Sermon Tone Analysis

This year, based on discussions we’ve had with a good number of new people in the church, particularly those who have gone through our members’ class, we’ve decided to take the month of June to go through our church’s theological distinctives.

Now I need to tell a funny story before we get started.

I was talking to Loanne about this at dinner on Sunday night, after I had made the announcement.

And she very casually looked up and said, “You know ‘distinctive’ is an adjective, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” I said.

“No, but…it’s not a noun.

You can’t say ‘a distinctive.’”

I opened my mouth to object, and realized: “Yeah, you’re right.”

We’ve been using this term for five years, and it never occurred to me to think of the grammar of it.

So just in case any of you sticklers (like my wife) are wondering, what we mean by “theological distinctives” is: the distinctive (as opposed to universal) points of doctrine to which the church holds.

Our church has a lengthy confession of faith, which we made very detailed because we wanted to new members to know exactly what they were getting into.

And most of the points on that confession of faith are points of doctrine about which nearly all Christians would agree.

They are issues that go to the heart of the gospel—points like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, inerrancy of the Bible, justification by faith alone, substitutionary atonement, and so on.

But it didn’t seem sufficient to stop there, because there are a handful of topics which are of secondary importance, but which nevertheless have a massive impact on our understanding of the gospel, on our ecclesiology (the way we set up and practice the life of the church), on the way we will live the gospel out in the context of the church.

They are not points of division—you can be a faithful, biblical Christian and not agree with these things—but it is our conviction that these points of doctrine, although not primary, are still of great importance, because they will have a very strong impact on the way we live out the gospel together.

That’s why we have (so far) called them theological distinctives—they are subjects which distinctively shape the teaching and the life of our church.

If you were here in the first years of our church, you heard us speak a lot on these topics.

We were still in the beginning stages of planting the church, and we wanted to be very clear about where we landed and how we were going to preach here.

But if you’ve only come in the last two years or so, you may not have heard us speak quite so often about these, because we’ve been in the gospel of Luke since 2017, and Luke doesn’t directly address most of these topics; he has a different goal in mind.

So after lots of discussions we’ve had with new and potential members, we decided to take the month of June to walk you through our convictions on these subjects.

You don’t have to agree with them to be a member here, but you do have to know that this is where we land, and this is what we’ll preach and teach, because we believe that they are biblically faithful, and we believe that they are very important.

So real quickly, let me just read our list of theological distinctives—there are five of them.

(Incidentally, we share these distinctives with Acts 29, the church planting network we’re a part of.)

They are:

The absolute sovereignty of God;

The complementary roles of men and women in the church and at home;

Our dependance on the Holy Spirit for every aspect of life and ministry;

The baptism of believers;

The relationship between the glory of God and the joy of man.

I understand that some of these subjects are going to make some people uncomfortable—I call them “the liposuction doctrines”: those subjects which almost instantly empty out some seats—but I hope you’ll hear our intention, and God’s intention, behind them as we go.

In each case, we’re going to try to address two groups of people: those who already hold to these positions (but who may hold them in a wrong way), and those who are uncomfortable with these positions.

(If you’re one of those latter people, who are uncomfortable with these things, I’ll just ask that you hold your tomatoes until the end.

We’re going to try to show not only this church’s heart behind these things, and mine; but God’s.

So even if you still have a hard time with these things at the end, at the very least you should be able to see where we’re coming from.)

So we’re going to hit the ground running, and talk this week about the absolute sovereignty of God.

To do this, I’ll invite you to grab your Bibles, and turn to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians; we’re going to start at the very beginning.

The basic goal of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is to show the churches in Ephesus (which he knew well, because he planted the first one) how God saves us, and what impact that knowledge should have on the life of the church.

So here’s what we’re going to do.

We’re going to do a fairly lengthy reading; we’ll do all of chapter 1 and the first ten verses of chapter 2. Then we’re going to see how this doctrine of God’s sovereignty is weaved in and out of the whole thing.

He Chose Us (v.

1-6)

Distinctifs (1) : La souveraineté de Dieu

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

(Ephésiens 1.1-14, 2.1-4)

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

Comme vous le savez, dans cette église nous croyons que la manière la plus fidèle de prêcher la Bible est de prêcher à travers des livres de la Bible du début à la fin.

Nous avons souvent expliqué pourquoi, et nous sommes dans l’évangile de Luc depuis longtemps maintenant.

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

Mais nous faisons toujours une pause avant l’été pour faire une mini-série sur ces sujets qui ont pesé le plus lourdement sur la vie de l’église pendant l’année passée.

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Cette année, après plusieurs discussions qu’on a eu avec un grand nombre de personnes dans cette église, et notamment ceux qui ont assisté au cours de membres, nous avons décidé de prendre le mois de juin et de faire le tour des distinctifs théologiques de l’église.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Alors qu’est-ce qu’on entend par là ?

(Ma chère femme a été assez gentille pour me rappeler que « distinctif » n’est pas un nom, ce qui ne m’était jamais venu à l’esprit ; alors une clarification serait peut-être utile).

In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Il y a des doctrines au sujet desquelles les chrétiens sont plus ou moins universellement d’accord—comme la divinité de Christ, ou la justification par la foi.

Okay, so already, in those 14 verses, we see a number of things that seem to go against what we had assumed about what Christianity teaches.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

L, UOkay, so let’s get the hard part out of the way.

The thing that bothers most people about texts like this centers around two words “chose” in v. 4, and “predestined” in v. 5.We need to be very clear about this: when Paul says that God “chose” us, that he “predestined” us to be his children, he means exactly what he says.

The word “predestined” means “decided ahead of time,” and the word “chose” is even simpler—it means what it means.This shouldn’t surprise us if we’ve read the Bible.

In the Old Testament, we see God do this multiple times.

He chose Abraham to be the father of his covenant people.

He chose Jacob to be the son through whom the covenant would be brought forward (even though he was the younger son, and logically that privilege would have gone to his older brother, Esau).

Israel, God’s people, is repeatedly referred to as God’s chosen nation or God’s chosen people.He chose David to be the king of Israel, whose descendant would be the Messiah, after the people suffered the consequences of their error in wanting a king like the other nations.

God has always brought his grace through covenants he made with people who didn’t deserve it.

At every step, God chose his people, regardless of any merit of lack of merit they might have had.

It wasn’t because of them, but because of his own sovereign will that God chose whom he chose to be the vehicles for his grace.And here we see two things: firstly, we see that with his sons and daughters in the church, his free, unconditional election functions the same way it always has—v.

5: he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

Secondly (and this is where Paul really starts blowing our minds, v. 4), he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.Think about that for a moment.

Think about the day, or the moment, or the period of time, in which you came to Christ.

You heard the gospel, you understood the gospel, and suddenly the gospel wasn’t nonsense to you, but truth.God had that moment, that date, marked in his calendar before he created the world.

Before , where we read In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth—BEFORE that “beginning,” God had the exact moment of your conversion not just in his mind, but planned.

He didn’t just see us; he didn’t just know what we would do; he CHOSE us in him before the foundation of the world.And he didn’t just choose that something would happen; he made it happen.

Et puis il y a des doctrines qui sont d’une importance secondaire.

Ce ne sont pas des raisons pour la division—on peut être un chrétien fidèle à la Bible et ne pas être d’accord sur ces sujets.

Mais ils ont quand même un énorme impact sur notre compréhension de l’évangile, sur notre ecclésiologie (la manière dont on structure et pratique la vie de l’église), et sur la manière dont nous mettrons l’évangile en pratique dans le contexte de l’église.

15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

He Saved Us (v.

7-10)

First of all we see that if we are in Christ, we have received (v. 3) every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Not some blessings, not even many blessings: EVERY blessing.

By Grace Through Faith