Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Those without hope
Foreigner in a strange place illustration … “just don’t belong”
Simple prayer for years:
Make us aware of your activity Lord
Aware = awake
Hopeless ones = sheltered ones
Western Church … attendance only
Attendance only … devotion as well
Attendance … devotion … serving
ALL SO MUCH MORE
What if?
What if we’ve missed the point of following Christ and we’ve made it an “add-on”
“Add-on” illustrations… sunroof — perceived value
Citizens Of A Different Kingdom
Illustration by Elizabeth Wolf
Illustration by Elizabeth Wolf
Mingling in the room were a handful of professors and the two dozen other students who were there—as I was—to begin studies at Westminster College in Cambridge, England.
Mingling in the room were a handful of professors and the two dozen other students who were there—as I was—to begin studies at Westminster College in Cambridge, England.
"You must be David Henderson, our student from the States!"
The person at the other end of the outstretched hand was one of the faculty members.
Surprised that he’d identified me, I blurted, "How did you know who I was?"
He grinned and rubbed his hands together.
"Oh, it was obvious, you know.
Quite obvious."
That night I was mystified by my professor’s Holmesian astuteness.
A few months later, after living among the British, the mystery was gone.
I had a better chance of hiding an ice-cream cone in my pocket than of disguising my country of origin.
My pressed and color-coordinated clothes, my carefully groomed hair, and my confident, assertive bearing gave me away as a Yankee.
Try as I might, there was no hiding my identity.
Has anyone ever suspected your true nationality—your citizenship in the kingdom of God?
Illustration by Elizabeth Wolf
Your Passport, Please
The kingdom of God is found wherever people recognize Jesus as the King & place themselves under His rule.
“It is where what He wants done is done” - Dallas Willard
The life of faith, it turns out, is not simply being a decent person or paying dues or showing up.
Nor is it merely legal pardon before a holy God, which is how so many of us in the evangelical world understand it.
Jesus’ picture of the life of faith is this: subjects living a life of total devotion to their King.
Pledging an oath of allegiance to a new rule, we resolve to give the King the honor that is His due, to subject every part of our lives to Him, and to be available every moment to do His bidding.
The life of faith NOT about being a decent person … paying dues … showing up.
It’s NOT a legal pardon before God
Jesus’ picture of the life of faith is this:
People living a life of total devotion to their King.
Pledging an oath of allegiance to a new rule
Giving the King the honor that is His due
Subjecting every part of our lives to Him
Being available every moment to do His bidding.
Following Jesus means transferring our citizenship from this world to another.
In marvelous, explosive words more detonated than spoken, Jesus said to the religious leaders, "You are from below; I am from above.
You are of this world; I am not" (, NLT).
Later in John, He goes further: "My kingdom is not of this world ... my kingdom is from another place" ().
"You are from below; I am from above.
You are of this world; I am not" (, NLT).
"My kingdom is not of this world ... my kingdom is from another place" ().
Q4U: What does it look like to take on the mind of that new world.
And where this world was once their home, it is no more.
Like Abraham, they are "no more than foreigners and nomads here on earth ... looking forward to a country they can call their own ... a heavenly homeland" (, NLT).
Sojourners in this world, they must "live [their] lives as strangers here in reverent fear" ().
Jesus’ subjects are no more part of this world than He is.
What does that look like to live like your from another world?
Over time, Jesus’ followers begin to take on the mind and manner of that new world.
What does that look like?
Postcards from the Edge
Jesus gave us the equivalent of a collection of postcards from home.
From time to time we get postcards from friends in places like North Carolina or Colorado.
They create in me a deep longing, reminding me that there is another world beyond the flat farmland where I now dwell, a vertical world where my heart has taken up residence.
They are the parables, images from the kingdom.
Jesus gave us the equivalent of a collection of postcards from home.
They are the parables, glimpses of life in another world, images from the kingdom.
They are pictures of life at odds with the one lived out around us.
The kingdom of this world creates ingrown, self-reliant citizens whose first and last thought is of themselves.
Their time and resources are spent on things that matter to them,
Their energy is spent on their own comfort and need
Their allegiance is to their own feelings and desires
Their relationships are largely self-serving.
This world breeds people whose deepest & only obligation is to themselves.
What sets us apart as citizens of another world?
I’d like to pull out a few of Jesus’ postcards and identify from them five important distinctives of those who live as foreigners in this world and citizens in the next.
Five distinctives of those who live as foreigners in this world and citizens in the next:
1.) A Single Focus
But in the illustration of the lilies in the field (), Jesus says the sparrows and lilies have got it right.
They aren’t consumed with life’s logistics.
But in the illustration of the lilies in the field (), Jesus says the sparrows and daylilies have got it right.
They aren’t consumed with life’s logistics.
Nor should we be.
Our hard efforts won’t change things, and God has everything taken care of anyway.
So seek first the kingdom.
"He will give you all you need from day to day if you live your life for him, and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern" (, NLT).
Nor should we be.
Our hard efforts won’t change things, and God has everything taken care of anyway.
So seek first the kingdom.
"He will give you all you need from day to day if you live your life for him, and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern" (, NLT).
Is this sort of response to Jesus a compulsive act of insanity?
Or an utterly reasonable response?
Clearly the first—unless Jesus should happen to be who He claims to be: the one who created us, came to us, died for us, and now rules over us.
If that is the case, what could be more sane?
When, straight from college, I went to work at Procter and Gamble, I was in my dream job.
But I soon realized that my favorite parts of my days were my lunch hours and coffee breaks.
Not because I’d lost interest in my work.
I loved it!
But something else had come to mean far more to me than dreaming up product promotions and designing shampoo bottles.
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