Sermon Tone Analysis

“*UNITED WE STAND*”

(Sermon Series on I Corinthians)

 

Westgate Chapel 3~/1~/98 a.m.

I Corinthians 1:10-17

 

PROPOSITION:   Since the essence of the triune God is the love relationship and perfect unity that exists between the members of the trinity, then quarrels and division have no place in the body (the church) that Jesus died to purchase for His Father.

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I. introduction

!! -     BACK when we pastored in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Rita’s Uncle Oris and Aunt Katie used to farm 360 acres of corn and soy beans outside of Fort Dodge .....near the little town of Dayton, Iowa...population 435.

!! -     AUNT Katie is Rita’s mom’s sister.

Their father, Rita’s maternal grandfather, had pastored in the Church of God for years.....the sisters grew up in a preacher’s home.

!! -     AUNT Katie has two sons about Rita’s and my age....Ronnie and Denny.

!! -     RON is the highest, non-elected, official in the Banking Commission for the State of Iowa.

Denny is a high school history teacher and basketball coach.

!! -     RITA’S other aunt, Laura and her husband also lived in Iowa....and they had three children about our age.

!! -     AND every Labor Day weekend of the world, we would all converge on the farm, from all points in Iowa and Ohio, with our children....31 of us, all in a three bedroom farmhouse.

!! -     A COUPLE of those Labor Day weekends we would be the last ones to arrive.....having had to be at the church for the services....and finally making it at 2 a.m.

Monday morning.

!! -     WE would have to quietly step over bodies, sleeping wherever there was space.

One year, Rita and I slept in Aunt Katie’s sewing room and one of our kids in the bathtub....wrapped up in blankets.

!! -     THOSE weekends were wonderful.

!!! ~*     The relationships were the best.

This was family!

!!!! •     From dawn to dusk the kids would be off running in the fields, or being pulled on pieces of plywood behind the garden tractor.

!!!! •     The women would be either in the kitchen or on the front porch peeling peaches or shucking corn.....all talking at the same time.

!!!! •     The men would predict the Superbowl contenders, solve global political issues, and argue over which was faster.....a Chevy Malibu SS with a 396, or a Pontiac GTO with a 455.

And sometimes we would just have to get out on the local county road and solve that debate.

!!! ~*     The fellowship was wonderful.

This was family.

!!!! •     Hugs were the order of every day.

Rita’s Uncle Wes just about broke your ribs with his famous bear hug.

!!!! •     Meal times were a buzz with conversation.

!!!! •     The men who were there on Saturday  would take the kids to the rodeo.

The bull riders or the carnival rides were not nearly as exciting as the time together and just getting caught up on each other’s lives.

!!!! •     Labor Day was not complete without a trip to the Dayton parade.

The guys would go to town at dawn and stake out our places with lawn chairs.

!!!! •     It was the most boring parade you have ever seen.....how many different combines can you ooh and aah at?  (The kids loved the candy tossed out at them from the tractors and old cars.)

!!!! •     Besides, no one cared because we were all together.

!!! ~*     The work that was done...  feeding the gang, and caring for the kids, and cleaning up after meals was effortless.

Everybody pitched in.

This was family!

!!! ~*     You heard no bragging during those week ends on the farm.

Everybody was too interested in everybody else’s life and accomplishments.

Rita’s cousin, Ronnie, was having frequent conversations and meetings with Allan Greenspan, at the Federal Reserve.....but you would never hear him brag about it.

We would have to drag those kinds of facts out of him.

This was family!

!!! ~*     No one tried to be top dog on those week ends.

This was family.

!!!! •     Aunt Katie wasn’t possessive of her kitchen.

!!!! •     Uncle Oris didn’t care who was driving his tractor or new Buick.

!!!! •     And during family devotions in the evenings no one tried to impress anyone with their Bible knowledge or spirituality.

This was family!

!! -     THE tug inside all of our hearts for family is one of the strongest in life.

!!! ~*     A place where you are known and loved.

!!! ~*     A place for fellowship and companionship.

!!! ~*     A place for belonging...where you learn and hold to the true values of life.

!!! ~*     A place of safety from which you are sent out into the world....secure in knowing who you are.

!!! ~*     That is family.

!! -     IT is a deep and powerful longing within us all.

!! -     IN fact, for those who have not or do not have strong family it is possible that even my relating the Iowa stories or my own family stories from time to time is painful.

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ii.

god’s family in heaven

!! -     WHERE do those longings come from in us for family?

!! -     TO understand that we have to go back to the beginning.

!! -     AND to do that, many of us would expect to find the beginning in Genesis 1:1,

!!!       “*In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth*.”

!! -     BUT that is only the beginning of the human story.

!! -     YOU have to go back before the beginning of the human story to discover where this longing for family came from.

!! -     AND the only passage of Scripture that I know of that goes back before Genesis 1:1 is John 1:1,

!!!       “*In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God*.

(2) *He was with God in the beginning*.”

!! -     BEFORE there was man, before there were horses and dogs and cats, before there were Himalayan mountains or the Pacific Ocean....before there was Mars or Saturn or the Milky Way....THERE WAS GOD!

!! -     AND He was not a lonely pitiful figure looking for company and that was why He created man.

!! -     BEFORE time God existed in the community of the godhead.

!! -     JESUS was with God, the only begotten Son of God, in the beginning.

!! -     AND when in God’s economy the time arrived to create man and the universe, Genesis 1:2 says that the Holy Spirit was present.

!!!       “*Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters*.”

!! -     SOME translators of that verse understand the word “hovering” to also be translated, “brooding,” like a hen broods over eggs waiting to hatch under her warmth.

!! -     SO before time as we know it, and a world as we know it began....God existed in a perfect, loving, harmonious,  family relationship; Father, Son and Spirit.

!! -     WHEN God began calling forth light from darkness, land from the waters, mountains, continents, rivers, animals.....Father, Son and Spirit were there and participating in the joy and thrill of creation.

!!! ~*     The Old Testament is full of Scriptures that speak of the Lord Jehovah (Father God), as creator of heaven and earth (Isaiah 40:28).

!!! ~*     But in Colossians 1:16-17, Paul writes about Jesus,

!!!!       “*For by him* *all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him*.

(17) *He is before all things, and in him all things hold together*.”

!!! ~*     Then in addition to Genesis 1:2 that I already quoted to you, Psalm 104:30 the psalmist writes of the creatures of the earth and says,

!!!!       “*When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth*.”

!!!       Isaiah 32:15 speaks of the desolation of the earth in the last days and then he says,

!!!!       “...*till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest*.”

!! -     IT is no wonder that in the translation of Genesis 1:26 God says,

!!!       “*Let us make man in our image, in our likeness*...”

!! -     GOD was the family of heaven before there was a human race.

!! -     THAT is where our concept of family originates.

!! -     AND the Gospels are rich in description of the nature and quality of the family of God that has always existed within the triunity of the godhead.

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!! 1.   LOVE IN RELATIONSHIP

!! -     LOOK with me at the richness of relationship within the community of the godhead.

!! -     IN John 17:11 and 21 Jesus prays for us,

!!!       “...*that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you*.”

!! -     IN John 15:9 Jesus speaks of His Father’s love for Him, and says,

!!!       “*As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you*.”

!! -     LISTEN to Jesus in John 17:24,

!!!       “*Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world*.”

!! -     IN John 14:31 Jesus speak of His love for His Father.