What can be affirmed from the sermon you heard and what needs to be reframed or articulated differently for the lasting truths to be heard and understood today? Pick a section of the sermon and affirm what is true and recast it for young disciples today.
I think that that emphasis on needing faith in the saving works of Jesus is an important part of the identity of a “real Christian.” Knowing that we need to love God and love neighbor are important, but knowing that we are loved back and we can love without hate or malice in our heart is truly the only way to be sure. I know that leaves a lot of room for people to have serious doubts and therefore can be dangerous, but what else is there but to strive towards absolute faith(or in other words, entire sanctification)?
This is summed up in these big questions from the section between 19:36-21:26
The great question of all, then, still remains. Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart? Can you cry out, My God and my all? Do you desire nothing but Him? Are you happy in God? Is He your glory, your delight, your crown of rejoicing? And is this commandment written in your heart, that he who loveth God love his brother also? Do you then love your neighbour as yourself? Do you love every man, even your enemies, even the enemies of God, as your own soul, as Christ loved you? Yea, dost thou believe that Christ loved thee and gave himself for thee? Hast thou faith in his blood? Believest thou the Lamb of God hath taken away thy sins, and cast them as a stone into the depth of the sea, that he hath blotted out the handwriting that was against thee, taking it out of the way, nailing it to his cross? Hast thou indeed redemption through his blood, even the remission of thy sins? And doth his Spirit bear witness with thy spirit that thou art a child of God? The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who now standeth in the midst of us, knoweth that if any man die without this faith and this love, good it were for him that he had never been born. Awake, then, thou that sleepest, and call upon thy God. Call in the day when he may be found. Let him not rest till he make his goodness to pass before thee, till he proclaim unto thee the name of the Lord, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
I think the part that needs to be written is anything to do with comparing us to the heathens. Here is how I may write it if I were preaching the same idea:
Think about your friend group. I am fairly confident that you know people who are not in the Christian faith. My guess is that they are not bad people if you are friends with them. I would also guess that they are generally moral people, in that they don’t hurt others, they don’t steal, they care for each other, and they even care for people outside their friend group. They volunteer in community organizations, they feed people, they donate to worthy causes. If you don’t know anyone like that, I can introduce you to some of my friends.
So then what makes them different from us as Christians? Those are all things that good Christians do. (Those are maybe even some things “good” Christian people avoid doing). There is the first commandment of loving God with everything we have. I’m willing to guess that non believers are not loving something they don’t necessarily believe in. That would bring us to also the idea of faith. Here in Texas, whether you attend church or not, you have a general idea of God is. Some people even know who God is better than some of you sitting in these seats. But what we possess and what can assure our Christianity is a faith that believes the things Jesus teaches us are true. It is the belief that we are not bound by the chains of sin, that we have hope in something much bigger than the ups and downs of the world around us.