Sermon Tone Analysis
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Welcome
Good Morning!
I’m Pastor Wayne and I’d like to welcome you all to the gathering of Ephesus Baptist Church.
Today, you are here to worship God; to behold His glory as we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another.
May you experience in the Spirit’s freedom as we worship Him together for His glory and our joy!
If you are visiting with us this morning, we want you to know that Ephesus is an active faith community on a mission with Jesus.
Here at Ephesus, we are one people giving our all to love God, love others, proclaim Jesus, and make disciples in our generation.
We have a connect card in the pew in front of you.
I invite you to take one and fill it out!
If you have prayer needs, you can let us know about those as well.
I promise, our prayer team will lift you up soon.
You can place those cards in the offering plate when it comes around.
Scripture Memory
Opening Scripture
Introduction
Breaking News:
A dark plague has descended upon humanity.
It is horrible.
This plague is causing good men and women to walk around alienated from life like zombies, only worse.
Rather than craving the flesh of others flesh, they crave their own flesh.
No they aren’t eating themselves.
But the disease has hardened their hearts, they have become calloused to the point that the only thing that matters to them is themselves.
They have completely given themselves over sensuality, greed, covetousness, immorality and jealousy.
They talk and act like those who no longer have the capacity reason and show empathy.
Why, they even mistreat their own parents and their own children.
They are drunkards and addicts who will lie, cheat, and kill to appease their own flesh.
They are insolent constantly seeking to stoke the flames of riot and rebellion.
Unfortunately, researchers tell us that not only is there no cure to be found in human thought, but the disease is passed down to the children born into this messy situation.
We have become our own worst enemy.
There is no end in sight.
This disease appears to be the end of humanity.
Where can we turn for help?
Is there anyone who can save us from ourselves?
1. Do we recognize our problem?
Obviously, I am painting a picture of our current battle with sin.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve severed our connection with God.
They made the choice to go down a path they thought would lead to their own glory and power, but in the end it brought humanity into a rebellion against God.
A rebellion that left us as a race, condemned and cursed with death.
God said, If you sin, you will die.
Obviously death is at work powerfully in our world.
We can see that, can’t we? Look at the calamity, disease, famine, injustice, pain, natural disasters, political instability, we could go on and on.
It is not just something we see.
We can feel it in ourselves, to the core of our very being.
We are dying, slowly but surely, death is overtaking us.
As a people, we are under condemnation.
Paul calls us “children of wrath” in Ephesians 2:3
So as children of wrath, we cry out, as in Romans 7:24,
Louie Giglio put it like this in his sermon on John 3 titled “Choose Life”… He said,
“Sin didn’t knock us down to God’s JV team or put us on probation or put you on a slower track to get our mansion in heaven.
Sin wiped us out.”
Church our sinful rebellion against God is infinitely worse than most of us would care to imagine.
Remember that the Gospel is bad news before it becomes good news.
To our finite intellects, it would appear to be impossible to repair the damage we have done and to restore the relationship we had with our Creator.
But God is God and we are not!
In...
2. God Mounted a Rescue Mission
Today through Easter, I am going to talk about God’s Rescue Mission.
A mission that would be impossible without God, was totally possible with Him.
A mission we are going to call Mission | 3:16
This morning we are going to look at the heart of that mission.
In doing so, we will see that this was a mission that God was all in on!
It is a mission that we must be all in on as well.
We are going to begin in one of the most, if not the most famous passage of all of Scripture.
John 3:16-18
If the passage isn’t well know, John 3:16 is .
3. Do We Understand How Invested God is in His Rescue Mission?
You are familiar with the phrase, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ but I believe there is something to Dallas Willard’s comment in his book “The Divine Conspiracy” where he says,
My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him.
In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance.
THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY (SAN FRANCISCO: HARPER COLLINS, 1998), P. XIII.
When something becomes common to us, it can likely (and ironically) become that much more unknown to us.
Common things are unnoticed, unquestioned, and eventually unseen as the louder things in our world overshadow them.
Eight years ago, George Barna did a study in 2011 that revealed that around 50% of Americans say they have prayed a sinners prayer.
accessed on 3/29/2019 at https://www.barna.com/research/barna-study-of-religious-change-since-1991-shows-significant-changes-by-faith-group/
That means that half of all Americans claim to be Christian, at least 8 years ago.
We have been told we are going to heaven when we die because we prayed a prayer.
The study also revealed that half of us have no real relationship with a church.
Again, about half of us think the Bible gets quite a bit of stuff wrong.
Here is the real kicker.
About 2/3rd’s of us have lifestyles and worldview that look more like the sin infected world around us than those who sincerely hold to the Christian faith.
Are they really a part of us, if they aren’t a part of us?
And how do we know we are a part of us?
Many people hear the message of Jesus, about their need to be saved and to come to Christ, and think, “oh … I’ve been there, done that … I’ve prayed the prayer.
Do they have a superficial faith or are they the Real McCoy’s?
Remember that in our passage, Jesus is not talking to pagans or atheists.
He is talking to Nicodemus, a religious person who thinks he is good with God when he is not.
At least not yet.
How many people are like that?
Jesus knew many like that in His day, and I am convinced they are more numerous in ours.
It is likely that Nicodemus was one of those in that group who believed, but Jesus did not entrust himself to.
Matthew 7:21-23 is even more pronounced in its understanding of superficial belief.
In both passages you have a group of people who claim to believe in Christ, some even pray and preach in His name.
But both passages clearly say that Jesus didn’t believe in them.
He didn know them.
He did not entrust Himself to them because He knew what was in them.
He knew of their passing curiosity.
Now, if these passages aren’t describing a group of superficial, nominal (in name only) Christians, then I have no idea who they’d be describing.
In reality, we have created a cultural climate where it is okay to call yourself “a Christian,” but not be willing to be a disciple of Jesus.
God is heavily invested in salvation, but it appears many who claim to be Christian are not.
4. So What Kind of Belief or Faith Saves?
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