Sermon Tone Analysis

PRAYER

It seems evident to me, Heavenly Father, a we listen to this text that our vision, of what it means to be called yours, your church, for your glory, is so much smaller than whet we have made it.

So I pray that as we gather this morning and ask your Spirit to be at work in our hearts, we would gain a higher view of You, and a greater desire to know you and make you known!

We started a series last week titled “Larger Than Life” and what we wanted to at least begin last week, was to open our eyes to what church is called to be and can be.

And we want to invite you to dream and love and desire a church that is all about Glorifying Jesus and getting on his mission

There is a real potency to these words that Jess read this morning.

It is not by accident that Paul writes these words to a small church trying to see life beyond their circumstance.

Something bigger than their small gathering.

There is a call in all that Paul is saying to be fruitful and faithful to the calling of God.

in vs 10 he says .....

what we have been invited into is all part of God’s plan is says in vs 10

The reason God has lavished blessing on us, chose us, to be holy and blameless, adopted us into his family, showed us grace, forgave us..........is so that we can play a part in his plan to....unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

so that we

So how can we live to the praise and glory of God?

That moves together in God’s grace and new life and works in unity for His Purpose and His glory.

so that the church is not a group of individuals each with their own mission and idea of what a church ought to be, into a church that moved together on mission “to the praise and glory of God”.

I came across a video the other day of birds being released by these trucks, these massive panels would open up and thousands of birds would fly out the side in a big mass.

Apparently they were homing pigeons, able to carry messages distances of 1800 km because people in Ohio have never heard of email.

Watching them explode out of these trucks looked sporadic and disjointed.

A few minutes later a I came across another video of birds.

I have never seen this phenomenon.

SHOW VIDEO

When this happens...... people stop and stare.

Not simply because it seems unnatural, but because it is beautiful.

And I believe that can be an image of the church- moving together in unity, a thing of beauty, causing the world to stop and take notice for all the right reasons!

our love for one another

our common purpose

our love for Jesus

I think this kind of phenomenon in the church can only happen when we are on mission together.

But churches like this do not happen by accident; by a building full of passengers

There are important marks of a fruitful and faithful church.

A church that is faithful but not fruitful is not what the Commissioning calls us to.

However as church that is fruitful but not faithful is not a kingdom church!! Attracting a crowd by weakening the gospel and loosing our grip on who God is and what he has invited us into is dangerous.

It is what NT writers call a false gospel.

A fruitful and faithful church results from a high view of Jesus, a His church, and our lives.

(x2)

A picture painted that is so large and all-encompassing that it is amazing what many of us are happy to settle for in our lives, and our church.

I.

A HIGH VIEW OF CHRIST

When we look at space through a telescope, we look through two lenses.

The objective lens at the big end of the telescope captures light from vast and distant objects and brings it into focus.

Then the small eyepiece at our end of the telescope converts the image into a form our eyes can comprehend.

God’s glory is like this.

Christ brings into focus the brightness of the Father’s full glory.

The truths of Colossians chapter 1 and 2 nd are not meant to Simply Be a test of our Orthodoxy!

They are meant to be internalized in our heart and become that which animates our every action!

:-)

in another translation is says set apart Christ, sanctify Christ—meaning there is a place in your heart where nothing else has a right to take up residence!!

It’s not surprising that Peter would write this in one of his letters, remember last week we looked at his words to Jesus in the Gospel of John

In your hearts set apart

Jesus where will we go

At the Port is Christ our highest pursuit to know him and make him known or is it a new building!!!?? Personal story!!

How high is our view of Christ- is he our highest pursuit- that does mean we never falter (of course we do)

but it means that when we do our effort through prayer, repentance, confession and the acceptance of his never ending flood of forgiveness , will be to reorient ourselves to continue in our pursuit of him.

A. W. Tozer - Knowledge of the Holy

Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.........and the most serious fact about any person is what he, in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

There is scarcely an error in doctrine or failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.......and when our concept of who God is, in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it.

The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.

For only he has the words of eternal life!!!For us to be faithful and fruitful, we must have a high view of Christ, and we must have a high view of the church.

A church

A. W. Tozer

Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.........and the most serious fact about any person is what he, in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

There is scarcely an error in doctrine or failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.......and when our concept of who God is, in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it.

The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.

II.

HIGH VIEW OF THE CHURCH

A. W. Tozer

Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.........and the most serious fact about any person is what he, in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

There is scarcely an error in doctrine or failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.......and when our concept of who God is, in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it.

The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.

We have got in the habit of tearing down the church and I believe there is a great error in that.

and I believe there is a great error in that.

Are we broken, has the church made mistakes at times; BIG ONES—but we need to be very careful to not speak of the church Christ has called and created with so much poison.

Paul makes it clear that Jesus loved the church so much that he died for it.

Epheaians 5:25

That is the value that Christ placed on the church.

The church being made up of those who Christ loves, values, predestined, AND made up of those whom he has called for his mission.

As the kingdom of God moves forward, it leaves the Church in its wake in order to gather those who have been brought into the kingdom of God, grow disciples and reach and influence the culture that it finds itself in.

We need to ask, in light of the victory of the cross, and the future purchased there for us, are content to shrink away and go silently into the night.

The reason we hit on the Great Commission almost every week here, is because IF we don't know it, we DON't know how to articulate why we exist!

Our purpose for being.

Because once the purpose of the local church has been abandoned there is no reason for that local church to exist!

And without fail, when a local church, or a denomination gives up on the gospel, and compromises truth for personal opinion, it will shrink away, it will die.

v. 13 Paul writes that we were “seal with the Holy Spirit”

why , for one he says that he is the guarantee of our inheritance, like a deposit, but we learn more when we read

To be faithful and fruitful to what Jesus has invited us into as his church is to invite the Spirit of God (which Paul writes elsewhere “is the very power that rose Christ from the grave in glorious resurrection) to move throughout us for the growth of his mission and his glory

We are invited into a story as a people of faithfulness and fruitfullness as we hold a high view of Christ, a high view of the spirit empowered church, and lastly a higher view of our lives

in your life, in this church, and in this community

A church that is faithful but not fruitful is not what the Commissioning calls us to.

However as church that is fruitful but not faithful is not a kingdom church!! Attracting a crowd by weakening the gospel and loosing our grip on who God is and what he has invited us into is dangerous.

It is what NT writers call a false gospel.

A fruitful and faithful church results from a High view of Jesus, His church, and your life.

Higher view of Jesus, His church, and your life.

III.

HIGH VIEW OF YOUR LIFE

not of yourself

but of your life

and this is really intertwined with point two (a high view of the church) because we do not do the work of the Gospel if we try to live independent of the church, or the church is expected to work without individuals.