Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Growing up we were indoctrinated with maroon and white propaganda.

Living in the back yard of the aggies and having a family of aggies led to this.

So much so that when I told my family I would in fact be turning down a scholarship to TAMU to pursue my dreams of playing soccer and leaving CSTAT that there were some slanderous prayers.

I love A&M.

I remember my first time stepping into Kyle Field.

I had seen it on tv and been around it but had not experienced a game before.

The environment was electric and so much more than I could have imagined.

This is the kind of feeling we get in the story of the The Last Battle by CS Lewis.

Quote from Narnia Last Battle:

The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that.

The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.

I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling.

He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried:

“I have come home at last!

This is my real country!

I belong here.

This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.

The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this.

Bree-hee-hee!

Come further up, come further in!”

During lent and beginning last week we are working through a series where we discuss the different parts of the journey with Christ.

A couple of years ago George Barna conducted a large scale research of Christians and their experiences on the faith journey and what he found was fascinating.

During lent and beginning last week we are working through a series where we discuss the different parts of the journey with Christ.

A couple of years ago George Barna conducted a large scale research of Christians and their experiences on the faith journey and what he found was fascinating.

Distribution of Adults along the Transformational Journey

Stop 1: Unaware of sin……........…1%

Stop 2: Indifferent to sin…............16%

Stop 3: Worried about sin...............39%

Stop 4: Forgiven for sin…................9%

Stop 5: Forgiven and active……….24%

Stop 6: Holy discontent……............6%

Stop 7: Broken by God…….............3%

Stop 8: Surrender and submission…..1%

Stop 9: Profound love of God……     0.5%

Stop 10: Profound love of people..0.5%

Now some of you may be thinking to yourself, this sounds familiar.

Well we have been through this series a couple of years ago.

We went through the all of the stops.

During lent we felt drawn in this season of your church to press in once more on this second half of the journey.

I want you to see why these numbers are so significant.

Today we talk about Holy discontent.

This feeling of there has to be something more than what I am experiencing.

For most of us there is a season where church participation and serving in different capacities seem to just be shallow or insufficient.

(and that makes sense because our relationship with God does not have a direct relationship with things we do at church)

Our text

In our passage this morning, Paul is speaking to the believers in Ephesus and he has already established the faith by which they are saved, the instruction for living and the power God gives us to live that way, but then he lays down this deep prayer and petition for them.

He calls them deeper and further than they can even imagine.

For us today this is the calling to be discontent.

To survey our lives and our walk and consider how we might too pray this prayer for ourselves and for our community, is what this is all about.

And friends, this prayer is asking for a lot.

It requires us to lay down some things, to sacrifice, to deny ourselves.

I like to think of the apostle’s petition as a staircase by which he climbs higher and higher in his aspiration for his readers.

His prayer-staircase has four steps, whose key words are ‘strength’, ‘love’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘fullness’.

More precisely, he prays first that they may be strengthened by the indwelling of Christ through his Spirit; secondly that they may be rooted and grounded in love; thirdly that they may know Christ’s love in all its dimensions, although it is beyond knowledge; and fourthly that they may be filled right up to the very fullness of God.

Strength in the Spirit

And the first step/petition in this prayer is; that you may be strengthened by the Spirit:

Ephesians 3:

Christian, the invitation is to not just be active in church and do stuff, it is to allow the Spirit of Christ to live in you so that you might know His strength!

Paul says when we have strength it is evident that Christ dwells in our hearts.

And get this, the reverse is true as well… in order to know the strength of the Spirit of God then we must give Christ His right place in our hearts.

What does that mean?

What does it mean to have Christ dwell in our hearts?

That is somewhat mystical isnt it?

Well Pauls chooses a specific greek word here:

‘The word selected (katoikein) … is a word made expressly to denote residence as against lodging, the abode of a master within his own home as against the turning aside for a night of the wayfarer who will be gone tomorrow.’

Again, it is ‘the residence always in the heart of its Master and Lord, who where he dwells must rule; who enters not to cheer and soothe alone but before all things else to reign’.

Thus Paul prays to the Father that Christ by his Spirit will be allowed to settle down in their hearts, and from his throne there both control and strengthen them.

Stott, J. R. W. (1979).

God’s new society: the message of Ephesians (pp.

135–136).

Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Illustration?

Illustration?

Rooted and grounded in love:

verse 17: and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love.

The second petition is that they would not just be church goers but that they would be “rooted and grounded in love.”

The language here is botanical and architectural.

The NEB puts it this way, that you might have “deep roots and firm foundations” so that you might be well rooted trees that can grow and flourish and a well-built house.

This prayer from Paul: that love would be your source of life and what is the fundamental building block to which everything else comes.

I hope you see how communal this petition is.

This is about relationship and loving one another.

Jenny Anderson wrote a fascinating story about what she learned in losing her brother to cancer.

She a former writer for the NY times discovered that perhaps life is more about loving relationships than anything else.

She reflected about the day of the funeral:

Jenny Anderson wrote a fascinating story about what she learned in losing her brother to cancer.

She a former writer for the NY times discovered that perhaps life is more about loving relationships than anything else.

She reflected about the day of the funeral:

In seeing his community, I became acutely aware of the feeling that I did not have my own.

I had friends and a loving family.

But as Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

And I spent my days focused on optimizing myself: Endlessly working and improving, on a permanent quest to do as much as possible in the unforgiving confines of 24 hours.

It was the only way I knew how to be.

Compete.

Excel.

Win.

Before Robbie got sick, if you had asked me if community mattered, I would have said yes.

But I wouldn’t have thought about it much.

Nor would I have spent much time working out what it meant.

But after many nights in emergency rooms and too-long stays in hospitals, of watching my nieces slowly lose their father, I got a glimpse of what community looks like.