Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Problem in the church - We love this world.

Maybe we love the things of the present - newest toy, gadget, trend, team, etc . . .

Maybe we love living in the past - history, nostalgia, etc . . .

Yet, a biblical understanding of the Christian life is a movement toward a future glory as well as living actively in the present.

Whatever kind of tribulation presses upon us, we must ever look to this end: to accustom ourselves to contempt for the present life and to be aroused thereby to meditate upon the future life

So, how do we as Christians live this life with a mind for the future blessings that await us?

Principles of Faith

One who is moving in a forward trajectory as Christ leads us is:

Led by the Holy Spirit (4 & 11)

Disciples

Warning:

Not a blind faith

Not meandering blindly

Not fact versus values

fact - what we know of the real word (reality w/o emotions)

Value - what value we apply to these facts (emotions)

God’s world takes both fact and value

experiential aspect of the Christian life

To discern God’s purpose and to be obedient to it among all the ambiguities and perplexities of life is always a struggle.

We may often be wrong both in our understanding of what God is doing and in our attempted obedience, just as it is made clear in Scripture that the people whose stories it tells were often wrong, or only partially right, in their discernment of God’s purpose.8

At best, we can hope to choose the relatively better and to reject the relatively worse.

We can never claim that either our understanding or our action is absolutely right.

We have no way of proving that we are right.

That kind of proof belongs only to the end.

-

Newbigin, Lesslie.

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (p.

60).

Wm.

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

Some in the Reformed faith see any talk or speech about experience unbiblical.

Newbigin, Lesslie.

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (p.

60).

Wm.

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

Yet, Calvin spoke often of experience in the HS.

About this passage he believes that both Paul and the disciples had varying degrees of the HS

Scripture shows us plainly that the HS leads men in a very real experience

Disciples persuading Paul, HS leading Paul

Agabus - who prophesied about Paul’s troubling future (11)

HS in the disciples was not contradicting himself in Paul

both led by the HS

Yet, God moved Paul in a greater way

The result is God providing his written Scriptures, His word for our guidance and rule of faith

combination of God’s word as truth and the HS working through experience of the believer

Calvin:

The Christian’s present life is about making sure we do not become comfortable in it and always look to the future glory

Paul did not shy away from discomfort, pain and agony of this life

Led by the HS into the glorious future

App: Following the HS is not merely an emotional stirring, nor is it only based off of a knowledge or fact based truth.

It is a combination of these in which God’s truth moves us to a response that may be emotional.

It is a very real experience of God in this life in a way that we experience.

Illus: Jesus and Lazarus

John 11:32

One who is moving in a forward trajectory as Christ leads us is:

one who lives in community (5)

Christianity is communal

travelled together

families included

Jews and Greeks together

This means we worship together (5)

This means we serve as a missional community

The Essence of the Church, Craig Van Gelder

The church is God’s personal presence in the world through the Spirit.

This makes the church, as a spiritual community, unique.

-

Gelder, Craig Van.

The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (p.

26).

Baker Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

Gelder, Craig Van.

The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (p.

26).

Baker Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

Missiological ecclesiology

Understanding the church as being missionary by nature represents a more holistic way of thinking about mission.

In this view, the Spirit-created church lives as the very body of Christ in the world.

Its existence declares that the full power of God’s redemptive work is already active in the world through the Spirit.

It lives as a demonstration that heaven has already begun for God’s people.

This Spirit-led community possesses all the power of God’s presence, even while it awaits the final judgment of evil that will lead to the creation of the new heavens and new earth.

-

already begun for God’s people.

This Spirit-led community possesses all the power of God’s presence, even while it awaits the final judgment of evil that will lead to the creation of the new heavens and new earth.

Gelder, Craig Van.

The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (p.

33).

Baker Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

Gelder, Craig Van.

The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (p.

33).

Baker Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

App: We are a people of community and our mission is one that is shrouded in community.

As a community of people we come together as God’s church, led by his Spirt and moving toward the future.

A community whose eyes are on the future, while living in the present.

Gelder, Craig Van.

The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (p.

33).

Baker Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

Illus: Mother who was bleeding out after delivery in Sigonella.

Paul was moving toward death, looking at the future glory.

Oh, if we could be a community who looked to the future in trust and simply followed with this understanding.

Lines out the door and blood provided in abundance.

A community all working toward one goal, looking at the future blessings but working in the present toward that end.