Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ Let me ask you this morning, a question that needs some careful consideration.

It’s a question about change.

Given the profession that you make to know Jesus Christ as your Savior, is there a significant change in your life that has made you more like Jesus and less like people who make no profession of faith?

Does it make a difference in your manner of dealing with people?

It should.

If faith or belief in Christ makes no difference in the way that we interact with people then I have to wonder whether you have really encountered Christ.

Let me just push a little farther here.

I would say that unless a person’s faith alters his relationships with people, he has no faith to speak of.

I would say that in reality, you don’t believe in God if there is no connection with the reality of everyday, “getting along” with people.

I’d rather try to cross the Atlantic in a homemade canoe than try to find my way to eternity in a rickety relational religious experience.

I guess I just believe that what we believe needs to make a difference in the way that we live.

So did John, the beloved.

/" //This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.// /*/If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth./*/

//But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.// /*/If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us./*/

//If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.//

/*/If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives./*/

//My dear children, *I write this to you so that you will not sin*.

But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.// //He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.//

//We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.//

/*/The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him./*/

//But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.

This is how we know we are in him:// //Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.// //Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning.

This old command is the message you have heard.//

//Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.//

//Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.//

//Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.//"

(1 John 1:5-2:10, NIV)*[1]*/

 

This scripture has always created considerable discomfort for me because there is no middle ground here with John the Beloved disciple.

He was the one of the 12 who best  understood the heart of Christ, because he lived so close to it.

John seems to be saying that a person’s connection between belief and practice is essential.

If there is no connection there is no faith, no truth, only darkness.

And he is writing to people who call themselves Christians.

·         */If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth./*

·         */If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us./*

·         */If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives/*

*/ /*

Normally we call a person a hypocrite who professes to be one thing and then lives a different reality.

Failing to reach the goal does not make a person a hypocrite, but denying their failure does.

John was really giving three admonitions here:

 

·         */“If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

/*/But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”/

Walk in the light.

Pursue it.

·         */“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

/*/If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”/

Own up to your sin rather than trying to make it ove into something acceptable to God.

 

·         */“If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

/*/My dear children, *I write this to you so that you will not sin*.

But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.//”/

This is not to cause you to surrender to a sinful lifestyle but to remind you that when you sin and you will, you have and Advocate – Jesus Christ.

So what’s the purpose of this message today?

I would say simply to ask you to take a close look at what it is you say that you believe in light of the way that you live.

It’s sort of a step back from hypocritical behavior to that place where we ask ourselves what it is that we really believe.

Why?

Because we act out of what we truly believe and our behavior tells us what it is that we believe or don’t believe.

Look at John’s comments again.

·         */“. . .

we lie and do not live by the truth.”/*

·         */“. . .

we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”/*

·         */“. . .

we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”/*

What John is suggesting is that poor living is the result of poor belief, the absence of truth.

How can that be?

How is it that we can sit in church year after year and be so far from the truth?

/"//Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.

Do what it says.//"

(James 1:22, NIV) *[2]*/

 

So I am going to throw some “*/Praxis Postulates/*” at you this morning.

Praxis is the integration of belief and behavior.

Not faith and behavior.

You can have all the faith that you want in a lie and your good faith will not change the outcome.

If you want good results you have to have good truth or good belief.

*/1.

/**/If what you believe makes no difference then it makes no difference what you believe./*

Spiritually impotent belief is no better than no belief.

If there is no measurable spiritual fruit that comes from your life then you have a dead belief system.

If you have had a spiritually barren year and a materialistically banner year then I can tell you what is at the heart of your belief system.

I can tell you what god calls the cadence of your life.

Fruitfulness comes as the result of praxis, the integration of behavior and belief.

If one area of your life is productive and another is unproductive then there is a problem where there is barrenness.

*/2.

/**/If what you believe makes no difference in you then what you believe makes no difference to anyone else./*

In other words, people around you could care less about what it is that you say you believe unless they can see a difference in you.

I’ve heard it said this way; “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

I think personally that this is why the modern media is so disrespectful to the church at large.

They just don’t see what makes you and I different than they are.

They encounter snarly saints, Christians who cheat them just like people who don’t call themselves Christians.

They encounter people who major on minors and minor on majors.

They cry and whine about shopping on Sundays and couldn’t give a rip about the poor and the homeless.

And people have a right to expect a higher level of awareness and praxis from the people of God.

We lack imagination and creativity in our approaches because we are bound by our traditions and most of us are thirty years behind where people are still trying to perpetuate approaches and programs that have long since lost their effectiveness.

In the world that we live in today no programs have long shelf lives.

There is this tendency in the church to want to live off of yesterday’s spoiled manna.

As good as it was yesterday, it may not work today.

*/3.

/**/If what you believe makes no difference in you then you are no different.

/*

 

You’re just like everybody else.

Just a spiritually sentimental sinner.

This is the pathway for revival for the church.

If we have the courage to accept the fact that in the final analysis, from sap to syrup, we have precious little to show.

This is where the church opens it’s doors to revival – this is where we experience the fresh touch of God that we have missed for years perhaps.

This is where society begins to turn around – under the influence of an anointed church.

This is where the light shines m ost brightly.

/"//if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.//"

(2 Chronicles 7:14, NIV) *[3]* /

 

*/4.

/**/If what you believe makes no difference in you then you don’t really believe what you say that you believe./*