Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro: Think we have been doing here so far today...

Arrived… got your bulletin… some of you got your kids checked in...

Went through morning routine...

Some of you got kids ready...

Scrambled out the door… most of you later than you had said you were...

Million things went through your mind on the way to church...

Arrived… got your bulletin… some of you got your kids checked in...

Said hi to a few people and exchanged some small talk...

Dan started playing the guitar… we sang some words that someone told you to sing… maybe you were fighting distraction or a wandering mind…

Then someone started praying… it happens every week...

Then someone starts praying… it happens every week...

If you are like me, you may have fought to stay focused during that time too...

Now I’m up here telling you to open a book and getting ready to talk for what may seem like a REALLY long time depending on how interested you are…

Later you’ll catch up with a few folks… maybe learn a couple things at a class… jump in your car… and go get a bit to eat…

I know some of these specifics might be different, but those are just the basic facts of a typical Sunday morning…

It doesn’t APPEAR at face value as all that special…

Sometimes it may even seem unnecessary… or at least optional...

If I can make it, it’s nice… if not, it’s of little consequence...

If I’m feeling it, I’ll participate… if not, it’s not going to make much difference for me or anyone else.

Our gospel communities can feel the same way…

A little social time… some praying… some discussion about things that I already know… sharing time that makes me feel awkward… and then I go home…

But I want us to see today... is that what happens in those moments when we gather... is a cosmic reality... with eternal purpose and consequence.

What might sometimes feel mundane or inconsequential… is actually our opportunity to participate in THE CENTRAL activity that God is doing in the present age that will change our eternity forever.

I want us to see that this thing that we are part of called the church... is the center of the story God is writing in the present time.

You didn’t just come to a program or to an event or to a show this morning… you came to a people…

You came to a people who really only have one primary thing in common: that Jesus is Savior and Lord over our lives.

If you don’t know Jesus as Savior and Lord, you are witnessing the work that God is doing in changing our lives… and you can become part of that work through faith in him.

If you DO know Jesus as Savior and Lord, than you are a part of something that God wants to use to change YOUR life… and the lives of everyone around you.

This Fall, we’ve been in a series called “God’s Story, My Story,” and our goal for this series is to find our place in God’s unfolding story of salvation through Jesus Christ.

That the individual stories of our lives are all about the much BIGGER story that God is working out across all time and space…

We started all the way back in September at Creation... and we worked our way through the Fall of mankind into sin… God’s promise to the patriarchs… through the story of Israel and the many periods of their history…

We then came to Jesus… HE is the fulfillment of the story… working redemption and building his kingdom...

And last week we started into the present part of the story… the Spirit was poured out and the good news about Jesus went forward through the witness of his disciples…

And the church was built and multiplied.

Last week we talked about the story of the Spirit from the book of Acts...

And from a different perspective, we could equally call that the story of the church.

What the Spirit is doing in this part of the story is building the church.

What we get in the book of Acts is HOW the church was formed… and then what we get in the rest of the NT are letters… we call them EPISTLES… to those churches.

And it’s in the EPISTLES that we learn the nature of the gospel… and the church.

In Acts, we learn what happened to form the church… in the Epistles, we learn what MUST happen for us to BE the church.

And we come to find that it’s not just a series of programs or events we attend...

It’s not a building we come to...

It’s something we ARE.

The church isn’t just PART of the life of the believer… it is the story God has written you into.

So here is our goal for this morning… if you ever struggle with feeling like the church is routine or unnecessary or not serving it’s purpose:

Open your eyes to the eternal purpose of being the church in this part of God's story.

Your Bibles are open to the book of Ephesians....

Ephesians was written by a guy named Paul… we talked about him last week a little bit…

If there was anyone who got that his story was all about God’s story, it was the Apostle Paul.

He had been a devout Israelite… a Pharisee actually…

He read his Bible over and over again… but never TRULY understood how God’s big story was unfolding…

He refused to see how Jesus could be the Savior King who was promised… he thought Jesus was an imposter and all his followers were blasphemers...

Until one day, he was on his way to beat up some Jesus followers and throw them in jail… and the risen Jesus HIMSELF appeared to him… struck him blind… but theand ultimately n opened HIS eyes to the truth that Jesus was the Promised Anointed Savior King.

That kind of interaction generally gets your attention…

Paul was a Jew… a Pharisee… who thought that Jesus was an imposter…

So Paul devoted himself to God’s calling on his life… to proclaim God’s story of salvation through Jesus Christ…

To the nations...

and his job was PRIMARILY to preach that story… not to his fellow Jews… but to the Gentiles… To the nations...

And he had devoted his life to punishing people who claimed Jesus was the Promised Anointed King of Israel...

He was a tool God used to get the gospel to the ends of the earth.

He oversaw their executions… he beat them… he imprisoned them…

And we see a pattern in his ministry… as he proclaimed the gospel… he gathered the believers into churches (local assemblies)… he appointed leaders… and he moved on to repeat the process...

And then one day he was riding to a city called Damascus to go deal with some more of these Jesus-followers...

It always was the same… proclaim the gospel… strengthen the believers in churches… appoint elders… repeat…

He planted tons of churches on three different missionary journeys over the course of about 10 years… all the while he was beaten and imprisoned and betrayed...

And the risen Jesus physically showed up to him on the way… and his life was forever changed...

And after the third missionary journey he said, “You know what!

I’ve put in my time for the church… I’m going to retire and kick my feet up and have some relaxation time...”

Instead of imprisoning those who proclaimed the good news of Jesus, he became one who went to prison for the very same thing...

Once Paul encountered Jesus, he had one goal: to get the good news about Jesus to as many people as possible…

From the time he was converted, God had revealed to him that his primary job was to take the gospel to the Gentiles… to the nations…

That the ends of the earth needed to hear that Jesus was the Promised Anointed King… not just of Israel… but over all Creation...

No… he said, “It is my EARNEST DESIRE to carry the gospel to the very ends of the earth… I want to make it to Rome… and if the Lord allows I want to keep going on to Spain...”

And they needed to have their sins paid for and their relationship with God restored… and they needed to enter into the people of God and devote themselves to the story that God was writing.

So as Paul revealed the gospel, he also revealed this new part of the story that God was writing called the church.

So he ended up going on three missionary journeys, planting MANY churches…

And so he went back to Jerusalem… where he was arrested… and he used his Roman citizenship to appeal to Caesar and make it to Rome on the Roman Empire’s expense tab by riding in the bottom of a slave ship.

He was beaten and falsely accused and imprisoned along the way…

And when he gets to Rome, he’s in prison, and he has tons of time then to both preach the gospel to all the guards, but also to write letters back to the churches.

And that’s when he writes the book of Ephesians… it’s written to the church in the city of Ephesus… Ephesus is located in what was called Asia at that time.. what is now the country of Turkey...

And his primary goal was to get to Rome… where he could then launch off into Spain… the end of the Roman world at the time...

Ephesians is one of the middle letters of Paul… you have an insert in your bulletin that has the timeline of the New Testament… and Paul’s letters can be broken down by early, middle and late...

From the time he was converted, God had revealed to him that his primary job was to take the gospel to the Gentiles… to the nations…

The early letters are all about establishing the churches in the gospel… Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Romans...

That the ends of the earth needed to hear that Jesus was the Promised Anointed King… not just of Israel… but over all Creation...

The middle letters are what are also known as the Prison Epistles… Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon… they are all about strengthening the church in the first principles of the faith…

And they needed to have their sins paid for and their relationship with God restored… and they needed to enter into the people of God and devote themselves to the story that God was writing.

And then the later letters are also known as the pastorals… 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus… they are about establishing leaders in the church...

And as Paul preached the gospel and planted churches, he was always

So Ephesians is a MIDDLE letter… it’s written to the church in the city of Ephesus… Ephesus is located in what was called Asia at that time.. what is now the country of Turkey...

He is writing to strengthen the church in the first principles of the faith…

You could say that Paul was writing the church in Ephesus about what it means to BE the church.

There

One of Paul’s primary concerns in this letter is that they would understand WHAT THE CHURCH IS… and what role they play in God’s unfolding story of salvation…

You could say that Paul was writing the church in Ephesus about what it means to BE the church.

In chapter 2, Paul says that the gospel created this NEW

And we see that it’s much more than a lot of people make it...

It’s much more than a building that we drive to...

It’s much more than a social organization… or a group of people who will be my friends…

It’s much more than a bunch of programs to consume...