Sermon Tone Analysis

(Welcome)

Welcome to Central.

If this is your first time, I want to say, “Welcome Home!”

As an expository church, we prioritize preaching and teaching that focuses on a Christ-centered, holistic, and sequential approach to Scripture.

We enjoy preaching through books of the Bible and tackling each passage with a high view of Jesus Christ and an intent to be led into worship and transformation by what we find therein.

(Opening Prayer)

Heavenly Father, be glorified this morning as we open your Word.

Open our ears to hear it.

Open our minds to understand it.

Open our hearts to believe it.

Open our mouths to confess it.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to You today.

In Jesus' Name, Amen.

(Series Introduction)

Today we continue our Colossians series.

(Opening Tension)

Paul is writing to a church he has never visited.

He doesn’t know these people.

Paul wrote Colossians between 60-62 AD during his first imprisonment in Rome (Acts 28).

Paul also wrote Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon during this time.

Pastor Epaphras planted the Colossian church and came to Paul because they had problems that needed to be addressed.

Paul writes this letter in the midst of their many heresies with one solution in mind - Correct Christology.

A low view of Christ was the problem, Paul gave us a high view of Christ.

(Colossians Context)

A few of the heresies that the Colossian believers were experiencing were the belief that:

Jesus Christ was only a man until after His resurrection.

Jesus Christ was only God and never a man.

Jesus Christ was only a man.

Jesus Christ was God before and after His time on earth, but was only a man while on earth.

(Empathy)

Over the last several weeks and months we have been bold about what the Word of God teaches and the false teachings that have infiltrated the Church at large and by virtue have influence here at Central.

I recognize that this has been painful at times and it may seem as if there is no quarter for those who have believed those different heresies and false teaching.

But I want you to know that although we preach loudly against these things, we love each of you and desire for each of you to live out the truth that is found in Scripture.

We don’t teach and preach against these things as a vendetta but because the true gospel, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit demand that we do.

Which is why I feel it is appropriate today to remain consistent in my transparency and honesty to share a little of my testimony of how I came to acknowledge that I had accepted a gospel that wasn’t the true gospel.

(Personal Story)

The church that I grew up in is very special to me.

I became a follower of Jesus in that church.

I grew in my understanding and my faith in that church.

I built life-lasting relationships in that church that I enjoy to this day.

But I also watched false teaching arise in that church.

In the early 2000s there began to arise within our local congregation (and others around the United States and the world) some prominent teaching that seemed harmless at first.

The teachings and music from this movement began to primarily permeate the Pentecostal and Charismatic Church world.

This movement has always been shifting, adapting, and evolving ever since it came on the scene back in the days of the early church.

At our church there became an increase in studies and teachings about divine healing, intercessory prayer, prophecy, spiritual authority, and spiritual warfare.

Our church began hosting “healing services” and “revival services,” followed by “all night prayer services.”

These services began to give way to “prophetic services” and “prophetic retreats” that would last for days.

Then there arose teachings on bondage, soul ties, generational curses, open heavens, dreams and the interpretation of dreams.

Things like “Global Awakening” and “Spiritual Hunger Conferences” began to rise in prominence.

We began having conferences and retreats designed to free us from bondage, soul ties, generational curses, etc.

Shortly afterwards we began to hear teachings about fire tunnels, gold dust, jewels, treasure hunts, laughter, and the importance of being “slain in the spirit.”

These teachings led to a greater emphasis on teachings about the “Kingdom of God being brought to earth.”

The focus of everything became the seven mountains of influence in society and how to “infiltrate” society in a way to “bring the Kingdom of God here.”

Dominionism and Kingdom Now Theologies began to arise.

As I began interning at the church where I grew up, I was devouring all the teachings and the music I could get my hands on from one particular person.

I remember it like yesterday.

I stumbled across many things within his books that began to trouble me.

I want to read some of them to you.

(Heresy Quotes from the Author I was Reading at the Time)

“Jesus set aside His divinity, choosing instead to live as a man completely dependent on God”

(Johnson, Face to Face with God, pg.

108).

“He performed miracles, wonders, and signs, as a man in right relationship to God . . . .

not as God.

If He performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unattainable for us”

(Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth, pg.

29).

“He laid his divinity aside as He sought to fulfill the assignment given to Him by the Father”

(Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth, pg.

79).

“For us to become all that God intended, we must remember that Jesus' life was a model of what mankind could become if it were in right relationship with the Father”

(Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth, pg.

138).

(Personal Story)

As I read those statements, and the many that followed that I wouldn’t have enough time today to read to you, I realized that something was not right in what I was reading and believing.

I recognized that this teaching that had infiltrated the church was wrong and I felt a deep conviction from the Spirit of God.

My eyes were opened and I knew that I needed to do a few things:

I needed to confess and repent to the Lord.

I needed to cut off those influences.

I needed to get back to the Word and teach what it says and what it teaches.

I needed to stand my ground and acknowledge what is true and what is false.

I recognize what you may be feeling.

“Pastor not all of what you went through sounds bad.”

I agree, there was some good that happened in the middle of all of that.

I believe that God was gracious to me and was faithful to mold me in the middle of all of that.

An example of that is that I still believe and we teach that God can and does heal today.

But make no mistake about it, I had to wrestle through the wounds that had been caused by the misuse of Scripture and the misunderstanding of Who Christ is.

(Poop Brownie Illustration)

A great problem arises when we convince ourselves that if 90% of what I hear from preachers is right and 10% of it is bad that we just “eat the meat and spit out the bones.”

Sometimes we convince ourselves that these people mean well or “appear to be men and women of God,” so therefore this “little thing doesn’t matter that much.”

What would you say if I told you that I only added a spoonful of poop to my wife’s brownie recipe?

Would you still eat it?

There isn’t that much in there, you probably wouldn’t even taste it!

Would you eat it?

No, you would not.

False teaching is like that.

Jesus said a little bit of leaven works throughout the entire bread.

False Teaching allowed eventually works its way into the foundation that we are standing on.

(Pastoring Story)

I have pastored since 2006 and in some capacity continuously Since 2008.

And I could tell stories of all the churches I have served in, led, or been associated with in a very close way that have experienced or in some way been effected by the many false teachings that have arisen from the movement I mentioned earlier.

I have even seen churches close their doors because of it.

Make no mistake about it…how we see Jesus Christ and how we handle false teachings about Who He is…DO MATTER!

I have sometimes heard objections made against certain expressions in Isaac Watts’ hymns in which our Lord is spoken of as the God that bled and died, and so forth.