Sermon Tone Analysis

QUESTION: Did you know that the doctrine you believe, determines your eternal destiny?

What you believe is of extreme importance.

Doctrine Matters.

It seems that there has been a letting go and letting down, in recent years, of the importance of what you believe.

Some have even gone so far as to teach that sincerity was the most important thing.

While sincerity is definitely important, sincerity cannot substitute for the truth.

As Orton Wiley put it, “To believe a falsehood, however sincerely, is disastrous, and the greater the degree of sincerity the more dire are likely to be the consequences.

It is only a knowledge of the truth that makes men either free or safe.”

There is a close connection between belief and behavior.

An unknown writer put it this way:

“Sow a thought, reap an act;

Sow an act, reap a habit;

Sow a habit, reap a character;

Sow a character, reap a destiny.”

Behaviors repeated, become habits, which evolves into character.

The Bible says, “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”

Paul talks about this in an exhortation to Timothy a young preacher.

Now I don’t want us to get sidetracked by the fact that Timothy is a preacher - this exhortation is applicable to every single Christian.

I invite you to look with me at 1 Timothy 4:16

Read: 1 Timothy 4:16

Paul is giving two specific directions to the young minister Timothy

1.) Give attention to himself

2.) Give attention to the doctrine he believes & teaches.

Watch, give attention to, scrutinize both his behavior and his beliefs.

Moral and doctrinal rectitude are the inseparable twins of the Christian life.

Thomas D. Lea

Peter admonishes us

Now I can’t give you every answer - but I want to give you a framework with which to work from.

I work better with bite size pieces so over the next few Sunday services with the Lord’s help I would like to give you bite size pieces of a systematic approach to some of the most essential doctrines of Christianity that we need to “Take Heed To”

I will use the acronym D.O.C.T.R.I.N.E.

while the acronym is not original with me, the Lord has helped me to develop some sermons from it.

Doctrine stands for:

Deity of Christ

Original Sin

Canon

Trinity

Resurrection

Incarnation

New Creation

Eschatology

Today I want to look at that first one The Deity of Christ - an important doctrine to persevere in.

Introduction:

I have heard them, read them, and even thought before that Jesus never made the claim that He was God.

In fact a well known and popular TV Evangelist in the Word of Faith and Charismatic movement tells of a dream/vision he had:

According to Copeland, Christ came to him in a vision and told him:

“Don't be disturbed when people put you down and speak harshly and roughly of you.

They spoke that way of Me, should they not speak that way of you?

The more you get to be like Me, the more they're going to think that way of you.

They crucified Me for claiming that I was God.

But I didn't claim I was God; I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in Me.

Hallelujah!”!

(Found in Bird’s Defending the Faith, Bird cites from Hannegraff, Google Search says it was in Copeland’s Believer’s Voice of Victory Magazine Feb. 1987)

But if you will read the Bible and look for them you will fine over 120 times that the Bible expresses the deity of Jesus in some way.

Now I don’t mind either term (Divinity of Christ or Deity of Christ) as long as you mean what the Bible means by them.

Some by the term divinity mean - god like characteristics - I want to show you Biblically and hopefully logically that Jesus was more than “god like”

Dr. Mark Bird states on these 120 verses and passages that “Jesus is either claiming to be God, accepting or demanding worship, claiming to possess attributes that only God can possess, claiming to do things that only God can do (and then doing miracles to prove it), or others are making these claims about Jesus.”

Now, I am not going to go through all 120 verses but I do want to talk seriously about this today:

If Jesus did in fact, claim to be God, He was the only leader of a major world religion to do so.

(Many minor or smaller sects have done this - but Christianity is the worlds largest religions.

According to one study 2.382 billion adherents that is 31.11% of the world’s population.

)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

Mohammed never claimed to be God;

Buddha never claimed to be God.

If it is true that Jesus claimed to be God, this would set Christ and Christianity apart from any other major religion.

He would be unique.

It is a gigantic thing for someone to claim to be the transcendent Creator God.

As I said, I’m not going through all 120 passages, but I do want to look at some of Christ’s own claims this morning -

Now as we look at these - you will need to bear with me - I am working from the presupposition that God’s Word (all of it OT & NT) is inerrant and infallible.

If you want more information on that you will have to be here when I talk about the C - Cannon

1. Jesus’ Claims in ministry

Claimed to be the I Am of the Old Testament

Claimed to be One with the Father

The Jews responded by taking up stones to stone him - because “You being a man, make yourself to be God.”

Claimed to possess divine attributes

Omnipresence - “even the Son of man which is in heaven” John 3:13

Eternity:

Claimed power to perform divine acts

To forgive sins (Mark 2) they let the palsied down through the roof - Jesus said:

Then Jesus condemns the religious leader’s reasoning and doubt and does the unthinkable:

To resurrect believers in him

To give eternal life:

2. Christ’s Claims at Trial

Jesus is asked in Mark 14:61 - “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”

Jesus answers in Mark 14:62 “I AM” and then he makes some more claims

This answer makes some powerful claims:

Jesus claims to be the Messiah

Jesus claims to be the Son of God

Jesus claims to be the Son of Man

The Conviction:

Now Jesus was convicted and condemned - but not for what He did or said He did -

Jesus was convicted for who He said He was!!!

Mark 14:62 “I AM”

3. Claims conclusion -

Simply Jesus claimed to be GOD -

Now that we know that Jesus did in fact claim to be God what do we do with that?

We are now left with a dilemma

Do we accept this

Do we reject this

Do we ignore this

Eventually we have to ask ourselves “do we believe this claim of Christ?”