Sermon Tone Analysis

This morning we are picking back up in our study of the book of Acts.

If you’re new to our church it would be good for you to know that we practice a form or preaching called “Expository Preaching”.

What that means is we believe the Bible is best taught by taking books of the Bible and then breaking them down from beginning to end, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, in order to discover what the Bible means in our lives today.

With that said, we are currently doing that through the NT book of Acts.

A book written by a 1st century disciple named Luke for two primary purposes:

First, to give us a history of the church.

How it started, who was involved, and the circumstances that surrounded it.

Second, to give us template for how Jesus intends for us to accomplish the mission of taking the Gospel to the entire world.

So, if you haven’t been with us, I would encourage you to go online to MCF.life, where you can listen to previous messages leading up to today.

Today however, we are coming back to as we continue the third of three stories surrounding the evangelistic ministry of the Apostle Peter.

Today however, we are diving into

as Luke continues to focus on what you might call the Evangelistic ministry of the Apostle Peter.

I say evangelistic, because to a large degree, Luke’s focus on Peter in chapters 9 & 10 gives us great insight into what the process of evangelism looks like.

And when I say Evangelism, I’m talking about the responsibility of every Christian to share their faith with people who don’t know or haven’t heard about Jesus.

And as we’ve learned through this focus on Peter, there are some key components to the process of evangelism we need to understand if we want to be affective witnesses.

We saw the first component of evangelism in as Peter healed a crippled man named Aeneas who lived in the city of Lydda.

A healing that resulted in the entire city and region coming to faith in Jesus.

And from that story we learned Evangelism requires commitment, three specifically:

A Commitment to share our faith

A Commitment to reach broken people

And a commitment to rely on the power of Jesus.

We then saw a second component of evangelism play out through the death and resuscitation to life of a woman named Tabitha.

And from that story we learned in order to lead people to faith in Jesus, we have to be willing to face some spiritual realities, again three specifically:

And from that story we learned in order to lead people to Jesus we have to approach it much like Tabitha’s friends and Peter did.

First, we have to be willing to acknowledge that people who don’t know Jesus are spiritually dead.

That if they die without faith in Jesus, they will die in their sin and face eternal consequences.

First, we have to be willing to acknowledge that people who don’t know Jesus are spiritually dead.

In other words, regardless of how good they are or how religious they are, if they haven’t put their faith in Jesus, then physical death isn’t the only death they will experience.

Because the Bible says there is a second death.

A spiritual death that will result in eternal separation from God.

A death that can only be avoided through the atoning work of Jesus, who died for our sins.

But that atonement can only come if a person is willing to put their faith in Jesus and make Him Lord of their life.

Second, we learned in order to reach spiritually dead people, it needs to bother us that they’re spiritually dead.

In other words, if somebody we care about doesn’t know Jesus, then it ought to keep us up at night.

It ought to bother us to the point that we are unwilling to accept it and would be willing to go to great lengths to do something about it.

And let me just say this, if it doesn’t bother you, then something is wrong with your faith.

Because either you don’t really believe Jesus is the only way or you’re not in tune with what’s important to God.

Third, we learned in order to reach spiritually dead people, we have to see Jesus as the only solution to the sin problem.

That Jesus is the answer to the sin and spiritual death problem.

And then last week, as we saw another component playing out through the story of a man named Cornelius.

We called this component “The Tipping Point”.

The tipping point being the place a person needs to be in order to be saved.

/And based on that we asked the question, “What does it take for a person to be saved.”

And when we say, “What does it take”, we’re not talking about:

What prayer do they need to pray, or what church to they attend.

What class do they need to go through.

But instead, where does a person need to be spiritually, emotionally, and mentally in order to put their faith in Jesus and be saved?

What’s that tipping point?

And not only that, but how does that process work?

And who is involved in that process?

And today Luke is going to continue this focus as he gives us one more story surrounding the evangelistic efforts of the Apostle Peter.

And as we learned last week it’s a three part process.

It begins as a person desires to seek, know, and be right with God.

We saw this with Cornelius, as a pagan man, living in a pagan city, had a desire to seek, know, and be right with God.

Luke writes:

GO TO TV: