Sermon Tone Analysis

400 years ago, delegates from both Dutch and international churches met over the course of a year in response to a controversial theology concerning the main tenets of faith in Christ.

The meetings produced a very thoughtful theological document known as the Canons of Dort.

It covers five points of the doctrine of grace, also referred as the five points of Calvinism.

At stake was God’s sovereignty and our assurance of salvation.

Arminius, and following his death, his followers, suggested that salvation was based on human response.

That God foreknew those who would respond in faith, and he chose them.

To help students remember these five points, the anagram TULIP was used.

TULIP stood for Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints.

1. New Year’s Resolutions?

a. Yes

Pastor Jim Osterhouse struggled with the Tulip anagram.

While it communicates truth, the meaning of the words can be confusing and misleading.

He set out to find a different anagram.

One day, his friend Rod Marks (a new Christian) came into his office and gave him the anagram FAITH.

Faith stands for: Fallen Humanity, Adopted by God, Intentional Atonement, Transformed by the Holy Spirit, and Held by God.

For a more in-depth look at the background information I invite you to check out the Beyond Sunday Blog which you can access on the church’s website.

Each weekly blog post will feature a bit more information than could be included in the sermon, daily scripture readings, questions that can be used to generate discussions at mealtimes with your family, or for small groups, and links to other resources.

Are you the kind of person who makes New Year’s Resolutions?

Do they help or hinder you?

Do they encourage or discourage you?

For some people they are great motivators.

Resolutions really help them to have a focus, a plan, and it helps them to stick to their decision.

This morning, we’re looking at the first part of the anagram: Fallen Humanity.

If you talk to friends, family, even your neighbour over the fence, it doesn’t take long for the conversation to turn to the news or weather.

If there’s been a terrible storm, people will talk about it.

If there’s a war, or a surge in needles lying around in parks, or a rise in crime, people will talk about it.

Jonathan Edwards, the famous puritan preacher, made all kinds of resolutions in his life, such as: “Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence.

Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.

Resolved, to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

All of these things point to the fact that not everything is good and perfect.

Talk to people about their own lives, and they’ll be pretty quick to say that while they think they’re not too bad, they know they’re not perfect either.

The Bible tells us why this is.

Ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they and all humanity with them were guilty of sin.

says, “sin entered the world through one man.”

When Adam fell, he fell completely, and all people after him are completely helpless to save themselves.

Still, others make resolutions and have no luck whatsoever at keeping them.

It is another reason to add something to the “did not do” list.

The Bible says in that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory fo God.”

That is to say, all have missed the mark, all have failed to live up to God’s standard of living, of meeting his perfect moral character.

b.

No

Then there are the people who don’t make any resolutions at all.

They know themselves; they know how prone they are to fail.

And still others simply don’t find resolutions very effective in their daily living.

To illustrate our helplessness, as described by the Bible, and to show that we’re not, as some have suggested, partially able to save ourselves, Pastor Osterhouse uses the following example.

Resolutions or not, the key to making lasting changes has to do with identity, behaviour and attitude.

As Christians, we keep in mind our identity, who we are in Christ, we remember that our proper behaviour comes from Christ living in us, which gives us a hopeful attitude for achieving God’s glory in this life.

Our attitude then is not so much what we resolve to do, but what God has resolved to do in and through us.

He says, suppose all of us go to a skyscraper.

I ask you all to stay at ground level, while I go to the observation deck, and jump off.

I fall to the ground, break a leg, some ribs and my arm.

Though I’m in terrible pain, I am still able to drag myself over to a pay phone (my cell phone broke in the fall) and call for help.

I can help myself because I’m only partially limited by the fall.

That’s what those who think they can offer something to God believe.

Yes, they fell, but they can still do something.

Now, suppose I’m miraculously healed from my injuries and I want to show you the Reformed understanding of the fall.

I depart from you all at the ground floor, go all the way to the roof, 100 stories up, and I jump.

You watch in horror as I fall to my death.

I am dead, there’s nothing I can do to heal myself, to help myself or to call for help.

I am dead.

That’s what being totally fallen into sin means.

2. Future Hope: New Heaven and New Earth

Jesus promises to make all things new.

John, while receiving this vision, this revelation, which he wrote down in the book we call Revelation, saw many different things.

We can summarise the book of Revelation like this: God Wins.

God has defeated everything that works against him.

In our passage, , we read, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live...” We are dead in our sins.

We used to live only to gratify the cravings of our sinful natures.

Because of this we were objects of wrath.

We deserved God’s punishment.

For though he made us to bear his image, his perfect moral character, we only lived to gratify the cravings of our sinful natures.

The old way of doing things is no longer.

We can see this in the book of Colossians and the Belgic Confession clearly explains it.

The old way of worshipping, of sacrificing, of living is fulfilled in Christ, and now we have Christ in us, living in us!

We are able to live as God created us to live, because we are new creations in him.

But God, in his great, amazing, incredible, loving mercy, God made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions—it is by grace we have been saved.

We did not, could not save ourselves.

A dead person can’t do anything for themselves.

Pastor Osterhouse uses another example, but I’ll modify it a bit.

Suppose you came into the sanctuary this morning, and found me lying on the floor up here, very sick.

Upon sitting down you realise that you forgot your peppermint candy for the sermon.

You know that I always have one in my pocket, and so you say, “Pastor Paul, can I have one of your mints?”

And since I’m sick, I wearily crawl over to your pew, reach into my pocket and give you a Wilhemina Peppermint.

We didn’t make ourselves new; Christ made us new.

The Holy Spirit came into our lives and he made us alive in Christ, so that we could respond to him, and confess Christ as our Saviour and Lord.

Because Christ is the author of salvation, he works it out in us.

And he proves the effectiveness of what he set about to do, he gives us great hope for the future in the vision he gave to John.

Read the book of Revelation, if you haven’t read it already.

It has some strange, figurative language in it.

But the message is clear: repent, the end is coming.

Come to Christ, he makes all things new.

One day every person, every being will bow down and worship Christ.

One day, Christ will complete the good work he’s begun in all of us.

He will make all things new, new heaven and a new earth.

And then he adds a seemingly strange statement: “There will no longer be any sea.”

Now imagine the same scenario, but instead of lying up here sick, I’m lying up here dead.

If you asked me for a peppermint candy, what would happen?

Nothing.

I’d be totally unable to respond.