Sermon Tone Analysis

“*A NEW WAY OF LIVING*”

(A Chosen People – Series in I Peter)

 

Westgate Chapel 1~/28~/01                                    I Peter 3:18-4:6

 

PROPOSITION:  The follower of Christ is called to a new way of living, because of the high price He paid, because we are united with Christ, and because of the coming judgment.

! I. introduction

!! -     ON October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, a Roman Catholic university professor attacked the corruption of the 16th century Catholic church, specifically for their practice of selling indulgences for whatever sins you might want to commit (kind of like get out of jail free cards).

!! -     ROMAN Catholic theology at that time had degenerated into a works salvation.

You were saved by joining the church, taking communion at the church,  and other practices.

!! -     MARTIN Luther called for reform.

!! -     HE was excommunicated for being a heretic, but his heroic actions ushered in what has since been called The Reformation….and

men like John Calvin, John Knox, and others, soon followed throughout Europe preaching that salvation was not by works but by grace through faith.

!! -     THE message of the Reformers sent shock waves throughout the world at that time.

!! -     WESTGATE Chapel stands in the stream of Biblical truth carved out and defended by the brave leaders of the Reformation….many of whom gave their lives for their stand.

!! -     PROBABLY the key text for the Reformers was Ephesians 2:8-9.

!!!       “*For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God*—(9) *not by works, so that no one can boast*.”

!! -     I THANK God and praise Him for the Reformation and the changes it brought to the Christian Church.

!! -     BUT like any element of God’s truth, the very thing that the Reformers gave their lives for is becoming the anchor that threatens to sink the ship.

!! -     LET me explain.

!! -     CHRISTIANITY on the modern Evangelical world has been reduced to two things:

!!! 1.

The removal of sin guilt.

!!! 2.   The promise of heaven after death.

!! -     EVANGELICAL scholars have gone to great lengths to convince us that simply by giving mental assent to the truth claims of the Gospel a magical moment of justification takes place…where we are rendered just as if we have never sinned….and

that is it!

!! -     POOF!

You are a Christian….through

faith in Christ alone.

!! -     AND in our desperate attempt to distance ourselves from Roman Catholicism, and be Evangelical….believing

that there are NO works that can save you (and it is true….no

works can save you)…we have ended up with a brand of Christianity that is powerless to change lives much less a society.

!! -     GEORGE Barna’s research bears this out.

In major moral and ethical life issues there is now little or no difference between how Christians live their lives and the people in America who espouse no faith in Jesus Christ.

!! -     IN our attempt to be true to the Reformation we have neglected passages like 2 Corinthians 5:17,

!!!       “*Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come*!”

!! -     THAT is more than “the removal of sin guilt”…..that is a total reorientation of life and living to the person of Jesus Christ.

!! -     THE author of “The Divine Conspiracy,” Dallas Willard, calls our current brand of Christianity, “bar code religion.”

(pp.

36-42)

!! -     LET me explain with the help of Top Foods:

!!! ~*     Hold up cabbage.

!!!! •     Ask for audience to identify the vegetable.

!!! ~*     Scan bar code on cabbage.

!!!! •     Read the identification on screen.

!!!! •     Comment on the information contained in the bar code.

!!! ~*     Set down scanner (screen goes black).

!!! ~*     Remove bar code from cabbage and stick on to water melon.

!!!! •     Ask for audience to identify the melon.

!!!! •     This bar code doesn’t care what it is attached to.

!!! ~*     Scan bar code on water melon.

!!!! •     Read identification…cabbage.

!!! ~*     Set down scanner (screen goes black).

!! -     THIS is what Reformation theology has degenerated into in our generation.

!! -     IT no longer matters how you or I live!

!! -     AS long as we have the Christian bar code, which is God’s grace, through faith, plus nothing….our

sin problem is fixed, we will go to heaven when we die…and that is all there is to the Christian thing.

!! -     GIVE me a second to push this illustration one step further.

!! -     WOULD someone be a volunteer sinner for me this morning please?

!!! ~*     Describe the life of a sinner.

!!! ~*     Then let’s say that Joe Sinner attended a service at Westgate Chapel, and felt compelled to respond to the call to become a Christian through faith in Jesus Christ.

!!! ~*     Hang the bar code on the volunteer.

!!! ~*     Now, we tell Joe that his sins have been forgiven.

Have they?

Yes!

!!! ~*     We tell Joe that if he died, he would go to heaven.

Would he? Yes!

!!! ~*     Scan the bar code.

!!!! •     There is the information about Joe that heaven sees.

!!!! •     It reads, “Saint!”

!! -     BUT here is the problem….and

it is huge!

!! -     WE have neglected to tell Joe that the changes of the Christian life go WAY deeper than the bar code.

!! -     AND our attitude towards Christianity is revealed in the little slogans that we like to put on our bumpers…

!!!       “Christians are not perfect….just

forgiven.”

!! -     SOUNDS lofty…but what it really says is that all we care about it the bar code that says “forgiven,” and we want the world to cut us some slack if our lives are essentially no different than theirs.

!! -     THAT is not the Christianity of the Bible.

!! -     GOD wants ALL of Joe!

!! -     HE wants everything behind the bar code.

!! (Have “Joe” take his seat)

!! -     CHRISTIANITY is a life to live NOW in the power of the Holy Spirit.

!! -     WE are called to live TODAY a kind of life that is a foretaste of the life in God’s kingdom that we will live for eternity.

!! -     JESUS said in John 10:10,

!!!       “*I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly*.”

!! -     LIFE abundant is more than sins forgiven and heaven when you die.

!! -     THE Christian life is way more than a get out of jail free card.

!!! ~*     It changes your heart to be like the heart of Jesus.

!!! ~*     It changes your motives in life.

!!! ~*     It removes you from the throne of your life.

!!! ~*     It radically changes how you view other people in your life…and how you treat them.

!!! ~*     It turns your priorities upside down.

!!! ~*     It destroys the idols and other gods you and I have set up to worship in our lives.

!!! ~*     It changes your view of things and the ownership of things.

!!! ~*     It changes your vocabulary.

!!! ~*     It changes you view members of the opposite sex.

!!! ~*     It changes how you are when you get up in the morning.

!!! ~*     It changes how you handle your tax returns.

!!! ~*     It changes your commitment to the truth….it

matters to you what “is” means.

!!! ~*     It changes relationships.

!!! ~*     It changes life as it is lived in your family.

!! -     AGAIN,

!!!       “*…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come*!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)