Sermon Tone Analysis

THE ROYAL FAMILY HONOR CODE.

The Spiritually mature believer lives by a code of honor.

/Virtue First is his motto:/ he respects authority, loves God with Personal love, and loves man with Imper­sonal love.

The honor code demands ALL the Virtues of God’s protocol system — the completed Spiritual life.

As the supreme functional Virtue, which depends on founda­tional and motivational Virtues, the believer’s Impersonal love manifests the dynamics of Spiritual integrity.

The mature believer represents Christ in a gracious style that reflects our Lord’s eternal aristocracy.

Aristocracy is maligned as snobbery, social injustice, and tyranny, but in its true sense aristocracy connotes excellence, achievement, courage, and a sense of responsibility.

Extraordinary men become outstanding by accomplishing more than their contemporaries, and when this superiority is passed down from gener­ation to generation, the children, too, are inculcated with superior standards.

Often the descendants of illustrious men do not share the energy or strength of character that distinguished their ancestors.

Therefore, the vigor of the nobility must be perpetuated through a code of honor.

The young heir is taught the pro­tocol of aristocracy.

He is trained from birth to think and act with poise and courage, always in keeping with his own personality, We are Spiritual aristocrats.

We did not earn our exalted new birth, just as no royal infant deserves to be a prince.

Our royalty is the result of the accomplishments of someone else.

Jesus Christ founded our royal dynasty nearly two thousand years ago as a result of His strategic victory over Satan, for which He earned the exalted title King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

At Spiritual birth we enter the royal family of the Lord Jesus Christ, (Gal 3:26) and He has given us His code of honor by which to live.

Our royal code of conduct is taught throughout the New Testament, especially by Paul in, (Rom 12:1-21).

We do not live under systems of legalism or religious tradition.

We live objectively (IN God's Reality) with Divinely shared happiness in the Spiritual life of the King of Kings, not under the subjective, (One of Satan's many, many realities) deceptive influence of the ruler of this world.

The Spiritual life is the power system that fulfills the royal family honor code.

1. Respect the privacy of the royal priesthood.

The Christian way of life is a life of freedom, (Gal 5:1)/ /exceeding even the freedom of Divine establishment.

Privacy is essential to freedom.

The principle of the honor code, then, is “live and let live; AND live and let die.”

(Rom 14:7-8) This means abstaining from gossip, maligning, judging, character assassination, and evil speculation from rumors and hearsay evidence.

(Rom 14:10-13) Respect for the privacy of the priesthood also demands toleration for the erroneous opinions of immature believers on nonessential matters.

(Rom 14:2-3) *Ultimately Divine Thinking is the essential;* /everything else, to a greater or lesser degree, is non­essential./

(Rom 14:19) As a believer grows in the Word, Truth corrects his opinions, with no need for unsolicited interference from other Christians.

Toleration permits all believers to assemble and ap­proach the Word of God with objectivity.

As royal priests, representing themselves before the Lord, the immature have the privacy and freedom to grow, while the mature have continued opportunities to develop strength through flexibility.

2.

Love all people with Impersonal love.

Impersonal love emphasizes your own growth, which demands that you hold no grudge or resentment against ANYONE, especially other believers, who possess the same imputed righteousness of God that you possess.

(Heb 13:1; (1Jn 3:11) Impersonal love also rejects self-pity and never seeks to arouse or exploit the pity of others.

(John 15:12; Rom 12:9-10; (1Jn 4:11) 

3.

Recognize that all believers have a common objective.

God keeps each believer alive to advance to maturity in the Spiritual life.

Under the honor code, therefore, you must persevere in the perception and application of Truth.

You must submit to the authority of your pastor-teacher, but this also means that you must demonstrate courtesy, thought­fulness, and sensitivity toward those in the congregation who may be at a dif­ferent stage of Spiritual growth.

(Rom 15:5-7)/ /

4. Build integrity; do not distort morality.

Integrity, (Staying in fellowship) is the standard of the royal family, superior to human morality.

The believer’s Virtue is rooted in the filling of God the Holy Spirit and in Truth, whereas submitting to authority is the fulfillment of the Divine laws of establishment.

Virtue-morality, therefore, exceeds ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING that the old sin nature can produce!

Personal Spiritual integrity is the /sine qua non /(Standard)/ /of the Christian life; human morality devolves into legalism when it is assumed to be the Christian way of life.

(Matt 15:8) Anything an unbeliever can do; cannot be the Christian way of life!

5. Never assume that human production is a means of Divine blessing.

Your talent, personality, intelligence, sacrifice, asceticism and or ability never merit blessing from God.

He blesses His own imputed righteousness in us.

God recognizes only integrity, which is the standard of Spiritual maturity attained through residence and function in His power system.

Divine integrity is the source of all blessings to man, and God blesses from righteousness /to /righteousness, not from His integrity to human works.

(Rom 8:7-8) Production is a */result/*/ /of Spiritual advance, never the cause.

When momentum from Truth in the Spiritual life is recognized as the cause of Spiritual growth, integrity and blessings, then self-righteousness is excluded from your life.

(Matt 6:33) 

6/.//

/Depend totally on the integrity of God.

In order to depend on God, we must be intimately aware of His attributes through understanding Truth.

Our point of contact with God is His integrity.

Hence, the entire Spiritual life can be summarized as Integrity First: A Steadfast adherence to a strict “moral” or ethical code.

This total dependence on God’s justice and righteousness is called “hope,” the confident expectation of blessing.

(Rom 15:13) Such confidence motivates and sustains your Spiritual momentum: you are carried to maturity by Spiritual /Thinking, /Thinking under an honor code Principle.

Right Thinking creates right motivation, and right motivation leads to right action.

(Rom 12:1-2)

7. Remember that the honor code is for all believers.

The royal family honor code is not just for brilliant or accomplished people.

Simply because the royal code is superior to all other approaches to life is no excuse for arrogance.

It is /God’s /system, /His /code, not ours.

Both the Divine laws of establishment and the royal family honor code sustain our advance, blessing, and happiness.

All believers, including us, rely on these two Divine systems.

(Rom 12:3; Rom 13:1-8)

8.

More is demanded of the strong than the beginner.

We are all royalty, yet no two believers are equal.

Even among royalty some are stronger and more advanced than others by Virtue of their more consistent perception and application of Truth.

The Principle of /noblesse oblige,// /(Nobility obligates)/ /applies.

/Maturity /imposes the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior; and is a companion of high rank or noble birth.

(Rom 15:1-5) The strong are obliged to tolerate the nonessential, inconsequential, and occasionally obnoxious opinions and actions of the weak.

(Rom 14:1) An arrogant person might assume you are weak and might ridicule you for bending to the demands of immature believers, but there is no weakness in such flexibility.

The strong believer is confident and says, */“I may bend, but I will not break.”/*

(/Willing to do anything, except get out of fellowship/) He maintains a relaxed sense of humor about himself, about life, and about others.

Impersonal love eases the strong believer’s duty to the weak believer.

9.

Orient to authority.

Some people resent authority.

But authority pro­tects freedom.

(1Pe 2:13-18) Like human freedom, Christian freedom is not an isolated quality.

Your freedom as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is an integral part of a system that includes free will, privacy, private property and authority.

Genuine humility submits to the pastor who faithfully teaches ortho­dox Divine Revelation from a systematic exegesis of the Scriptures.

(Heb 13:7-18) God has delegated His authority to pastors.

(Eph 4:11)

/ /

JOHN TEACHES VIRTUE LOVE  

     Virtue must be produced through consistently remaining in fellowship.

We begin with Truth, not with Virtue.

We must obey God’s Commands and make the many positive Divine Decisions necessary to submit to the /process /of learning Truth: rebound, reception, retention, recall, resist, repeat.

/We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.

God is love, and the one who abides in love [Stays in fellowship] abides in God, and God abides in him.

By this, love is perfected [Spiritual maturity is attained] with us, so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.

[Sharing His Spiritual life and living by it]/ (1Jn 4:16-17; Heb 3:14)

     Truth reveals the Divine nature —Virtue love, which reflects the essence of God.

(2Pe 1:4) The Greek noun /agape, “love,”/ establishes a category that encompasses the entire system of practical Theology.

Virtue love becomes a description of the Spiritually mature way of life.

(1Co 13:1-8) God’s purpose in keeping you alive is that you may develop a Personal love for Him by reaching Spiritual maturity.

Until you have achieved Personal love for God, you have accomplished nothing as a believer.

(John 14:23) Christianity is not witnessing, prayer, giving, singing, sacrifice, emotion.