Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Colossians, chapter 1.

p. 1043 in the Bible in the pews in front of you

Today we’re beginning a verse by verse study of the book of Colossians that will take us, Lord willing through the end of May.

Along the way we’ll have only four Sundays where we won’t start by opening our Bibles to Colossians.

The first time will be on January 19, when my friend Brian Seagraves will be coming to bring a message for you largely related to the sanctity of human life.

Brian is an apologist and a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, but most of all he is our dear friend and faithful brother in Christ.

The other three Sundays are what I would call related digressions.

In simplest terms we are going to chase a few rabbits.

As I was laying out the preaching calendar there were some concepts that are really important to the study of Colossians that deserve further treatment than one Sunday will allow.

We’ll talk about prayer and evangelism as it relates to Paul’s struggle for the church in Colossae

We’ll talk about Paul’s idea of what it means to be united with Christ and the way it relates to how we live our lives here and now.

And Brother Jim will be bringing a message at the end of April, Lord willing, about the mortification (or the killing) of sin and how it relates to the putting off of the old self that Paul describes in Colossians 3.

The other 18 Sundays will all be Colossians...

Which prompts me to answer an important question: WHY AM I PREACHING VERSE BY VERSE?

For some of you, this isn’t a question that comes to your mind, because you are so used to sitting under good expository preaching that you are familiar with the benefits of doing something like preaching through the entire book of Colossians.

But for others of you, this style may be a little new, and I simply want to share why I am convinced this method of preaching is the most beneficial for the church.

When the famous reformer, Martin Luther, was asked to reflect on his great conflict with the Pope of the Roman Catholic church over the wicked practice of indulgences, he replied “I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force.

I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word: otherwise I did nothing.

And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it.

I did nothing: the Word did it all.”

I simply taught, preached and wrote GOD’s Word - the WORD did it all.

What underlies my desire to preach the whole counsel of God’s Word is my firm conviction that it is the WORD of GOD and the Holy Spirit that changes lives.

I am a messenger, a proclaimer, a voice, but the substance of my message will be fruitless and ineffective if it is not the very word of God.

PREACH THE WORD! Paul told Timothy.

He also told him that

ALL - every little bit of Scripture is profitable.

And by way of reminder, that word Scripture would have meant primarily the Old Testament to Timothy.

Yes, the Old Testament is profitable.

Which is why our time in Colossians is really just a temporary digression from where we’ve been in Exodus.

We have unfinished work there, and I believe, Lord willing, that I’ll be picking up right where we left off in Exodus this Fall.

So the first reason I preach verse by verse is because I believe it is the Word that gives life.

But you might object: you could do that by preaching God’s word every week but just not always in order.

Do some here one week, and some there the next week...

Be careful…There are dangers there.

I think there is a temptation, more than we might ever admit to, as preachers to have something to say that needs a text to support it.

In other words, people get hobby horses, or favorite themes, or things they like to rail against and they go to the Bible looking for a text to support their message, not to look for God’s message to his church.

Going verse by verse allows us to be well-rounded in our approach to Scripture, getting to hard and difficult doctrines, and addressing sometimes sensitive and touchy subjects in a rhythm that makes sense.

When we come to a difficult passage, or a hard teaching, or a politically incorrect portion of Scripture, it doesn’t feel like I’m on a personal vendetta - I am simply trying to follow the flow and thought of the author of the book we are studying.

So the second and third reasons I preach verse by verse is because it keeps us from imbalance and helps us understand the author’s intent.

The pastor wrote about his practice of preaching verse by verse.

He said:

1) If I am obligated to teach the whole counsel of God, I must take it the way it comes, one book at a time from beginning to end.

2) Also, the only effective way of seeing the significance of a passage is in its context.

Going through an entire book sets the passage in its context on its widest, deepest, and richest level.

3) One other thought: neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament was written as a collection of verses to be thrown into the air and allowed to fall back wherever they might.

Rather, each book has a reasonable, logical, inspired flow of thought going from point A to point Z, with all stops in between.

Each was designed by the Holy Spirit so that you have the Holy Spirit communicating something powerfully and clearly in the whole letter: you dare not miss a single part!

Then he gives this illustration which I think is gold:

[QUOTE] If I received five letters in the mail one day, it would make no sense to read a sentence or two out of one, skip two, read a few sentences out of another, and go to the next one and read a few out of that, and on and on.

If I really want to comprehend the letter—what is going on, the tone, the spirit, the attitude, and the purpose—I must start from the beginning and go to the end of each one.

If that is true of personal correspondence, I believe it is even more important when interpreting divine revelation.

[END QUOTE]

I could go on with more reasons why going verse by verse is beneficial, but I think the point is well made that we will all be the beneficiaries of having more clearly understood Scripture by taking it in context and in a way that keeps us balanced and receiving the fullest and best understanding of what God wants to say, and not what I want to say.

I believe the last thing you should look for in a preacher is CREATIVITY.

We don’t need something new, we don’t need any additions, and we don’t need man-made traditions.

We need Christ.

And that sentence is the perfect transition into the book of Colossians.

We don’t need something new.

We don’t need any additions, and we don’t need man-made traditions.

We need Christ.

So would you pray with me even now that in every endeavor - through every message and in every way possible we would see Christ in Colossians?

Father, all around St. Mary’s county, there are religious people.

Sadly, their religion teaches them to rely on man-made traditions or extra-biblical requirements for any possibility of hope.

And then, Lord, there are vain philosophies that put forward a false sense of hope with seemingly plausible arguments.

But we know that there is NO philosophy or religion or human tradition that will secure our hope or foster our faithful obedience to you.

Only the grace of God in the gift of Jesus Christ can bring about our full and final peace.

So we pray that we would begin as a church, collectively, to comprehend the measure of grace you have poured out on us in Jesus.

That we would honor him as the supreme authority of this local manifestation of the body of Christ.

That he would be our head.

That we would grow into him.

That we would comprehend our union with him in his death.

That we would allow his word to dwell richly in us.

That we would let his peace rule our hearts and minds.

And that we his mystery - namely that Christ now dwells within both Jewish and Gentile believers would propel us toward prayer, mission and evangelism.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

So with God’s help, we now endeavor to study this book together.

And before we read the first couple of verses from it, I want to give you some introductory information that will help us understand the context and purpose for this letter.

The background of the letter to the church at Colossae really begins in Acts 19.

Paul is on his third missionary journey and he arrives at Ephesus around 52-53 AD.

When he arrived, he found some disciples in Ephesus who only knew of John’s baptism, so he baptized them, laid his hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

And then he kept speaking boldly and reasoning and persuading people in the synagogue there about the kingdom of God.

Verse 10 there is the key to understanding where the church at Colossae got its origins.

During this two year period, Ephesus became a launching pad for Paul to send his ministry partners into all of Asia.

One of those men was named Epaphras.

Ephaphras had been Paul’s personal representative in the evangelization of the Lycus Valley region, which included Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis.

We know this because Paul says they learned the gospel from him.

And it would even seem as though Paul had not actually met the church in Colossae:

So what was it like for Epaphras?

What did he find in that region?

Colossae was a rather insignificant city in Roman times, eclipsed by its neighbor Laodicea, ten miles to the west, and Hierapolis, twelve miles to the northwest.

Most of the people would have made their living by raising sheep, farming crops, or wool-dyeing.

The wool was gathered from sheep which grazed on the slopes of the Lycus valley, and dyed a dark red color that was generally known as “Colossian.”

So next time Crayola has one of those color naming contests, I think we should all petition that some deep red be named Colossian Red...

Indeed, wool was the commercial industry in Colossae, but the town’s commercial and social significance was on the wane when Paul wrote.

One writer even called the church there the “Least important church to which any epistle Paul wrote was addressed…” But was does that say to us?

That the Apostle would take the time to write to this small church that was insignificant in the eyes of the world?

Practically speaking, I think it should remind us of the importance of our cooperation with the BCMD and the Potomac Baptist Association.

In God’s eyes there is no such thing as an insignificant body of believers.

And as we’ll see in just a moment, Paul will call them faithful brothers and sisters.

No mega-church here.