are not getting the good news of Jesus Christ out to the world that has never heard it.

Our nation is as much as mission field as Africa, Asia, or wherever else.

Maybe even more so these days.

Four images may help us reimagine what it might look like to be a missional people in exile:

1.

The Embodied Word • : “Eat this scroll” (CEB)—embodies the word.

2

1.

The Embodied Word

• : “Eat this scroll” (CEB)—embodies the word.

It is not enough to read the Word of God or even to know the Word of God.

We are to live the Word of God.

The Word of God lives through us!

I have to tell you that one of the ways I believe we have failed is that we are partakers, but not servers.

We sit in the pew and learn and learn and think we are growing spiritually, but let me tell you, you always learn more by doing than be hearing.

It is one thing to listen and discuss, but completely another thing to apply it!

Too many come on Sundays and listen and discuss and then set what they have talked about down at the door as they leave only to pick it up again to discuss when they come to church the next time.

I would much rather see people teaching Sunday school or leading children’s church than sitting in a church service or Sunday school.

Do not get me wrong, somewhere we do need to hear and discuss, but our time spent listening should never be more than our time spent serving somewhere.

One of the reasons Sunday night services used to be considered so important was so those serving children, youth and adults on Sunday mornings had a place to relax, listen and learn.

But I will challenge that we learn far more through action than through sitting, listening and discussing.

They have there place, but it should be minimal to serving.