Sermon Tone Analysis

*‘A Heavenly Perspective’*

 

 

/an  earthly perspective of church/

Three pastors got together for coffee one day and found all their churches had a bat-infestation problem.

‘I got so mad’ said one, ‘I took a shotgun and fired at them.

It made holes in the ceiling, but did nothing to the bats’.

‘I tried trapping them alive’ said the second.

‘Then I drove 50 miles before releasing them, but they beat me back to the church’.

‘I haven't had any more problems," said the third.

‘What did you do?’ asked the others, amazed.

‘I simply baptized and confirmed them’, he replied.

‘And I haven't seen them since’.

When the world looks at the church is doesn’t see much splendour.

On the verge of World Youth Day and the arrival of the Pope the media confront George Pell with embarrassing allegations designed to degrade the Catholic Church and by implication every Christian church.

The Australian National Secular Association timed their conference to coincide with the events of World Youth Day.

Their director, Dr Max Wallace, was reported in the SMH on 9 July as saying, ‘MORE Australians would tick the "no religion" box on the Australian census form—if only they could find it’.

William Temple spoke of ‘the vast chaos which for us represents the church, with its hateful cleavages, its slow moving machinery, its pedantic antiquarianism…it’s indifference to much that is fundamental, its age long ineffectiveness, (and) its abundant capacity for taking the wrong side in moral issues’.

If you were writing a news report on this church, how would you report us?

When the newspaper reports on churches it’s usually about how numbers are dropping off dramatically and how church is for old, eccentric people living in a by-gone era.

Newspapers like to report that the age of clergy is increasing, immorality amongst the clergy.

Schemes and scandals—it’s only ever bad news that you find about the church in public conversation.

Even people who attend church often don’t have good things to say.

The church is seen as old and worn out—the very word ‘sermon’ means ‘sleep’.

The glory of the church is veiled to this world who measures it by its own self-indulgent, self-centred and often self-contradictory standards.

There are some notable exceptions on the reporting of churches.

The mega churches.

But even when these churches are written up, its usually with fear and hatred and persecution.

Mega churches are always treated with a deep suspicion by the media.

Whilst the church used to be the meeting place for people—now it’s the Leagues club, the sporting arena and the pub.

/the heavenly perspective of church (Eph 3:20–21)/

Please turn with me to Eph 3:20, ‘Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him (God) be /glory in the church/ and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

Amen’.

This outpouring of praise lifts the church to unimaginable heights.

We expect that God is glorified through his Son, but God glorified through the church!

Do you think it a little odd that Paul refers to the ‘glory in the church’?

Some of us having been going to church for a long time—some of us became Christians and started coming to church as adults.

Most of you can tell me what’s good about this church.

No doubt others are willing to say what’s bad about this church.

I’ve been here six years now.

I can tell you lots of things about our people, about the way we run ourselves and the challenges of church life.

Do you think it a little odd that Paul speaks about the glory of God in the church as well as his glory in Christ Jesus?

What place does church have?

What is the purpose of church?

What is God’s purpose for church?

We are a group of people that own property, we come together and do funny things that other people do not do.

What is church?

And why is church?

Must I go to church?

Why do I do what I do in church?

What am I supposed to get out of church?

What am I supposed to give to church?

Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life, every Sunday, in this place?

Here in Eph 3:20–21, the glory of God is prayed for in the church as it is in Christ Jesus.

The word ‘glory’ means ‘splendour’ or ‘magnificence’.

The glory of Sydney is the Opera House, the Harbour, the beaches.

What is the glory of God?

What is the splendour of God?

We see the splendour and magnificence of God in the Old Testament in his character.

The Almighty God is full of grace and truth, he is slow to anger and full of goodness.

The glory of God is seen in his marvellous generosity toward his people.

It’s a character that you can rely upon and trust because God is so kind and merciful and good to us.

Here is the glory and splendour of God.

In the New Testament we see the glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

‘The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

We have seen his glory as the one who came from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14).

Jesus was so kind and loving and generous that he died on behalf of us so that we sinning, rebellious people might be forgiven.

We see the glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we see the glory of God in the church.

That is what Paul is praying in Eph 3, that the glory of God will display itself in the life of the church.

That somehow you’re supposed to see the glory of God in the church.

The church is the place where the glory of God is seen on earth.

How can this be?

Had Paul been to a Presbyterian Church when he wrote about the glory of God in the church?

The Bible has an extraordinarily elevated view of church.

The New Testament has a heavenly perspective of church which seems so far away from our earthly experience of church.

/ the promise of a glorious church/

/            the ‘scattered church’ (Gen 11: 1–8)/

What is ‘church’?

What are some synonyms for the word ‘church’?

Any thoughts?

Church is a ‘gathering’, an ‘assembly’, a ‘meeting’ of people.

It’s when people ‘congregate’ together—a congregation.

Church is the coming together of people.

To appreciate what this means it’s help to look at the opposite of church.

The opposite of  ‘assembly’ is a ‘scattering’.

This takes us back to the early pages of the Bible where we learn that scattering is judgment.

God judges his people by scattering them.

Come back with me to Genesis 11.

A short story—I’ll read it for us: ‘Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.”

They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.

The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city’.

See the judgment of God in verses 8 and 9, the Lord scatters men all over the earth so they can no longer plan to occupy heaven and make themselves god.

The judgment of God is the scattering of people.

In Deut 28, on the edge of the Promised Land, blessings and curses upon Israel are listed in some detail.

And at the end of the list of curses—in verse 64, is the climatic verse, ‘Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other.