Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last year I preached two sermons that I believe are foundational for who God wants us to be as a church.

The first sermon was titled, “Being Real.”

I talked about Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, a parable that Luke told us was directed to those “who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else” (, NIV).

Jesus challenges us to be publicly honest about our shortcomings and failures - to be real with one another.

Then I preached a message titled, “Being Relevant.”

I said that there is nothing more relevant than the gospel.

But we sometimes shrink the gospel to make it about not going to hell, when it is really about transforming our lives to come under the kingship of God.

When we do this, we will start hallowing God’s name, we will see God’s will done on earth as in heaven, we will see our physical needs met, forgiveness and healing from past sins will come, and we will overcome temptation to destructive lifestyles.

Today I want to preach a third message, and those of you familiar with the motto of the church can guess it’s title: “Being Relational.”

These three ideas go hand in hand.

If we are not real about our shortcomings, the gospel will never be relevant to our lives, and we will never go deep in relationships.

If we are not relevant, then we are not being real about our need for a Savior, and our relationships will be shallow.

If we are not relational, then we are not being real about why we were put on this earth and we cannot be relevant to those around us.

If we fail in either of these areas, we fail as a church.

But if we succeed in these areas, our church is going to thrive like it has never thrived before!

Because this world is starving for a place to be real, for a message that is relevant, and for a people who are relational!

Bible Reading and Prayer

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), .

Context

Does anyone know the context in Acts for this passage?

Pentecost!

There have been several movements in recent decades to establish what are called “Acts 29 churches.”

But Pentecostal churches like our own strive to be churches.

We have sensed that today’s Christians often miss a major component of what Christianity is.

And so we emphasize being Pentecostal.

But Pentecost didn’t end with .

Verses 42-47 are part of the Pentecost experience.

In some ways could be summarized with the words Real, Relevant, and Relational.

Look at verses 22-23:

Now that’s real!

Or verse 36:

Or verse 40:

Peter is not afraid to get real with his audience.

“God did miracles for you through Jesus, and you killed him!” “This generation we are living in is corrupt.”

We need people in our lives who can call out our hypocrisy and our need for transformation!

Peter’s message is also relevant.

Where does that transformation come from?

It comes from the Holy Spirit!

Jesus said, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”

What kind of power is this?

Let me highlight a few things we see in the Gospels:

The Spirit gives us power over evil.

The first thing Jesus does after being anointed with the Spirit at baptism is have a face-off with the devil.

That passage begins and ends by emphasizing that Jesus was acting in the power of the Spirit.

That same power is available to you.

Any power the devil has over your life can be broken by the Holy Spirit.

That is relevant!

The Spirit gives us power to help the poor and needy.

When Jesus preaches his first sermon, he says the Spirit is upon him because God has anointed him to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed.

Jesus casts out demons and heals sicknesses because the Holy Spirit is upon him.

We can help others break free from addictions and sin and sickness by the power of the Holy Spirit.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

The Spirit gives us knowledge and insight.

Jesus says the Holy Spirit will teach us what we should say.

says Jesus gave instructions to the apostles through the Holy Spirit.

says it is when the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles that they will be witnesses to the ends of the earth.

says it was through the Holy Spirit that David spoke the words of truth that he spoke in the Psalms.

says that the Holy Spirit even enabled the apostles to speak the languages of all the peoples who had come to Jerusalem for Pentecost.

says the Spirit will enable us to prophesy, to see visions and to dream dreams.

to set the oppressed free,

Let’s think about how relevant this is.

Last time I preached, I told about a time I spoke words to one of my children that could be crippling, that could cause him to identify himself as someone who is unlovable.

That was a moment I needed the power of the Holy Spirit to give me victory over the devil.

Do you think being a better parent is relevant?

The Holy Spirit can do that.

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

Or think about how many terrorists have been birthed from abuse by others.

If the Spirit helps us to proclaim freedom for the oppressed, do you think that is going to be relevant for our world?

Or how many times have we gone down the wrong path in life because we acted out of faulty intuition rather than out of knowledge and insight?

The biggest problem in the world today is that the world is broken, and we are broken because of sin and evil.

The Holy Spirit is the solution to that problem.

How does Peter end that sermon?

So already in we have seen that the early church was real, and it was relevant.

What was the result of this?

So ar

Churches grow when they are real, relevant, and relational!

Then look at what happens:

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), .

Devotion (2:42)

The first thing that happens is devotion.

When you realize that you are surrounded by the most real people you have ever met, and dealing with the most relevant message in the world, you become devoted to it.

One of the areas the church of today struggles is consistency.

They say that the average church attender is in church 1.7x per month.

It is hard to get momentum with that kind of consistency.

We have a number of ideas about how to reach out to the community around us but not enough money or manpower to implement them.

One Sunday we can be pushing 100 members in the service and then the next be down under 60.

These are symptoms of a greater problem in the church.

It’s not about numbers; it’s about being real, relevant, and relational.

But we as a staff realize that if our numbers are down, we must be missing something that the church had.

Because when the Spirit is working powerfully and the people are being real, people flock to the church!

People are devoted to the church!

Verse 42 lists four things the people devoted themselves to, and these are described in further depth in verses 43 to 46.

The first is the apostles’ teaching, and this is connected to what we read in verse 43:

It says they devoted themselves to four things: the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer.

I have been happy to see our Wednesday night Bible studies grow over the years.

When Emily and I started attending, there were only four other people in the group, including the pastors at the time, Al and Margie Yanno.

Now we have had weeks where we have seen 20 adults in the Bible study.

We have spun off a Sunday school class for those who want to hear a “first word.”