Sermon Tone Analysis

We will be a church where love is sincere; faithfully trusting God, taking His Word as revealed truth and teaching it unequivocally and without compromise; we will hate what is evil and hold on to what is good; we will be devoted to one another in brotherly love; honoring one another above ourselves; never lacking in enthusiasm; but keeping our spiritual passion; serving the Lord; being joyful in our hope, patient in suffering, faithful in prayer, sharing with God’s people who are in need and practicing hospitality.

We will be a church that is committed to joining God wherever He was working and devote ourselves towards manifesting His love, grace, and peace.

We will be a church that refuses to be inwardly focused, but rather we will see the world as God sees it, and resolve in each of our hearts once and for all to faithfully love and seek those who are lost and be a beacon of light to our community, country, and the world that so desperately needs Him.

We will be a church where the nations of the world are represented in the believers that worship and serve in our community of faith; we will be a church that celebrates our diversity, yet fellowship in unity.

We will be a community of faith that is so intimately in love with God and overwhelmed by His grace and mercy that our hope is renewed and our relationships restored.

This will awaken our faith so that we can no longer stand aside passively.

We will pro-actively serve our church, our community, and each other.

Together, we will change the world.

This is what we believe God has called us to strive toward and by His divine grace we will be the church that He created us to be.

Introduction: It’s January.

A new year.

An it would be good for us to have a church reset.

We need to get back to basics.

So over the next 5 weeks, we’ll be looking at what makes up an authentic church.

More and more today, we are asking, what is the church?

I think we’ve learned these last few years that the church is not a building.

But I hope we have also learned that we are not the church apart from a community of faith.

The church by definition gathers.

And we’ve had to get creative in meeting.

We’ve gathered on Zoom.

We’ve gathered socially distances.

But we’ve gathered.

We’ve learned more than ever that we need the church.

People want to talk about the universal church.

Only one person ever talked about the universal church....Jesus.

All of his followers talked about the local church.

It is the local church that the Bible emphasizes.

But someone once told me, Nothing does more good than the local church when it’s working.

Nothing does more harm than the local church when it isn’t.

So we ought to know what a local church ought to be like.

Transition to the Text: Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:2.

Since Paul was charged by God to start the first churches, he had to define what a church was and more importantly what a church does.

Now if you want to learn how to do something, a good place to start is with some bad examples.

Learn what to do, by learning what not to do.

And we’re in luck, because the Corinthians didn’t have a clue what a church was supposed to do.

So Paul had to do a lot of explaining....about everything.

He gets down to be basics from the start.

After a brief introduction, Paul gets to the heart of the church.

Introduce:

Authentic Principle: An Authentic Church KNOW and SHARES the true Gospel.

Read:

Authentic Principle: An Authentic Church is focused on the gospel.

Paul readily admits that the Gospel does not make sense to the the world.

He goes so far as to say it is “folly” or “foolishness.”

So right off the bad, the church is countercultural.

It’s never going to make sense to the world and at best we can hope that they will tolerate us for a time.

The church is not explainable by worldly wisdom.

For Paul even his primary method for telling the Gospel, preaching, is admittedly foolish.

Paul would preach for hours.

He preached so long one time that a young man fell asleep and fell out of a window.

Me, I’ll try to keep it to 40 minutes.

But the message of the Gospel is also simple.

Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.

In this we learn that Jesus is the Savior of the World and His crucifixion is the means by which God chose to save the world.

1.

A Gospel Focused Church emphasizes Jesus as the savior of the world.

Explanation: And this gets more to the foolishness.

From the very beginning of the Bible, the Messiah is said to be a savior.

He will save His people from their sins.

Now Christians know that they need a savior.

They know what they’ve been saved from.

The world…not so much.

Probably the biggest barrier to people accepting the Gospel is admitting that they need a savior.

Admitting that there is something from which they need saving.

And that which they need to be saved from is their own fault.

It would be one thing if they needed to be rescued from bad people.

But to admit that they are the bad people is too much.

We don’t need to be saved from bad people.

We don’t need to be saved from Satan.

We need to be saved from ourselves.

Illustration: Typically if someone says that they are your only hope, you should probably run from that person.

Sadly people who want to save you, usually have ulterior motives.

They are usually politicians and their saving comes with strings.

But with Jesus, the only strings are that you must believe in Jesus.

And he must be Lord of your life.

Application: Jesus is the savior of the World.

And on top of that…he’s the only way.

This is another thing that is foolishness to the world.

The exclusivity of the Christian good news says, that if you try to come to God through any other person…Mohammed, Buddha, The Pope, The President, even your Pastor…that’s bad news.

Paul preached Jesus as the only means by which we are to be saved.

Peter agreed.

2. A Gospel Focused Church emphasizes the Cross as God’s way of saving people.

Explanation: I don’t think many of us realize just how offensive the cross would be to the jewish people.

They believed that to hang on a tree was to be cursed.

Paul writes elsewhere:

But the cross is mirrored in the OT sacrificial system.

And again the idea that one person could pay for your sins seems foolish to the world.

Not necessarily for our sins, becuase of course Jesus would die for me because I’m not that bad.

But when we start seeing Jesus saving murderers and people who are completely evil in our eyes.

Then it doesn’t make sense that Jesus would die for bad people.

But we’re all bad people who need a savior.

Illustration:

Application: Jesus isn’t your savior because he’s a good guy.

A good teacher.

A prophet.

He didn’t even give you an example of loving people.

Jesus is your savior because he paid the penalty of your sins.

Response: Are you a Gospel Focused Christian?

Summation:

Authentic Principle: An Authentic Church KNOW and SHARES the true Gospel.

1.

A Gospel Focused Church emphasizes Jesus as the SAVIOR of the WORLD.