Sermon Tone Analysis

Please remain standing as we read Gods Word together.

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My heart breaks for the direction the church has gone.

It is the reason why I got into pastoral ministry.

I wanted to see gospel transformation take place but I knew that the gospel was fading from the mouths of preachers.

And as it began to fade from the mouths of preachers, it began to fade out of the mouths of the people.

And the result is that we actually have burried the gospel.

That is the second time in history that has happened.

The Gospel being burried.

The Church began to hide the gospel around 500 ad.

In all honesty, it began well before than but movements from 300 Ad to 500 ad were exposed as heretical.

But some of those movements had large followings, so there was always a large group of people going against orthodox christianity.

Now I need to explain my use of words real quick.

When I use that phrase, orthodox christianity, more often I say biblically orthodox christianity, that word orthodox means in the traditional sense.

It means histroically and theologically this view has been held.

I use that phrase, and I am not the only one, but I use that phrase to describe biblically christainity.

That is what was meant when it was used by those around the 4th and 5th centtury.

This is not to be confused with eastern orthodoxy or the orthodox church.

That was the name the east gave themselves around 1000 ad during what was called the great schism, and the latin west church and the Greek east split up.

The Latin west began to call themselves the Roman Catholic church and the Greek East called themselves Greek Orthodox, Eastern orthodox and just flat Orthodox.

I am not talking about that, I am talking about biblical christianity.

We have departed from that word orthodox, and today we ask are you conservative.

I do not like that word.

Not when it comes to christianity.

When people ask me if i am conservative;

They are not interested on what I teach on the trinity, or what I teach about Jesus, Do I affirm that Jesus is truly God and truly man, they do not care to know my views on the virgin birth, sin and salvation or the ordinanaces of the church.

They are not concerned in anyway if i am gospel centered or not, what they are usually really asking is what are my views on homosexuality and guns.

So I use that word orthodox to describe the core of our beliefs, not some political position.

By the way, this has nothing to do with today's message, But because I mentioned something, it seems fitting that I take the time to correct our understanding on something.

Homosexuality is not a political issue, it is not a social issue though it has impacted the political real and social standings, it is not one of those things.

Homosexuality is a biblical issue, it is the issue of sin.

I say that Because it is my fear that too many people are giving a gospel according to fox news.

But getting back on track, false views had a huge following between 300-500 ad and biblical orthodox christianity has always fought the good fight.

But after 500AD, conformity grew as power grew.

And the gospel was buried in darkness.

The world had a false gospel.

We call this the dark ages.

Many historians have different theories about the dark ages and how or why it happened.

I do not find it a couincidence that when a false gospel was proclaimed the world was in darkness.

And the world came out of that darkness when the gospel began to be preached once again.

That is not by chance.

The false teaching that was taking place was one of works.

much of it being the works that the catholic church does still to this day.

beyond just the works that was taking place, for the right amount of money you could be forgiven as well.

It is tragic to no how the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been adulterated.

Then the reformation came and the gospel was out of the darkness.

We shouldnt look at that word reformed like we commomly do.

We hear that word reform and we think health care reform, tax reform; we think change.

When Rome had the power they deformed the doctrines of God and the reforms were trying to bring it back to its original form.

Its not the latin vulgate we should be looking at but, no we need to go back to the greek and hebrew.

Its not these new traditions we should be carrying but going back to the heart of the New Testament.

Bring the church back to its original form.

And that is what they did and much of what we love today began with them.

Our sense of freedom, liberty, a land to freely worship, a land with education and health care, all of those ideas began at the reformation.

While surrounded by chaos and war, so much good came from the reformation and the most important of those things was the gospel proclimation.

And while the protestant church did not agree on everything, one thing was for certian.

Entire socities were better when the gospel was proclaimed.

Then many within the protestant church began to bury the gospel once again.

It was seen by men like Charles Spurgeon who had the dicernmant to act.

Slowly but surly the gospel was being buried throughout the 1900’s.

Now we have a bunch of confused church goers.

A man is sitting at a bus stop, his head is hanging low as he reflects on his life.

Another man comes and sits of the bus bench with him and can clearly see that this man is troubled.

He hesitated to speak to the depressed man as he did not want to over step boundries.

But he decided it was only right to do.

He asked the the depressed man, whats wrong.

The Depressed man looked and the caring stranger and decided to let it all out.

“Where to begin?

My whole life has been one big joke but latley it has been worse.

I lost my job because my company is feeling the effects of our bad economy so I was a part of the trimmed fat.

My wife left me because it has taken me too long to find another job.

She knows i am a loser and she was smart enough to get away from me.

I have no more money, I have no home, no respect, no self worth.

The stranger replied, “i am sorry you are going through all that.

I was in a bad state too once.

I thought I lost it all, then I found Jesus.

And my life has turned around.

I know it seems bad now, if you faith in Jesus, things will get better.

Then the bus comes and we do not know whatever happened to both men.

Its not important, its not about where they end up its about the conversation they just had.

The kind stanger had good intentions, He knew the man was sad, he hesitated, he wanted to respect the mans space.

But he couldnt help himself, he was drawn in to talking to that man.

He listened, the depressed man clearly had to get that off his chest and the kind stranger listened.

After he listened he told the man the key to happiness, he told the depressed stranger what the mass majorty of christian church goers would tell that stranger.

It was about Jesus but it was in no way the good news of Jesus.

But that is typiclly how we present the gospel message today, he present it as the key to happiness.

I have made this mistake in my life too.

I was leading a youth group, not ready to do so, I admit.

We went to where the youth hang out and started to talk to these young kids about Jesus.

One girl asked, why do you believe this.

She was genrally asking.

She wanted to know, and I told her because my life got better.

She wanted to Know about Jesus and I told her about me.

I didnt know the mistake I was making at the time.

This is a mistake far too often made and the reason why it is made is because we have too many preachers who design the message to be about you.

But the issue is a bit deeper than that.

Take a look around at our culture.

It is har to figure out what is made for adults and what is made for kids.

The adult clothing looks like child clothes.