Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

W.R. Hearst Painting story

We found the painting in your warehouse.

You already own it.

We already have the answer too!

So stop looking for it!

How did you receive Christ?

In simplicity

I’m a sinner, Christ offers salvation, you accept it, DONE!

Church isn’t “aren’t we so smart!”

It’s “doesn’t God love us!”

AND be thankful!

We’re going to talk about 5 problems that creep in

Each one the Colossians struggled with

And we struggle with them today

Problem 1: Intellectualism

Problem One: Liberals

This is mainly a Greco-Roman or gentile problem

They believed in cause and effect rationale

If you’re good, you get good.

If you’re bad, you get bad

Today, many would refer to Hindu/Buddhist tradition

They call that “Karma”

Like a road rage guy gets out of his car to yell at a grandma in her van and walks back to a locked car.

This goes directly against what Jesus teaches

He teaches “grace”

The entire message of grace is that we DON’T get what we deserve

In some Bibles, “take you captive” means “see that no one cheats you”

In Colossae there was a mix of Greek philosophy, Roman philosophy, gnosticism, mysticism and local religion

It was obviously sinful and wrong, but it was hard to ignore

The people talking about it seemed so smart!

We still struggle with that one today:

Documentary by Ben Stein called “Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed”

Documentary by Ben Stein called “Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed”

Let’s talk about science

Dr.

Richard Von Sternberg (Editor, Smithsonian) - Intelligent design might explain life

Pressured to resign

Dr. Caroline Crocker (Professor, George Mason) - Mentioned intelligent design in a lesson

Fired

Dr. Michael Egnor (Neurosurgeon) - Said Darwinism isn’t necessary to be a doctor

Threats and phone calls to retire

Dr. Robert J. Marks II (Research Scientist, Baylor) - Included intelligent design in his research

Website shut down, grant money returned

Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez (Astronomer, Iowa State) - Wrote a book about intelligent design in astronomy

Was not granted tenure after discovering new planets!

Dr. Paul Nelson says, “If you define evolution precisely to mean, ‘the common decent of all life on earth from a single ancestor via undirected mutation and natural selection,’ that’s the textbook definition of neo-Darwinism, biologists of the first rank have real questions.”

However, Richard Dawkins says, “Evolution is a fact.

It’s a fact which is established as securely as essentially any other fact that we have in science.”

Here’s the problem: science is a method, not an answer

Nacho Libre Clip

Here’s the problem: science is a method, not an answer

Doesn’t all the evidence point to life being an accident?

Life needs a minimum of 250 proteins to work

The odds of this happening by chance are crazy

First, you need DNA which provides information like a thumb drive

Big question, where does that information come from

It’s like throwing burying a canvas underground and finding it later with the Mona Lisa on it

Would you suspect the sand and water and clay accidently made it?

Or did someone intentionally put that painting on there?

Then this information codes (like a CPU) the sequence of amino acids

These then form proteins

The simplest cell needs AT LEAST 250 proteins to form life

Want to know the odds of that?

1 in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion

If you put together a perfect March Madness bracket

1 in 9.2 quintillion

Record is 49 (need 63 not counting play ins)

72 time in a row

That’s still not enough

Evolution is a theory, and one that is not proven by any means

AND doesn’t even do what Darwin claimed

His infamous book was called, “The Origin of Species” in 1859

The book explains how life transformed over time, but not how it started!

Scientists in the 1950’s claimed that “primordial soup” was struck by lightning

Experiments never worked and were abandoned

Modern scientists say random elemental mutations happened on the backs of forming crystals

Some say life was started on another planet and transplanted here

Still doesn’t explain how life started there

So scientists are talking about lightning, crystals and aliens...

But Christians are ridiculed for believing, maybe this incredibly complex system of life on earth was done on purpose...

Never!

I’m not saying ll of this to give you a science lesson...

I’m saying this because we need to know that Christianity IS NOT STUPID!

We assume that because scientists are smart they must be right

That is dangerous!

There

Nazi scientists were intelligent - They murdered 6 million Jews in concentration camps

Percival Lowell was intelligent - He believed aliens were farming on Mars

Aristotle was intelligent - He didn’t believe that eels reproduced

Scott Berkun says, “The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend bad ideas to the death rather than admit they’re wrong… Somewhere in your town there is a row of graves at the cemetery, called smartypants lane, filled with people who were buried at poorly attended funerals, whose headstones say, ‘Well, at least I was right.’”

The truth is, smart people are not always right

This is mainly a Greco-Roman or gentile problem

This is mainly a Greco-Roman or gentile problem

We often believe science and faith are at odds

There is nothing wrong with being intellectual

But when you allow human thought to override the truth, your intellect is polluted

That’s why:

If you want truth, talk to Jesus

Divine, fully God and man, the Creator, Head of the church, Savior