Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

We have just finished a sermon series exploring the lies that some Christians believe sometimes.

I called the five topics of that series “lies” because I believe them to be false and unhelpful at best or destructive at their worst.

You might think you’re noticing a tactic in my preaching when I admit that I’m going to start this sermon series similarly.

The mandate given to me by the Church Council and by Presbytery, over the next two years, is to develop with you a mission plan for this congregation and the proper stewardship of its properties.

It would be too easy for me to recast, clarify and articulate a vision in a dictatorial manner because I actually enjoy thinking up vision, mission and strategy.

It’s my ‘bread and butter’, so to speak, whereas your eyes probably started to glaze over the moment I mentioned the word “vision”.

I don’t want to dictate because, like you, I want the parish of Croydon Park-Belfield Uniting Church to last well into the future, building on the heritage that you all and others have so well laid down prayerfully and faithfully.

If we are going to build on that heritage well, and live into God’s plan for our parish, then I need to make sure that we are all ‘speaking the same language’.

In order to make sure of that, this sermon series is going to explore the broad topic, “What is the Purpose of the Church?”, and we’re going to start by going back to the beginning, before the beginning actually...

Where Did the Story Go Askew?

How far back are we going to go?

If we’re going to understand the purpose of our church, we need to understand the purpose of The Church.

Providentially, the Church Calendar today has us focusing on the day of Pentecost, which many people would argue is the birthday of the Church.

They would further argue that the Church was given birth so as to fulfil The Great Commission, to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” ().

So, for some, God’s plan begins with Pentecost.

Of course, we wouldn’t need the Gospel if we didn’t have The Fall.

What is The Fall?

According to one of my favourite sermon preparation resources:

The departure by creation, including human beings, from the patterns and standards set for it by God.

Creation now exists at a lower level of integrity and fulfilment than that which God originally intended for it.

Some Christians talk a lot about the plan of God

[The Fall is] the departure by creation, including human beings, from the patterns and standards set for it by God.

Creation now exists at a lower level of integrity and fulfilment than that which God originally intended for it.

(Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes, 2009)

(Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes, 2009)

Being the representative first humans, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby plunging all of humanity into sin and death.

For some Christians, God’s plan begins with The Fall.

The problem with this approach is that it ignores everything that happened before, as if nothing of importance happened beforehand.

We have The Fall and that initiated God’s plan, and that is all that matters.

To think that The Fall is the beginning of God’s story is both false and unhelpful.

It instigates the thinking that God wasn’t really interested in humankind until we disobeyed or, even worse, God specifically created us so that we would disobey, as if God’s plan was to send Jesus to the cross even before we created the sin that required this intervention.

To do that we need to go back before time so that we can distinguish between God’s purpose and God’s plan.

To correct this faulty and unhelpful thinking, we need to distinguish God’s purpose from God’s plan.

Back Before the Beginning

God’s story begins before Pentecost, before The Fall and, indeed, before even our creation.

We need to go back before the beginning of time to remember,

Ps 90:2

God is eternal, He has always existed.

And God has always existed with a triune nature, three-in-one.

While the actual term “the Trinity” is not found in the bible, the truth of this doctrine is clearly set out.

Thus, God existed before time in perfect trinity and love, needing nothing at all from anything or anyone beyond Himself, self-sufficient.

Thus, God existed before time in perfect trinity and love

Knowing this about God, we might wonder then why He created anything and anyone at all?

This simple and straightforward answer is because He could.

The purpose of God was to share the love and community enjoyed by the Trinity.

Interference and Delay

Interestingly, neither the angels nor anything else in all of Creation could provide what God was looking for:

Which goes a long way to explaining why The Fall was so devastating: sin and death interferes with and delays the purpose of God.

Nevertheless, The Fall does not alter the purpose of God, it merely requires a plan so as to get everything back on track.

The Purpose of God, Expanded

That’s the simple answer to why God created, even though He had no need to.

It brings to mind the image of a girl being taunted at school because she is adopted, and who responds with, "well, my parents chose me; your parents are stuck with you!"

The explanation of God’s purpose is much more complete.

From the book of Ephesians, we discover that there are four images which describe the all-consuming passion and purpose of God, which caused Him to create in the first place, and compelled Him to initiate a plan of salvation.

Those images are a house and a family, for God the Father, and a bride and a body for God the Son.

Let’s look at these images a little more closely, as they are for us to help us understand God’s eternal purpose so much better.

A Family

In we read,

Our sin has resulted in our death, and God is not happy about these consequences befalling His creation.

He is not satisfied to be estranged from us, as foreigners and strangers tend to be.

God would rather we be fellow citizens with all of His people; even better, members of His household, His family.

We can see something of this in the story of The Garden of Eden, back before sin entered into the human condition:

In the story, God created this beautiful garden and was then looking for His children who, He thought, were playing Hide & Seek.

The apostle Paul described this idea further in

The eternal purpose of God was to have a family.

A House

A Family

continues the description of God’s purpose:

The testimony of the Bible, from beginning to end, describes God wanting a place to be with His people —a house, in other words.

When God met Moses on Mount Sinai, following The Exodus from slavery in Egypt, He told Moses,

In that tabernacle —in other words, a tent— God would meet with His people.

Later, when David took over the throne of Israel, God declared to Him, through the prophet Nathan,

Of course, this desire of God’s is not so much about a building as it is about a place to meet with His people, for as He later declared through the prophet Isaiah,

Finally, in the book of Revelations we read of a time when sin will no longer have any hold on humankind.

In that time,

God’s purpose is to have a family and a place to meet with them, being you and I.

This was true long before The Fall interfered with and delayed His purpose.

Yet, there’s two more images that are equally important.

A Bride

The third image that helps us to understand and appreciate God eternal purpose is that of a bride:

Now, I don’t want to make any men uncomfortable, but God has always been so interested in the idea of a people after His own heart that we can best describe it as His affection and His love for that people.

Men, you would do anything to protect and provide for your wife, wouldn’t you?

That feeling and commitment pales in comparison to the care and concern God has for His people, His bride.

Our desire to be wed to another is but a glimpse of God’s desire for His Church.

He called Abraham and Sarah out from their home country so that they would miraculously become the ancestors of a great nation with God as its king.

When that plan failed miserably, Christ commissioned the Church, again not because He had to but because God wanted to.

Which leads us into the final image of...

A Body

…a body:

God’s eternal purpose was to enter into such a close communion with a people to call His own, that they could best be described as His body, His hands and feet on the earth, His representatives.

Stop for clarifying questions

While we might say that Jesus was revealed only when the time was right and humanity had matured enough to enter into such a communion with the triune God, this still did not require The Fall

Some Final Thoughts

Some Final Thoughts

These four images of a family, a house, a bride and a body are seen consistently throughout the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testaments.

They reveal the eternal purpose of God but they are obscured somewhat by His plan of salvation.

Nevertheless, the purpose remains.

In fact, there is only a plan because of the purpose.

We cannot truly understand or appreciate the plan without first understanding and appreciating the purpose.