Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Over the past month I have been talking about how we become a people of multiplication

This is the last week of a series that we simply have called “Multiply”

Its a teaching series where we are looking at this new direction, this vision of multiplication

So if you missed the last three weeks I want to give you one sentence that sums it all up

We are called to be a people who bear fruit, who live sent, and arepersons of peace that lead through giving ourselves away.

So the last three weeks of sermons are all about who do we become so that we can become something as a church

And I want to touch on this word multiply real fast:

Multiplication is a mathematical term that means to make more numerous

SO there is church addition

Where each one reaches one…that means we grow…1+1+1+1=4 So if each one reached just this week we could double in size and that would be exciting...

But what if 1 person discipled 2 people and those two each discipled 2 then they all discipled 2 and they all discipled 2 people....

So 1+1+1+1=4 but the way the kingdom of God works is through multiplication.

2x2x2x2=16

So I want to see us not just grow by each one reaching one…which is great by the way....I want to see the kingdom of God grow and flourish through multiplication...

Where we are multiplying disciples, leaders and churches

So we have talked about multiplying our own lives…Reaching outward and multiplying disciples and last week was our own leadership

so this week I want to talk about the church

And I want to do this in a very personal way…Because its part sermon and teaching…but also part testimony

I don’t talk about this very much but, when I first started here at REC, I hired a spiritual director.

A spiritual director is someone who helps you to hear from God and discern where God is leading you.

So this past week, he asked me a question.

He said: what is your life’s work?

My first response was my family…and he said…Ok right answer, that should always be your first answer, and that will always be my first priority

So he said other than your family, what is your life’s work?

The answer that came to mind so effortlessly was “the church”

Not just this church or the church that I came from, but the whole church.

Back when I was a youth pastor and in Seminary, I was being mentored by my former youth pastor

Every Monday for 7 years I met him at our local Starbucks and I poured my heart out to him and he helped me along the way

This was one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my professional ministry...

Well getting toward the end of us meeting together I had really grown up in ministry and it was one of those things where now we just met and talked about ministry

And right about the same time in he and I both got new supervisors at the church...

For my friend, his supervisor was so bad that I would tell him, there has to be sin somewhere…if everything your telling me is true then there is just no fruit in this guy’s life…so it will come to light …And a year or so later it was revealed that my friends supervisor was fired because he was involved in some really bad stuff....

And I got a new supervisor…Now this guy came in from the business world and immediately he and I were oil and water

Every idea I had, he challenged

So we would both come to our Starbucks meeting and we would download on each other the latest crazy news about what happened to us the week before.

And all the time we would pause ourselves and say…This is just all too crazy…is it us?

are we the unreasonable ones? are we loosing it?

And one day he and I were really discouraged and in that discouragement we sat down at Starbucks and wrote the plans to create a non-profit that would feed kids around the world and that would bring clean water to people around the world…I remember how excited we were about this non profit....

We had donors we were going to talk to, we had events we were going to do…we had all of these amazing plans

I was so ready to quit the church but to still do the work of God in the non profit sector

So my mentor and I decided that before we did anything we would pray on it for a week and then connect the next week over our non-profit ideas

Well that week God did an amazing work in both of our hearts…He had absolutely killed the non profit idea

We both came back to coffee that next week scared to tell the other person what what God had done in our hearts because we didn't want to bum each other out

But It was a God ordained moment because we sat across from each-other with basically the same story...

The church is God’s bride and I can not abandon her....

God called me to the church....

And I remember that I shared with my friend this verse…Little did I know that this verse is something that I would say like I was a broken record

I would end up saying this verse so often that my previous church made me this skateboard deck with the verse on it

But the verse that God gave me that week was Romans 8:19

Already if you have been paying attention, I must have quoted this verse like 20 times this past year...

And I told you that you are going to hear this verse from me all the time...

But I remember sitting with this verse and wondering why I stopped on it…why did this verse capture me so much?

What was it that just got me about this verse?

For me to take you on that journey we need to back up to Romans 8

I was reading Roman’s 8 in my quiet time

You have to really understand Romans 8:1-4

So what Paul is telling the church in Rome here is that if you are walking with Jesus then you are free from the bondage of sin and death

When Paul says that the law is powerless, what he is referring to the old testament law....See what that law does is merely to point out sin but it can not free us from the power of sin or it’s consequences

Because Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh to become a sin offering....He took on all sin so that you don’t have to live by the bondage of sin anymore so that you can be free...

You can experience true freedom in Christ

Maybe your here today and you have never experienced true freedom without condemnation.

Maybe your life has been full of condemning voices....Those condemning voiced might even lead you to have suffered from depression, anger suicidal thoughts

The point the apostle paul is truing to make is that Jesus takes your condemnation…That is what the cross is all about…That stuff that should condemn you is heaped onto Jesus and he forgives you and makes you right with God

All you have to do is accept that free gift of Grace that Jesus is so readily giving you

Lets keep going

In this section Paul contrasts these two ways of living…either by the flesh, which is your own desires or by the Spirit, which is God’s life indwelling in yours...

So when you are living to please yourself and meet all of your own desires then you cant please God

But when your mind is set on the spirit of God....on all who he is then you get to experience peace

Ok So if you have said yes to Jesus then that means that the spirit of God actually lives in your body...

The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead is in you

And through the spirit of God you are being given this new life

Right up front Paul says we have an obligation…Because God has reddemed us…we need to live by the spirit

So when you live by the spirit that makes you a child of God

When you are lead by the spirit then we actually share with Jesus in his suffering and in his glory

And then the Apostle Paul says this

What Romans 8 teaches us about the Children of God:

Do not experience condemnation from God. (Romans 8:1)

They are experiencing true freedom through forgiveness.

(Romans 8:2)

They have their minds set on the desires of God not their own.

(Romans 8:5)

They get to have new life through God’s Spirit.

(Romans 8:11)

They are lead by the spirit of God.

(Romans 8:14)

They are not slaves to fear.

(Romans 8:14)

They share in his suffering and glory .(Romans

8:17)

All of creation is waiting for the children of God to be revealed.

(Romans 8:19)

So I am sitting with my mentor…A week ago we had spent hours plotting quitting our jobs and starting a non profit and God lead me to Romans 8 and it rocked my world.

It got me imagining wow....what if more and more people looked like children of God

Just imaging a people who have gone from condemnation to love and how much that changes them!

Now go from Slave to free

Now remove sin and rewire someones heart and oh year remove fear

Yeah the world needs more and more of these people

So My mentor and I absolutely came to the same conclusion…The church is the vehicle that God has created for people to become the children of God

Don’t hear me wrong, Non-profits are great and the church needs them around…But for me…It was as if God clearly said that I was called to help people understand that they are sons and daughters of the king.

Jesus didn’t raise up 12 disciples to start a movement of people who go into all the world and start non profits to solve all the wolrds problems