Sermon Tone Analysis

FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING

INTRODUCTION

 

 

1 Timothy 3:14-16

*/The Mystery of Our Religion/*

*14** *I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, *15** *if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

*16** *Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great:

He* *was revealed in flesh,

vindicated* *in spirit,* *

seen by angels,

proclaimed among Gentiles,

believed in throughout the world,

taken up in glory.

These words from the Apostle Paul, written to his friend and co-worker Timothy, describe what is called the “*/mystery of our faith/*.”

What is this mystery?

It is found in the words of one our communion liturgies…a liturgy we will be using around the campfire at Cran Hill Ranch soon.

In this liturgy I say:

 

          Together we proclaim the mystery of our faith:

 

And then we all respond together:

 

Christ has died.

Christ has risen.

Christ will come again.

What makes this is a mystery isn’t the fact that we don’t know this to be true.

We know in our hearts this is true.

Christ died for me.

He died for you.

And as the Praise Team sang at the start of our worship service:

 

*/          one of these days were going to meet our Savior face to face.

/*

 

But in spite of the fact that we know this to be true…we really cannot grasp the fullness of what it means to be saved by God’s grace.

We also cannot fully understand how this grace is to be displayed in our daily lives.

Fortunately…God gave us a guidebook.

We call it the Bible.

It is God’s holy and inspired Word.

For every imaginable situation…or every possible circumstance we might ever find ourselves in…there is a text in here that clearly tells us what to do.

Yeah right!

Now…don’t get me wrong.

I am not speaking negatively of God’s Word.

I believe what is written here.

But the reality is…the Bible is hard.

It is challenging.

It is un-clear about many things...sometimes it is almost contradictory on some things.

I wish the Bible was perfectly simple to understand.

That would be easy.

And you all know…I like things easy.

But if the Bible was easy…if it answered every possible question…and gave clear cut instructions for every possible situation we could encounter in life…then faith wouldn’t be necessary.

Trust wouldn’t be necessary.

But faith and trust have always been necessary…even from the very beginning of time.

Adam and Eve started out living in a perfect world…and even in this situation God required that they have faith and trust in his Word.

This faith and trust was to be demonstrated by not eating from the forbidden tree.

We all know how that worked out!

 

     Now…think about this.

If Adam and Eve needed faith and trust to live in a perfect world…just think how much more we need to have faith and trust to live in our world today.

But faith is not easy.

Living a Christian life is not easy.

Life is challenging…and each generation of believers faces new…and ever more complicated…circumstances.

 

·        Just a few years ago the debates about cloning and stem cell research would have seemed like something from a science fiction movie.

·        A few generations ago…family units looked like…well, like families.

Today we struggle with broken homes, 2nd and 3rd marriages…step-relatives… blended families…and domestic partnerships.

·        We can only imagine…or maybe better yet fear…what things are waiting for our children and grand-children to deal with.

Each turn of the calendar brings new excitement…new challenges…and new questions…so:

 

*Faith requires us to continually seek understanding.*

Romans 12:1-2

 

*2 *I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,* *by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual* *worship.

*2** *Do not be conformed to this world,* *but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

/ /

/ /

     We sang a song about this a few minutes ago…remember how it went?

/ /

*/Take my heart and form it./*

*/Take my mind transform it./*

*/Take my will conform it,/*

*/To Yours, to Yours O Lord./*

/ /

Our hearts are formed…our minds are transformed…our will is conformed…as we study God’s Word…and seek to live a Christian life in an un-godly world.

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     Over the past few weeks…I have been asking you to fill in the blank at the end of this question: */What does the Bible say about ___________________?/*

 

 

     That question is the basis for the sermon series we are starting this morning…and I must say…you have laid out a challenge for me.

·        Some of the things you wrote in this blank I was expecting to see.

·        Others…really surprised me.

·        Some of them will be easy to answer.

·        Some of them…I won’t be able to answer…at least not completely.

·        Some of them…I can answer in 5 minutes or less.

·         Others…I could spend weeks on.

·        Some of them…I am going to have a lot of fun researching and answering.

·        Some of them…are going to be a lot of work for me to research and answer.

So this should be an interesting time of learning…for all of us.

But there is one problem with what we are about to do: As we learn about some of these things…we will probably come up with more questions than answers.

Unfortunately…that is often how it sometimes turns out when we start digging into issues of faith.

The more we dig into them…the more complicated they seem to get.

I am calling our new sermon series: *Faith Seeking Understanding*.

I “*/borrowed/*” this name from the title of one of the theology books I studied in seminary.

I like this title.

It says a lot in three simple words.

*/It says that we start with faith…and then use our faith…and our understanding of Holy Scripture…to interpret and understand the context we find ourselves living in.

/*That is how faith seeks understanding.

I want to share a few lines from this book with you this morning.

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/     //Asking questions is part of what it means to be human…and asking questions in the light of the grace of God in Jesus Christ is part of what it means to be a Christian.

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/     Definition of theology:/

/  /

/     What is theology?

It is faith asking questions.

It is faith seeking understanding.

Theology…is the continuing process of inquiry that is prompted by both the surprising grace of God and by distance between God’s coming kingdom on one hand and our experience of the brokenness of life on the other./

·       I like this description: We live in the distance between the coming of God’s Kingdom…and the brokenness of our world.

This disconnect between our future hope and our present reality is the source of our questions…it is what prompts the need for theological reflection.

/To be sure, faith and theology are not identical.

An advanced degree in theology is no more a guarantee of a living faith than a life of faith is deficient because of an absence of a theological degree.