Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Announcements
Good Morning
Read and Pray
1. Fellowship Dinner signup list in the back for next Sunday.
2. Love Offering for Clary and his family.
3. Reminder of no Church tonight as it is the 3rd Sunday.
4. This Tuesday is the Baby shower for Ed and Becky Moore (time?)
5. Next Lord’s day will be Clary’s ordination.
6.
Introduction
This week as we prepare to go before the Lord through the study of His Word, I wanted to take a small break from Galatians and move into something else for a moment.
We will go back to Galatians but not this week.
Instead this week what I would like to focus on instead is the idea of right thinking.
Now I can assure you that when I say that I am not referencing something like the power of positive thinking that’s popular among so many today.
No part of this sermon will nor should it be there to lead you to think along the lines of the prosperity version of positive thinking.
I’m not going to tell you that if you think positive about a situation it will become fixed.
I’m not going to tell you that what you need is a new way of understanding something from of old.
I will not be repeating lines from men such as John Hagee or the likes of him.
I want you to notice the distinction in what I’m getting ready to say.
Right thinking is not the same thing as positive thinking.
Positive thinking tells you that irregardless of ones situation, you have the ability to think yourself out of it.
Let me give you an example:
Faith is having a positive attitude about what you can do and not worrying at all about what you can’t do....
How does that sound?
It sounds overtly spiritual doesn’t it?
I mean sure, on the surface it sounds nice and warm and fuzzy.
However it’s 100% wrong.
It’s a form of positive thinking designed to help a person have more faith in themselves and their abilities.
It’s designed to be spoken to ones self as a form of encouragement.
The problem is that the encouragement and the faith is found explicitly within oneself and not within ones redeemer.
Positive thinking isn’t designed to draw a person nearer to Christ.
Positive thinking is designed to place oneself under the yoke of self-will and self-gratification.
Right thinking however, is designed to place oneself under the grace of Christ.
It’s designed by God to lift the person up in the right direction and draw them nearer to the Lord.
So today it is the goal of this sermon to both exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.
And to also stir our minds into right thinking about who we are in Christ.
For us to truly see ourselves as the Father sees us.
With that in mind, please turn with me in your Bibles to
Stand, Read and Pray
As begin this small little journey through a short portion of 1 John.
I want to give a quick understanding of the purpose of this letter.
We know that during the first century the early Church had many messes infiltrate the body.
They never overtook the body of believers entirely and removed them away from the Lord Jesus Christ but they did stir up the minds of the people.
They would often times come through in differing approaches.
Some like the Galatians came in and claimed to carry external authority.
Others such as this letter, came in and added Jesus to their own ideas.
In this specific letter, what we find is that there had crept in the minds of the people this form of Gnosticism.
This view that carries the idea that Jesus came to earth but was only a spirit.
He was but a man in appearance.
He seemed to the eyes of those who had knew Him and seen Him to appear as truly human.
Yet it was merely a disguise.
A disguise similar to the Old Testament theophanies.
Those times in the Old Testament when the angel of the Lord would show up in the form of a man.
A great examples of this would be .
This is where a figure of a man appeared to Joshua but was not actually a man in the flesh.
He was there as a form of a man but in reality it was the Spirit of the Lord.
We see from Joshua’s reaction that he knew that he was before the Lord for when this man was in his presence, Joshua hit his knees in worship.
And this man, or Spirit of the Lord stood there and called Joshua to remove his shoes for he was in the presence of the Lord.
It was the Lord who stood there before Joshua but the Lord had no actual flesh.
This was not the Lord Jesus in the flesh.
This was God appearing to His servant in the Spirit but looking as if he was a man.
This is a version of what this letter is designed to fight against.
The only difference is that in Joshuas situation, we’re not dealing with heresy.
In the situation with this letter, that is exactly what we see.
Yet the letter doesn’t only address that
This letter is a pastoral letter.
Which means that it was designed to be an encouragement to the people but also a form of exhortation as well.
A call to motivate the peoples minds towards a particular end.
And not only did this letter do that, it also showed that Jesus physically lived on this earth.
That He was 100% man.
And 100% God.
John reveals to us not how Christ had become one flesh but that in truth he really was
The two became one in the flesh of mankind for the purpose of His redemptive story.
The idea from the Gnostics was that the flesh was evil.
And since the flesh was evil, there is absolutely no way that God could indwell a human body.
Yet the author of this letter is very intent on laying a framework that does away with that kind of thinking.
His aim is to stand firm on the divinity of Jesus of Nazereth.
And not just His divinity, but also that He is the Christ who is come into the flesh.
He lays out this argument in when he says: By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
And this idea seems to be the overarching thought inside of this letter.
Yet right here around the middle of the letter, this little gem pops up that seems like it’s out of place.
John goes on to speak of the beauty of the reality of the Gospel.
He speaks of Christ alone being the light for all who come unto the Father.
Of Christ being the incarnate Word.
The one who existed before time.
How Jesus is our only advocate with the Father.
How we should not carry a love for the world.
Jesus’ promise of eternal life.
Yet right here in the middle, this little gem about who the redeemed truly are shows up.
I have to admit, that with just a surface level reading, what is being said here doesn’t really fit into the theme of this letter.
He spends so much time renouncing heresy and proclaiming the truth of Jesus that one could hardly understand why here in the middle is this portion that illustrates such a kindhearted word.
But if we soften our understanding a little bit and begin to understand just how deeply impacted these believers were by this stuff all around them.
We would see this great and inexpressible joy being laid out by John.
You see John’s desire was for the people to have a right knowledge of who Jesus is.
To not be bombarded with all these different ideas and thoughts about Him that they would become confused of who He is.
And I think that we could relate in many ways.
I mean just for a moment, think about all the popular ideas of Jesus that exist today.
Many believe that Jesus was never pre-existent.
That He was a created being in lesser classification to God the Father.
That God knew He needed someone to house His attributes but not actually be Him and therefore He created this additional being.
Others believe that God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are all one person.
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