Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Junior Church Dismissed

Great couple of weeks

Enjoyed Josh being here and the meeting we had last Sunday night

Finishing out our Authentic series today with a look at our role in the New Testament church.

We have been through a variety of topics that have shown us how the New Testament church lived and conducted themselves.

Today it is my prayer that we will see how God brings people together in local NT churches to encourage us and to carry out His will in our lives.

Follow along with me as I read this morning:

PRAY

Illustration: Feet to eat with, ear to smell with, effects of misuse…not effective for individual, not helpful for the body, puts more strain on the body.

Paul uses the illustration of the body in verses 13-27 to help us understand our place in the body of Christ and how we should operate.

He begins by first identifying how we become part of the body, we are placed into the body.

I. Placed into the body

Verse 13 says “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body...”

The word baptized there is the same one Jesus used when speaking of a physical baptism and Paul used it here to speak of a spiritual baptism.

There has been false doctrine preached on this subject for years.

The baptism of the spirit is not something that takes place after you have been obedient or you recieve a second blessing from God. It’s also not something that is signified by speaking in tongues…tongues means different languages not gibberish.

The biblical understanding of the baptism of the Spirit allows us to understand 2 things about our placement into the body.

A. It’s personal

When Paul writes about the baptism of the Spirit He is speaking of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that we receive at salvation.

The Holy Spirit indwells each of us and gives us a personal relationship to the same body.

That relationship is based upon our individual decision to trust in Jesus as our savior.

When we decide by faith to have a personal relationship with Christ we are then baptized, indwelt, by the Holy Spirit of God and grafted into the body of Christ.

This relationship with Jesus is a personal relationship and it is also a permanent relationship.

B. It’s permanent

Salvation is not something that must be repeated.

It is a one time thing.

Same with baptism.

The Bible teaches that once we have placed our faith in Christ we can never be removed from His hand of protection

We are eternally saved and we are eternally apart of the Body of Christ.

We are unified through our faith in Jesus and joined together with different roles with one purpose: To function as the head directs us.

See with me who the Head of the church is...

II.

The Head of the body

Jesus is the head of the church, the mind of the church and is the one who calls the shots.

He is the one that is to be directing the ship and not us.

He is the one that gives us our purpose.

That’s why we have been in this study.

To find our direction as a church and as individuals from the Word of God.

But what do our lives look like when we have Christ at the head?

What does a church look?

How can we get our lives and our church to have Christ as the head?

It begins by knowing who the Jesus is and then by knowing what Jesus desires.

A. What Jesus desires

1.

A relationship

While I believe there are many things that could be listed here, I want you to see just a few.

We know that He desires for all to be saved and have a relationship with him.

Jesus is not a disciplinarian, He is not looking over your shoulder waiting for you to mess up.

He is not there to shame you when you fail.

He is not trying to push people to hell or beat you down so you pay a penance in order to feel that He loves you.

Jesus is God and God is love.

He loves you and wants a relationship with you and desires to be there to pick you up when you do fall.

Confession of our mistakes is not so that he can chastise us…it is so He can forgive us and move on.

First and foremost, Jesus desires a relationship with you based on love and not on rules.

Secondly, Jesus desires your love

2. Jesus desires your love

When Jesus was asked the greatest commandment, he did not spout off a rule of obedience.

He did not say “the greatest commandment is that you do xyz”

He said...

Love the Lord thy God.

Jesus is God.

Love Jesus with all you have.

What does that look like?

Loving God is shown through our obedience to Him.

Now does that mean we don’t love God if we sin? no…That means we are not God.

Is that an excuse to sin? NO..Paul told the Romans “God forbid” God forbid we use the grace of God as an excuse to sin.

We love God by keeping His commandments.

We fulfill the desire of Jesus to have our love by showing our love through action.

How do we keep our actions in line with the commandments of God?

We get the right perspective on life.

We get God’s perspective.

B. God’s Perspective

What is God’s perspective?

Through our salvation and relationship with Christ we can understand and take the perspective of an almighty God, creator of the universe on life.

When we take on God’s perspective we begin to not look at the things of this life as important as a person without His outlook.

We care so much about the money we make, the house we live in, the clothes we wear, the car we drive, and the food we eat…yet the Lord told us not to worry at all about that...

Jesus told the people, don’t worry about all this stuff.

God will provide for your basic needs.

You seek first my kingdom.

You seek first the spiritual things of life.

You seek first what is important to me and I’ll take care of what should be important to you.

What is the Kingdom of God though.

Broadly speaking, the kingdom of God is the rule of an eternal, sovereign God over all the universe

How do we seek that?

Well God rules over our hearts as we decide to first put our faith in Christ and love Him.

If that’s the case, then I propose to that at the center of our lives we are to be seeking the salvation of souls for God to rule over.

Jesus’s last words call us to that

Matthew 28:19-20

When we have God’s perspective on life and what’s truly important…we won’t be bothered by the house, the car, the clothes, the food.

We will be more concerned with the souls of those around us.

Our families, our friends, our neighbors, strangers in town, and people in far off lands.

When a church loses the God sized perspective on life and makes material things more important than spiritual things it has ceased to be an effective body with Christ at the head.

When a Christian loses the God sized perspective on life and makes material things more important than spiritual things that Christian has ceased being an effective part of that body.

When we lose our focus on the kingdom we have been called to seek after we begin to focus on less important things.

Ourselves, our problems, the material things around us.

I’ve been working in a church since 2013 and in my short time I’ve never had someone come to my stressed out, anxious, depressed, or bothered by the kingdom work that we are to be focused on and doing.

It’s always about something material.

I’m not trying to minimize the things that you are concerned about, I’m note tell you that you won’t go through difficulties in seeking the Kingdom, but I am telling you the more of a focus we have on building the kingdom of God as a part of the body of Christ, the better perspective we will have on the things of this life that trouble us.

We see that once we believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again we are placed into the body of Christ.

Sealed by the Holy Spirit and never again to be removed.