Sermon Tone Analysis

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!! THE PHILOSOPHY OF MINISTRY \\ OF CALVARY CHAPEL

by Chuck Smith

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| The philosophy of Calvary Chapel concerning the role and function of the church is found in Ephesians 4:9-13 where Paul speaks about Jesus Christ Who has ascended into heaven, but He is the One Who first of all descended into the lower parts of the earth.

And when He ascended, He led the captives from their captivity.

And He gave gifts unto men and gave to some to be apostles, to some prophets, and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.

He then declares why-for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.

We believe that the church exists primarily for Jesus; to bring pleasure to Him; that we might be to the praise and glory of His grace.

The Lord has created the church for His own good pleasure, and thus, the church exists primarily for Him; it is His church.

Christ said, "Upon this rock I will build My church."

I am a part of His church.

There is only One Person Who can say, "My church."

And that is Jesus.

It is His church.

The interesting thing about His church is that you can't join it.

You've got to be born into it.

We are born again by the Spirit of God into the church of Jesus Christ.

It is His church.

What, then, is the purpose of His church?

To bring glory to God; to be God's instrument of ministry to the Lord.

But also in a secondary sense, the church exists for the edifying or the building up of the saints; to bring the saints into full maturity so that they might engage in the work of the ministry.

When I was in seminary, Oswald J. Smith, pastor of the People's Church in Toronto, Canada and noted worldwide for being a missionary-minded church, placed a tremendous emphasis on foreign missions.

In the seminars I attended, I heard him say over and over that the primary purpose of the church is the evangelization of the world.

I heard him say it so many times that I accepted it as gospel truth.

So, when I began in the ministry, I sought to evangelize the world.

My sermons were always evangelistic sermons.

They were always followed by an invitation, "Bow your heads, close your eyes, and no one looking around; you who would like to receive Jesus Christ tonight, just put your hand up and down again."

Everything was geared toward evangelism.

I sought to be an evangelist because I felt that the primary purpose of the church was evangelization of the world.

That's what had been drilled into me.

I soon discovered, however, that the most difficult thing in all the world is trying to be something that God didn't make you to be.

Paul asked are all apostles, are all prophets, are all evangelists?

The answer is obviously no.

Not everybody has the calling of an evangelist.

Not everybody has the calling of a pastor-teacher.

Not everybody has the calling of a prophet.

And trying to be something that God didn't make you is the most difficult thing in the world.

I was trying to be something that I was not called by God to be.

Paul, in opening his letter to the Ephesians, says, "Paul, an apostle by the will of God."

I can buy that.

I can say, "Chuck, a pastor-teacher by the will of God." It's important that we discover what we are by the will of God.

For years I wanted to be "Chuck, the evangelist, by the will of Chuck."

It was not by the will of God.

I was trying to conform myself to the mold of the denomination in which I was serving.

It was a denomination whose emphasis was on evangelism.

Exhortation was held in higher regard than exposition, thus, they did not encourage the pastor-teacher role.

They expected all the pastors to be evangelists, so we endeavored to be evangelists.

But I was a miserable failure as an evangelist.

My wife sought to help me.

She saw my frustrations, and she said, "Honey, you're just not dynamic enough."

She said, "Watch Billy Graham.

He just doesn't stand behind the pulpit; he moves around."

She said, "You're going to have to learn how to move around, be more dynamic."

I tried that, and it didn't work.

I was frustrated, because I was seeking to be something that God didn't make me to be.

As I started reading and studying the Word of God, I could not find the Scripture that said the primary purpose of the church is the evangelization of the world; I still can't find that Scripture.

But I did find in Ephesians 4 that God has placed gifted men, apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastor-teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, the building up of the body of Christ.

This brought into my life a tremendous philosophical change as far as my concept of the purpose of the church was concerned.

Rather than seeing the primary purpose as being the evangelization of the world, I saw that the purpose of the church was for the perfecting of the saints, making the believers strong, bringing them into maturity, feeding them, loving them, strengthening them so that they would be able to be engaged in the work of the ministry, for I realized that God has called all of us and placed us into His body and He has a plan and purpose for each of us.

Paul said that the types of men listed in Ephesians 4 were for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto the fully matured man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we're no longer like babes tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things which is the head, even Christ.

So, in changing my philosophy, I no longer preached evangelistic sermons per se, but began to teach the Word of God in a consistent way designed to produce growth within the believers.

When I first started out in the ministry, my sermons were all topical sermons centered around evangelism.

I had two years of sermons, so every two years I would request the bishop for a change of church, and then I would move to a new area and preach my two years of sermons again.

I did this in four communities until I finally landed in Huntington Beach, California.

By this time my older daughter had started school and personally, I loved living in Huntington Beach.

It was a lovely little beach community of only 6,000 people at the time, and I began to really know and like the people.

But I was running out of sermons because preaching topical sermons, it is rather difficult to find the text.

When you're searching through the whole Bible to find a text to preach on each week, it is difficult because the Bible's a good-sized book.

Every week, though, I found myself going through, reading until some text really hit me.

And of course, I had to have three sermons every week and it began to get difficult for me to find my text, especially since it had to be in the area of evangelism.

Once I found a text, I was able to develop it, but finding a text was always a problem.

I came across a book at that time called the Apostle John, by Griffith Thomas and in the middle of the book, he had outlined studies of the book of First John.

I began to read his outlined studies of First John and found that they were great expository outlines of this little epistle.

There were 43 outlines, and I thought, "Wow, I can spend another year here in Huntington Beach if I just teach First John."

So I announced to the people on a Sunday morning, that the next Sunday we would begin a study of the First Epistle of John.

The very first thing that Griffith Thomas explained in his book is why John wrote his epistle in the first place: in chapter one he said, "And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full"; in chapter two he said, "These things we write unto you that you sin not" and in chapter five he said, "These things we have written unto you that ye may know that you have eternal life."

I announced to the people that we were going to begin a study on First John and I said, "Now, there are three reasons why John wrote this little epistle.

By next Sunday I want you to be able to tell me the three reasons.

When I greet you at the front door when you come to church, if I ask you three reasons why John wrote that epistle, I'm expecting you to be able to tell me."

I had people calling me in the middle of the week saying, "We've read the thing through seven times and we can only find two reasons, are you sure there are three?"

And I said, "I am sure there are three; keep reading."

My sermon that Sunday morning was the purpose of the book.

I had three points: reading the book will give you fullness of joy, freedom from sin and assurance of your salvation.

There are six places in which John points to Jesus Christ as our example.

So that Sunday I said, "Now, next week I want you to find the six places where John points to Jesus Christ as our example, and the key words are as he, or even as he.

Six places where he has pointed to Jesus as our example.

Find them."

Again the people started reading through the book and it took them 8, 9, 10 times to find all six: if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with the other; if we say we abide in Him, then we ought also to walk even as He walked.

He is our example in our walk.

We ought to be walking as He walks, walking in the light as He is in the light, our example in righteousness and purity, for we are pure as He is pure, we are righteous as He is righteous.

He said we should love even as He commanded us.

And finally, as He is, so are we to be to this world.

The next sermon was false professions that people make.

First John lists seven false professions with the key words if a man says, or if we say.

I said, "Find the false professions that people are making."

The congregation was reading through the book again, and the following Sunday, we dealt with the phrase "to know."

How do we know what we know?

I had them reading through the book again.

I then started an expository study through the book.

Beginning with 1:1 and going straight through the book of First John, I spent a whole year in the book.