Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

It is a blessing to have all of you here this morning and a privilege to be able to share God’s Word with you.

We’ve been working our way through a portion of the book of Colossians that has focused on our own personal lives as Christians.

This morning we’re going to come to the resounding conclusion and summary of this section as Paul is going to transition our views from the internal experience and evaluation of our Christian lives to how that should translate to our external actions towards other people.

There are still a few things to be said though.

Last week we looked at the idea of what it looks like for the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly - how does this happen.

We recognized that there are four primary elements to this reality in our lives.

We must listen to the Word, we must read the Word, we must meditate on the Word and then, probably the hardest of all, we must obey the Word.

This week Paul is going to give us some practical demonstrations of how we can know whether all of those ideals that I just mentioned are actually affecting our lives.

And along the way he’s going to challenge each of us to word harder for the Kingdom of Heaven as we seek to serve our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

If you have your Bibles, or you prefer to use an electronic version, please turn with me to Colossians 3 and we’ll read verses 16 and 17 again.

Paul here puts our efforts and our worship in the proper order - first the intellect and then the emotion.

Too often our modern concept of worship is in the opposite direction - mostly emotion and little intellect.

This is not to say that both are not necessary.

Our emotions should certainly play a part in our worship and in our spiritual lives.

But emotional outbursts not based on intellectual knowledge are the seedbed of behaviors contrary to what God has expressed in His Word.

Teach then Admonish

Colossians 3:16; Deuteronomy 6:7-8; Deuteronomy 11:19; 1 Timothy 2:12; 2 Timothy 2:2; Titus 2:3-5;

While this is still a passage with an individualisitic thrust, Paul reaffirms the need for corporate worship and time together as a body as we are to teach and admonish one another.

Don’t miss the order here because it is significant.

Too often in the church we are quick to assume knowledge - we’re quick to assume salvation too but after that we’re quick to assume knowledge of the part of the believer - so when someone steps out of line with the understanding of the Word we’re very good at jumping on them.

Sometimes we have forgotten what it was like to be a new believer and to be overly exuberant about our new faith and to need some correction to our understandings.

Apollos is a picture of this in Scripture.

At the very end of Acts 18, Paul makes a brief stop in Ephesus on his way to Jerusalem but he leaves behind Aquila and Priscilla.

Soon afterward an energetic, charismatic young preacher blows into town from Alexandria.

In fact he is described as being mighty in the Scriptures.

He is the only preacher in all of the New Testament to be characterized in this way.

So he knew the Old Testament and understood the “way of the Lord.”

But he has some deficiencies in his theology.

He understands Jesus but only understands the baptism of John - he is still didn’t understand the significance of what Christ achieved through the cross and the resurrection.

He may have still been teaching a theology that told people to listen to the words of Jesus because He was the Messiah but that, in accordance with the baptism of John - an Old Testament, old covenant baptism - we were washed clean but then needed to keep ourselves that way through our own efforts.

Aquila and Priscilla take him aside and teach him more accurately the truth and to his credit he receives their instruction and becomes even more powerful in his preaching and usefulness for Christ.

Initially though, he would have been what we would term today to be a functional heretic.

He just had some errors in his knowledge but when he was made aware of them he didn’t dig in his heels and hold to what he was teaching.

He allowed himself to be taught, repented of the errors he was teaching and began to embrace and teach Christ in truth.

This is opposed to a formal heretic who, when his error is pointed out, refuses to change his opinion.

The point is two-fold - we mustn’t assume knowledge on the part of the individual and admonish them prematurely and second we must be teachable and willing to have our views challenged and changed when it can be demonstrated from Scripture that a change needs to be made.

Teach

The primary place that teaching should take place in within the home.

This is the standard that has been set from the very beginning and nothing in Scripture has superceded it today.

One of the most frightening days of my life was February 2, 2010.

That was the day that Hayden was born and I suddenly became responsible for the spiritual development of a child that God had entrusted to me.

Even knowing that I’d been called to pastor a church - there is still a graver responsibility when I am called to be the primary representative of God to this young, impressionable child.

No, I am not responsible for whether or not he, or any of my other children for that matter, will believe but I am responsible for how I represented God to that child.

And so we strive to teach the Bible and to teach them about the Gospel.

In Deuteronomy Moses gives the following commands to the nation of Israel.

and then again in Deuteronomy 11

If you are a parent you have a deep responsibility and the role of the church is to come alongside you and help to instruct you and your family in the Christian life.

There are three ways that this takes place - the pulpit, through small groups or Sunday School and also one to one discipleship.

From the pulpit

In his excellent treatise on preaching, Preaching and Preachers, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes that “the primary task of the Church and the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God.” Now I must be careful as I develop this point because there are elements of teaching and admonition contained in preaching.

In fact - preaching is just that the combination of teaching and admonition in the proclamation of Scripture culminating in a presentation of Christ.

In the same book I just referenced, Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote “What is the chief end of preaching?

I think it is this.

It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence.”

But there has to be some teaching that takes place.

Part of the role of the preacher is to teach the text of Scripture, to open it up and explain it in a way that is both winsome and memorable.

We are tasked with taking an ancient text and making it relevant today.

What I mean by that is that we determine what the text meant to the original readers and then draw a comparison to our modern context and explain the text in our modern world understanding that the principle behind the text is universal and applicable to all times and all places.

Some of this involves explaining the words and the nuances behind the words that would have been clear to the original recipients that are not so clear today.

One of the greatest challenges a preacher has is to take the volumes of information that he could include and pare it down to a cohesive message that instructs his listeners without getting too deeply in the weeds of minute details.

In the end the pastoral task has been succinctly defined by Alistair Begg, pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland.

“The task of a pastor is to ensure that his congregation is anchored to the Word of God and grounded in the work of Christ.”

In Small Groups/Life Groups

The second way that teaching takes place within the church setting is within the small group, Sunday School or life group ministry.

It is my conviction that outside of preaching the Word and the Sunday morning worship service these groups are the most important ministry of the church.

It is within the context of these groups that spiritual growth that is started by the sermon can effectively take root and grow even deeper.

On any given Sunday there are between 70 and 85 people in this room during the worship service and then throughout the week the sermon may reach another ten.

And I go as deeply into the passage as we can within the time that we have but it is really a one way conversation.

It is me standing up and preaching to you what God has shown me through the passage of Scripture.

There is not really much give and take or conversation during the delivery of the sermon.

A small group or Sunday school class is different.

It is here that you can get into the meaning of every obscure Greek word or parse all the different verb tenses of a passage and discuss them.

Not in the sense that small groups used to entail - what does this verse mean to you? as if it is our interpretation that is important - but in the context of what does the verse really say and how does it impact our lives.

This is also how you develop a multi-generational ministry.

In 2 Timothy 2 Paul is writing some of his final instructions to Timothy.

He knows that he is going to be killed and he wants Timothy to know what his responsibilities are with respect to the Gospel.

In 2 Timothy 2:2 Paul writes

You see four generations of believers encompassed in just that one verse.

Paul teaches Timothy.

Timothy teaches a 3rd generation and then they pass it on to the fourth generation.

Men who can rise up and continue to lead the church in the Gospel principles that Paul has passed on - incidentally in the context of Paul and the other Apostles you could read a fifth generation into that passage because the words Paul was passing on had been passed to him by Christ.

It is in the smaller setting of these more intimate groups that we can discuss and dig into the Scriptures deeply in order to understand what God has to say to each one of us and to ask our questions.

It is here that we see the proverb played out most fully “Iron sharpens iron.”

When things in the church are running effectively these groups support the preaching of the Word by allowing the discussion of the Word, the mutual growth in the Word and the deeper growth of the individual believers.

In One on One settings

The final way that teaching can happen within the church setting is through one to one discipleship.

We have encouraged each of you to find not only someone outside the church to evangelize but also one person within the church to disciple.

This is seen throughout the Scriptures as being an important factor in the growth of the church.

Converts are important - but disciples are better.

This is the pattern we see throughout Scripture.

We’ve already looked briefly at Paul’s relationship with Timothy.

He also clearly had a relationship with Epaphras if he was willing to travel from Colossae to Rome to seek out his mentor.

In the book of Acts Philip is prompted by the Holy Spirit to approach the chariot of an Ethiopian eunich who was travelling home and studying a copy of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.

This was a wealthy and learned man in his own right, but he needed help in understanding what the Word of God meant for him.

Philip was able to explain - to teach - him what it meant and he ended up being baptized in a pool on the side of the road.

But he needed some one on one attention.

I’m sure many of you can look back over your spiritual lives and identify someone who sat down with you one on one and taught you the truths of the Bible.

Timothy had the opportunity to be taught by at least three people in his life - Paul his ultimate mentor but also his mother and grandmother.