Sermon Tone Analysis

Shifting Worldviews

In Chuck Colson’s essay, Love, Life and Worldview, he describes two cultural phenomena, one in the Church and one in secular/naturalist culture.

Colson says that a worldview answers four fundamental questions:

Where did we come from?

Why is there sin and suffering in the world?

Is there an answer; is there a way out?

What is my purpose, or why am I here?

In the Church, there is the belief that God does not relate to the world purely through his church but that he independently interacts with people in such a way that one can say that he or she has a relationship with Jesus apart from the work and influence of the Body of Christ.

Vocabulary word: ecclesiology or the study of the church, its nature, its internal duties, it’s external (to the world) duties, and its governance.

In our culture, the continued shift toward secular-naturalism has a growing worldview that, there being no God, humans are simply members of the animal kingdom with no special hierarchical rights.

Denying that men and women were made in God’s image, there is no inherent dignity of humanity.

The logical conclusion of this philosophy is a return to the horrors of eugenics that were briefly extinguished after Hitler’s holocaust.

But the same philosophy of Hitler—the greatest good for the greatest number—is widely accepted now in the United States.

In other words, removing the weeds, as imagined by Margaret Sanger, will enable the garden to flourish.

Why is the “me and Jesus” perspective described by Chuck Colson unbiblical and how does it affect the church’s ability to minister to the disabled?

First, ecclesiology (the theology of the Church) teaches us that, as Christ’s bride, we are to demonstrate who God is and what he does.

The Church is God’s primary mechanism by which he shows his nature to the world and interacts with the world.

The me-and-Jesus perspective causes us to “think we’re in good shape.

Jesus is taking care of me, and I’ve got a great relationship with Jesus.”

But Jesus is “the source of all truth, all understanding about all of life.

We Christians have got to get active.”

We need to be the Church in the world and, together, combat the worldview that debases human life to the point where those on the fringes of so-called society are deemed worthless and cast aside.

What is the biblical nature of the church?

1.

The People of God.

2. The Body of Christ

3. Temple of the Holy Spirit

1 cor 3

What does it mean “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?”

Who is you?

(see Attachment 1)

What do the verses above indicate about our obligations to each other and to the world?

What are the biblical functions of the Church?

1. Worship (ministry to God)

heart attitude

mat

1 tim

b. corporate

6

2. Instruction (ministry to the Church)

b. early Church model

acts 2 42

b.

correct doctrines

3. Edification (ministry to the Church)

a. fellowship

b. prayer (example of corporate prayer and its effects)

c. intra-church ministry

d. supporting ministry

4. Evangelism (ministry to the World)

5. Organization (ministry to the Church)

6. Ordinances (ministry to the Church)

1 dcor

7. Mercy (ministry to the World)

Given the seven functions of the Church, how are we, personally, doing?

Where can we improve?

In the skit script in Appendix B of the reading, if you were Pastor Pickle, how would you respond to Brother Thorn’s and Sister Tiffany’s complaint?

What exactly is fellowship, or koinonia in the New Testament?

(see Attachment 2)

1. Unity and bond between believers

a. unity

ph

b. community

2. Unity with Christ

3. Unity between the Trinity and the Church

4. Partnership in the Gospel

The use of participation in is koinonia.

Let’s do some koinonia now!

Next Time . . .

Where is the Church Today?