Sermon Tone Analysis

Last Sunday evening we began a Biblical journey into the Doctrine of the Church.

I preached on /The Church Today/.

This evening I want to preach on the /Origin of the Church/.

Where did it come from.

When it comes to the Church, our President is actually right: You didn’t build that!” Jesus is the founder and the foundation of His Church.

Jesus told his disciples, I will build my church and that is exactly what he did.

The church in this world, as imperfect as it now is, was founded by Christ.

Just as Jesus was the incarnation of God in the world, so too the Church is the incarnation of Jesus in the world.

His teachings, found primarily in the Gospels, are our charter documents.

/“Love each other as I have loved you”/ is its guiding principle.

The preaching of the Good News of the Kingdom is our purpose.

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I. THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

#. from the beginning, God intended to prepare a people especially for himself

#. just as Christ, the eternal Son of God, was always in relation to the Father, so God always planed for Christians to be called the Body of Christ

#. the church, as we know it today, did not exist in the Old Testament

#. however, God has always had his Elect People

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!! A. GOD’S PURPOSE IN A PEOPLE

#. on several occasions in the days of the Old Testament, God chose /persons/ or /groups of persons/ to be in a special relationship with himself

#. these relationships took the form of /covenants/

#. these covenants contain elements that are a foreshadowing of the New Testament church

#. in each of these covenants, God called a people to himself and bound himself into a relationship with them for the purpose of /exercising his righteous rule/ over them

#.

yet, in none of these covenants did God established the close, personal relationship that is symbolized in the New Testament’s description of the Church as the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ

#. while it is a mistake to identify Israel as the Church in the Old Testament, Christians must understand that the church is an heir to the ethical instruction of the Old Testament

#. the Levitical code underscores the requirements for all of God’s people of all ages: /We are to be a holy people/

* /“You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.”/

(Leviticus 20:26, NIV84)

#. this principle has never changed

* /“I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves.

Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?

Those things result in death!

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”/

(Romans 6:19–22, NIV84)

#. what has changed is our /ability to live a holy life/

#. the church is the heir of a new promise and of a new and better covenant into which Israel has never entered

#. the line of separation between Israel and the church is the event of Christ— his life, death, resurrection, and exaltation before God

#. the apostles understood, and rightly so, that the church was a new creation of God under a new and better covenant than Israel’s

* /“How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.”/

(Hebrews 9:14–15, NIV84)

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II.

THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

#. the church is the /earthly manifestation of the Kingdom of God/

#. at the same time, we recognize that the church by no means exhausts the meaning of the kingdom of God

#. while the /Kingdom of God/ and the /Institutional Church/ are by no means identical, we must understand that the Kingdom of God is present in this world in the lives of true believers

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!! A. THE CHURCH IS THE VANGUARD OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

* ILLUS.

A vanguard consists of the leading units at the head of an army.

In the day when armies battled each other almost toe-to-toe, the vanguard would lead the line of march and would deploy first on the field of battle.

Some members of the vanguard where trumpeters who trumpeted messages, signaled maneuvers, and summoned the surrender of towns and castles.

There were also men called sappers (today’s combat engineers) whose job it was to clear obstacles for the main army.

#.

I can think of no better description of the Church in the world today

#. one of these days, Jesus will invade this earth with the armies of heaven

* /“The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.”/

(Revelation 19:14, NIV84)

#. today, the church is the Vanguard or leading unit of that army

#. in this world we meet the enemy head-on

#. that enemy consists of all who would resist the reign of God in this world

#.

often the church slugs it out toe to toe with the enemies of the gospel

#. like trumpeters in the Vanguard, gospel preachers summon the surrender of spiritual strongholds in the lives of people

#. like the sappers whose job it was to clear obstacles for the main army, Christians are clearing spiritual obstacles in this world through their use of spiritual gifts and talents, and intercessory prayer in order that the main army may eventually win a great victory

!! B. THE KINGDOM IS MADE UP OF THOSE WHO HAVE REPENTED AND CONFESSED CHRIST

#. according to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the initial message of Jesus’ preaching was a call to repentance on the ground that the /Kingdom of God was at hand/

* /“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.

“The time has come,” he said.

“The kingdom of God is near.

Repent and believe the good news!”/ (Mark 1:14–15, NIV84)

* /“From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”/

(Matthew 4:17, NIV84)

#. the Kingdom of God is a foundational concept in the teaching ministry of Jesus

#.

Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is both a present reality and a future hope

#.

Jesus’ announcement that the kingdom of God was at hand meant that the /“reign of God”/ had broken into human history

#. a kingdom implies three things

#. it implies the /activity of reigning/

#. it implies a /people over whom the rain is exercised/

#. it implies a /realm in which the rain is effective/

#. part of the present reality of the kingdom of God is his activity of reigning

#. the preaching of Jesus makes it clear that God’s reign brings two major results:

#. repentance

#. salvation

#. repentance means to change the mind, which in turn lead to changes to conduct

#. repentance is a change that sees our former state of mind and conduct as wrong and sees the righteousness of a new relationship to God

#. the people to whom Jesus preached his message were in a wrong relationship to God and had not allowed God to exercise his reign in their lives

#. through repentance Jesus offered them the opportunity to place themselves under God’s rule

#. the same is true of lost people today

#. men without Christ are estranged from God and are under condemnation

#. the message of the Church is the same today as it was when Jesus preached the gospel— through repentance Jesus offers the lost person the opportunity to place themselves under God’s reign

#. salvation means to receive the free gift of God’s grace that places us in a covenant relationship with God through Christ

#. in salvation God does three things:

#. /He sets aside the condemnation that results from wrong action and attitude/

#. /He forgives sins and removes sins penalty, which we so rightly deserve/

#. /He includes the believer in the eternal Kingdom of God/

#. salvation heals the breach of separation between man and God, pays the penalty of sin, and releases sinners from the power of sin

* ILLUS.

Jesus and demonstrated this saving power through his ministry of healing, the exorcism of demons, and even raising the dead.

#. the evidence, therefore, that the kingdom of God is present is revealed through our victory over sin and evil

#. sin and wickedness no longer have dominion over us because repentance and salvation have brought the reign of God into our lives

!! C. THE CHURCH WILL EXPERIENCE AN ULTIMATE TRIUMPH

#. ultimately, the church in this world will experience the reign of God in Christ