Sermon Tone Analysis

Lights in the World

This summer 2 of my children discovered the beauty of the stars in the sky.

They camped across the lake with cousins and friends where they spent much of the night watching the stars.

Because it’s so remote the stars are far brighter than they are from the city.

It’s spellbinding to watch, especially in August at the height of the meteor showers.

Light, particularly lights in the dark, are intoxicating.

They fill with you a sense of wonder and awe.

The sky at night along the shores of Lake Michigan is a canvas for the creator’s art.

Like those stars, the lives of those who follow Christ are meant to shine.

14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world

There are moments in history where this is clearly the case.

One of those moments started in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts.

“In 1806, a Williams College student named Samuel Mills began to pray for the cause of foreign missions.

Until then, the missionary organizations in the United States were solely dedicated to domestic missions, both in the Western frontier and among Native American tribes.

But Mills prayed that the Lord would raise up men to take the gospel to other nations.

One August day, Mills assembled a small group of spiritually minded friends who prayed together outside of campus for foreign missions.

Some accounts say there was a sudden thunderstorm as they were praying, which caused the five men to take refuge under a haystack.

Afterward, they continued to gather weekly for what became known as the Haystack Prayer Meeting.

In answer to the prayers from among the haystacks, God established the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, the American Bible Society, and the United Foreign Missionary Society.

Through those organizations, the Lord sent many laborers into his ripened field.”(Megan

Hill, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/4-lessons-the-haystack-prayer-meetings-teach-us/ accessed 9-6-19)

Lights in the darkness.

Through the prayer of a group of young people in the middle of nowhere, God brought light into many dark corners of the world.

While there are exceptions, the church across the US doesn’t seem to give off much light.

People who identify as Christians live like those around them who don’t identify as Christians.

Where is the light?

I think part of the problem is that people who identify as Christian don’t understand what that means.

To be a Christian is to be like Christ.

He lived a radical life, in case you aren’t aware.

There is a temptation to drift into a “it doesn’t matter what you do” mentality.

We think of the good news—that Jesus died on the cross for my sins—and conclude that that’s all that matters.

Paul has some direct words for us:

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Wait a minute, you say.

I thought my salvation was already worked out?

I thought Jesus worked it for me?

Isn’t that the case?

Doesn’t the Bible say we are justified by faith and not works?

(Gal 2:16)

we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

It does say that, as we see.

So we must solve the apparent dilemmas we find here.

The first is one of orthodoxy and the 2nd is one of orthopraxy.

As we do, we will see that a Christian is someone whose life is a light in the darkness.

The Dilemma of Orthodoxy

So which is it?

Am I saved by grace or by works?

Ah, the question of the day, or the year, or the last 2 millennia.

During the time of the Reformation in the 1500s Martin Luther confronted the Roman Catholic church over this very issue.

Is salvation a work of free grace or a synergy between grace from God and works offered up by man?

In answer, reformers coined the term “sola gratia” i.e. grace alone.

They championed Paul’s teaching summarized in Ephesians 2:8-9,

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

They were struck by the reality that man is thoroughly depraved and incapable of reaching God, no matter how much “help” or nudging God might give him.

With such a heavy emphasis on grace and de-emphasis on works, however, another problem arose.

People relaxed, faith became synonymous with a simple prayer, and lives seemed little, if any, different from those without faith.

The Church in Scotland grew concerned about this lack of change and in the early part of the 18th Century worried that it was a result of preaching about free grace and so came up with a creed for their ministers to sign in an effort to restore some measure of godly living among their people.

The creed is known as the “Auchterarder creed” named after the town in which the Presbytery meeting was held.

When a candidate for ministry came forward, a man by the name of William Craig, he was asked if he agreed with this creed.

Do you subscribe to the following: I believe that it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we forsake sin in order to come to Christ.

One of the most familiar forms this controversy appeared, at least in Reformed seminaries, was in the Marrow controversy that took place in Scotland in the early part of the 18th Century.

Do you subscribe to the following (the Auchterader creed).

I believe that it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we forsake sin in order to come to Christ.

William Craig.

It’s a bit confusing with the combination of negatives, so you can imagine poor Mr. Craig’s stuttering over his answer.

Let’s negate the negative, simplify and listen again:

We must forsake sin in order to come to Christ.

Do you agree with that?

The problem with the question is that it seems to create two sides: those who believe you must forsake sin in order to come to Christ and those who believe you don’t need to forsake sin.

Do you see the problem?

Free grace isn’t free if there are conditions tied to it, which is what this creed is attempting to do.

Forsaking sin, as condition of coming to Christ is how the world often thinks about religion.

They define religion as that which we must do in order to reach God, to come to Christ.

We would counter that by preaching free grace.

“No, no, no! Grace is for the sinner.

It comes with no conditions.

That’s why we call it grace.”

As Paul wrote,

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The problem is that works often fall out of view.

We think of salvation as a work of God’s free grace and then we stop thinking.

Therein lies another problem.

It leads to a person thinking he’s a Christian when he doesn’t follow Christ anywhere.

Where do good works fit?

Do they fit anywhere?

Paul writes,

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,

There it is.

Work it out.

Work it out with “fear and trembling.”

That sounds a bit ominous.

It doesn’t sound very optional.

This was the concern of Presbyters in Auchterarder.

What they got wrong was the prepositions.

He doesn’t write, “work for your salvation with fear and trembling.”

That’s an important difference.

He says “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”