Sermon Tone Analysis

Faith In Christ

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Last week, we began our fall series, “In Christ.”

For a pastor, fall signifies the beginning of the BUSY SEASON: fall programming, holiday messages, Advent, Christmas, New Year, Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost!

The Seed’s Mission Statement is filled with action verbs: “Know, Grow, Go and Sow.”

Our mission statement is in your bulletin each week.

Many of you wear our church’s wrist bands to help you remember to “Know God’s Love, Grow In Christ’s Grace, Go In The Power of the Holy Spirit, and Sow Seeds of Faith.”

I have been reflecting on The Seed’s ministry over the last, almost seven years.

There have been wonderful seeds of faith sown into the lives of many people right here in this room, many others in this community and many more around the world.

It is our vison that the Gospel “seed” will bear fruit--in each person here, and in every seed we sow in the outside world.

It is our prayer that the Gospel seed will grow wherever it is planted.

The challenge for the Gospel seed to grow is that those who receive the seed of God’s love, grace, mercy and peace will soon learn how to plant these seeds for others.

For us to plant seeds of faith, we need to continually grow in Christ’s grace.

Then we need to go in the power of the Holy Spirit to sow those seeds of faith.

This morning we are going to spend some time with the Apostle Paul.

We will look at the opening of his letter to the church in Ephesus and then we will turn our attention to Paul’s words to the church in Colosse.

Before we begin our study today, let’s stop and pray.

“God of all grace, we come today to grow in Your grace.

We come to be hear Your Words of peace and mercy.

May your peace still the storms in our lives.

May your peace be always present in the busyness of our daily lives—in our work, family, schools, and communities.

Come, Holy Spirit, grow Your grace in us today.

Grant us the peace that passes understanding.

We pray for our world and for all who need Your grace this day.

Amen.”

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.[i]

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.3

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you.

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.

7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.[ii]

Faith

This past month a friend asked me to write a brief essay on faith for him.

He said it had to be 250 words or less.

He said he was not looking for a dissertation or sermon.

He told me that he would be taking it with him to Rome for a Missionary Conference.

The conference is being held to commemorate the 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Thesis on the door of the Wittenberg castle.

My friend’s goal was to come up with 95 different points for the church to discuss today.

The program my friend is presenting in Rome is called “95-4-2-Day!”

To be honest with you, I was a little overwhelmed that he asked me.

Then, I thought to myself, 250 words, that is no problem.

But I put it off and put it off and put it off.

When I was working on the message for this week, I sat down, wrote my essay and emailed my friend.

In the process of trying to write my essay on faith, I came across many quotes from some of the powerful voices of the church.

Voices that have helped inspire the church to hold fiercely onto her faith.

I thought I would share a few with you today as we turn to the topic of faith.

Understanding is the reward of faith.

Therefore, do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that you may understand.

St Augustine[iii]

It is not from works that we are set free by the faith of Christ, but from the belief in works, that is from foolishly presuming to seek justification through works.

Faith redeems our consciences, makes them upright, and preserves them, since by it we recognize the truth that justification does not depend on our works, although good works neither can nor ought to be absent, just as we cannot exist without food and drink and all the functions of this mortal body.

Martin Luther [iv]

There is the analogy of faith: it is a master key, which not only opens particular doors, but carries you through the whole house.

John Newton

This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own, and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness, and intercession of Jesus.

John Newton [v]

Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow: without it prayer will not hit the mark.

J. C. Ryle[vi]

So what is faith to you? , “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

This is what the ancients were commended for.”[vii]

I often think of the 12 disciples after Pentecost.

It was their job to build the church.

Somehow, Jesus had inspired their faith—through His teaching, His death, and His resurrection.

Listen again to , “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

How did these 12 disciples build the church?

FAITH.

So What is Faith?

Found In Christ

When we read the two passages today from Ephesians and Colossians, we find the Apostle Paul writing from a prison cell in Rome.

Paul had made three missionary trips from Jerusalem to many of these cities and churches that he is writing to.

He had been to Ephesus.

It was in Ephesus where Paul spent most of his time.

Now he wrote to the church that he loved.

He told them that God finds them faithful and wants to bless them.

Listen again to the opening lines of Ephesians --- To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Did you hear it?

Can you see it?

“To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:” Paul called them saints.

Go back to the times when this was written.

Only a few Old Testament prophets, people and a few angels were given the title “saints.”

For Paul to apply the title “saint” to the pagan Greeks was nothing more than mind blowing.

John Calvin said this about the title “saint”: “No man is … a believer who is not also a saint; and, on the other hand, no man is a saint who is not a believer.”[viii]

Paul called the people of the church in Colosse “holy.”

The word “saint” means “holy one --- set apart or consecrated.”

As Paul writes, the word “saint” described what had happened in the hearts of the faithful in the churches of Ephesus and Colosse.

These faithful people were saints despite the fact that they lived in the shadow of the pagan temples.

They were saints amidst the moral decay of Asia Minor.

They were saints as they lived their lives as shopkeepers, homemakers, fishermen, sailors, tent makers, carpenters, and raising their children.

Have you ever considered yourself “holy” or a “saint”?

Exactly why were they referred to as saints?

Because they believed.

They believed that Jesus was the Son of God.

They believed that God raised Jesus from the dead.

They believed, therefore, they were saints.

Paul says they are saints because they are faithful and they were found in Christ.

In Ephesians Paul writes they “were faithful in Christ Jesus.”

To the saints in Colosse Paul says ---"we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints.”