Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro -

Most of us remember it.

there was a time, a place, a person or a momet when you were siting standing listening or just crying out.

You have probably heard it all before from a family member, a pastor, a friend, a coworker or just reading the Bible.

But something happened this time.

you didn’t role your eyes, grit your teeth or pretend not to listen.

This time it struck you somehow.

Maybe a flutering heart, sweaty palms or that feeling you get right before you cry when you get a burn in your sinus your lip begins to quiver and you eyes get misty or maybe it was that uncontrollable smile you get sometimes when you saw your husband standing at the end of the aisle or your wife coming toward you or your first child or you won a game by an amazing play.

Whatever the reaction.

Most of you remember it and know what I am talking about and even now you can feel a shadow of the emotion.

It was almost all of a sudden it was not planned out.

We were there.

Something moved us to say, “today I want to know Jesus Christ as my savior!

I want a relationship with God.

today I am walking out of the darkness into the light!

From now on my steps will be with a comforter and I will never ever be alone again.”

That was the beginning.

Immediately life looked different.

There were new colors you have never seen before.

It was seeing in color for the first time.

the lonely darkness that we used to feel was now illumined by the light of the world.

No longer did the dark have power over us.

We were free from squandering our time and energy searching for some semblance of reality, joy, peace and love.

No longer did have to grope in the dark praying we would latch on to something of substance.

We were illumined, born again, washed, and we could feel it from joy and peace in our heart.

So naturally we set on the path of all our forbearers.

We went home and foundt he bible grandma gave us for Christmas.

Quickly we flipped to the begging of the book at it said, something about thou shant thus thee and other words you had no clue about.

But we undeterred threw it aside and went and found a Bible we could read.

Isn’t amazing that oftent he first thing we do to get to know God better is go to the Bible and read about him.

The words were no longr ink on a page of thin paper.

They were the very words of God…that meant a whole lot more now to us.

We read and read and read some more.

Our passion leads us to drop to our knees and pray.

We don’t know hwat we are doing so we just say what is on our mind and heart.

Our joy overflowing we begin to tell everyone what has happened to us.

We spend our waking hours thinking about how we can reach our neighbors so they too can have the light.

They too can enjoy the peace that only Jesus Christ offers.

Everyone says how difeernt you are and you tell them why.

Life is new again.

The work of God is a burning prod that moves you.

You want everyone to know.

Then it happens.

Somehow the words of the Bible change again to just ink on a page.

Your knees no longer ache from praying so hard.

You no long ask your friends to come to church with you.

you cannot remreber the last time you were excited about praising God in church with the body.

The light begins to flicker.

Shadow creeps back in.

the light get dimmer.

Soon you forgot the passion, the zeal and the love you had for Christ in the first place.

It becomes evident by the way we act towads others.

We know the Bible we know it is wrong but the hot flame of Christ has fizzled.

For many of us this has happened…where has oru first love gone.

We are wondering through life hoping that something will spark our fire again.

Wishing to go back to the days when it was blazing bonfire instead of flicker birthday candle.

You and I are not alone…throughout history the church has been plagued by this very thing.

However, Jesus is always saying come back…in fact he implores to.

Maybe late in the first century or possibly even around 70 ad John the Apostle was told by Christ to write letters to 7 chruches of asia minor.

The very first letter went to Ephesus.

A port city of great wealth.

These people were the uppercurst.

They had great education and great opportunity.

Ephesus was one of the greatest cities next to Rome.

They had high culture there.

Epheus was a very religious city as well.

it had one of the 7 natural wonders of the anceitn world, the temple of artimis or Diana the godess of hunting~/ childbirth.

It was a massive structure complete made out of krispy kreme donuts…just kidding made out of marble.

They are also one of the first cities to declare and participate in emporer worship.

In fact several temples were raised to worship the roman emporer.

Also, the town was know for its magic.

In Acts 19 we see this when Paul confronts magicians.

In fact if an Epheisan scroll was said to have magical powers such as healing and luck.

Finally Ephesus had a large Jewish population.

This diverse climate was ripe for change.

a change that  Paul brought along with Pricilla and Aquilla.

You see Paul spent 2 years here teaching in large hall.

Eventually he even wrote a letter back to the ephesian church.

it would seem that the roots of the epheisan chuch had been deep and had taken well.

htne we read what the apostle john writes from the island of patmos –

 

Read john 2:1—7

 

You see they let their flame flicker that is what I want to talk to you about today.

This letter is not only addressed to the literal epheisan church but to us as well as we are the “churches” in v. 7.  Christ wants thme to come…back just like cotter.

we have to re-ignite our relationship corporately and individually with Christ doig three things firt we have to rekindle our vision of who Christ is, by rekindle our love and rekindle oru reason.

/First in order to come back we must rekindle our vision or more specifically we must rekindle our vision of who Christ is…v.1/

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: 'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands

 

Explanation:

-          let me tell you that these ‘letters’ even though they are all really part of the Revelation of john or John’s apocalypse, were written to real churches in real point in history.

they are not figurative of the church age that is; they do not represtn points in history of the church.

we know this because of our church Fathers’ understanding of them plus how beneficial would it have been to say Ephesus which would have been the first church age if they did not repent and then the rest of the churches don’t even get a chance or better why would say Ephesus care what would happen in thyratira if it was ages away.

No the natural reading makes these eltters applicable to real chuches in real time.

-          these letters were similar to the ancient prophetic oracles from that of the OT.

Check out sometime the oracles (is 13—23 ezek 25-32) that concern various peoples (here to God’s people in different cities).

o   Something that was particular to only Hebrew people was that the prophets usually made a plea for moral correction or a call to repentence and a consequence if it is not done.

The issue almost always had to do with idol worship.

so following we have Jesus telling the churches to repent of something they are practicing.

((come back – the practice of doing without loving perhaps is its own sort of idol worship.

Perhaps eht keeping of the rules and doctrine is more important than loving your God and letting that flow to loving your neighbor.

I would contend that this sort of ignorance keeping God rules and doctrine without loving God is idolatry.

The rules become God to the people))