Sermon Tone Analysis

*Colossians 1:24-2:5*

 

Imagine for a moment that our church was without a pastor and as we were looking over the resumes, we came across this unique individual.

Should we consider this person to pastor our church and preach to us weekly?

/Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ./

/Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Understanding that your pulpit is vacant, I’d like to be considered for the job.

You see, I love to preach, even though my preaching tends to stir up quite a bit of controversy.

In fact, one of my sermons caused a riot.

Actually, I’ve never been able to stay in one place more than three years./

/My health isn’t too good (I have what I call a “thorn in the flesh”), and to be perfectly honest, I’m not much to look at.

I can assure you, however, that this doesn’t interfere with my ministry.

I’m a bachelor by choice—never been married and never had any kids—but I’m surprisingly good at conducting family life seminars./

/If you do a background check on me—and I’m sure you will—you’ll probably discover that I changed my name a while back, and I have been arrested a few times.

But even in jail I was able to have a successful ministry.

People tell me I’m quite a theologian, although I’ve never attended seminary./

/I hope you aren’t looking for an administrator.

I’m not too good at keeping records.

And my memory’s not too good.

Sometimes I forget who I’ve baptized, for instance.

But I’m a hard worker, although the things I want to do, I rarely do.

And the things I don’t want to do, I always end up doing.

Go figure.

But you know what?

I’ve found that everything works out fine in the end for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

Praise be to God./

/Well, let me know if you are interested.

I can start next week.

By the way, I wrote this with my own hand.

Grace to you all,/

                                               -The Apostle Paul        

Paul would not seem like a likely candidate but the truth is we was exactly what God needed to take the Word of God and preach it to the nations.

Tonight, as we look at our text in Colossians 1:24, I want us to focus on the key ministries of the church – the preaching ministry.

So the *Big Idea:  Believers must see the importance of the preaching ministry of the church.

*I want to draw out 5 truths about the importance of this preaching ministry.

The first truth is…

1.    *Preaching is God’s priority for the church vs.25* \\ /25 //Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God,/

 

Paul tells the Colossians that God has appointed him as a servant of the church and his mission from God was to “complete the word of God.”

Here Paul is laying out God’s plan for the word of God to be preached to the nations and taught to the people.

He is being commissioned to make preaching the word of God the priority in His ministry as a servant of the church.

In the book, The Master’s Plan for the Church, states, /“The church’s most important function is to proclaim the Word of God in an understandable, direct, and authoritative way.”/

We see the preaching ministry of the church repeated over and over again in Paul’s writings.

In Romans 15:19  Paul says, “…/so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”

/We can see that Paul’s purpose on this earth was to take the Word of God to the nations.

We can see a man who without apology preached the Word of God to Jews and Gentiles, rulers and peasants.

As the book of Acts concludes, Paul is under house arrest in Rome awaiting execution and yet he is still /“preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.”/

/ /

Paul’s desire for the Colossians is to “/be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,”/ and this filling can only occur as we hear and read the Word of God and it becomes infuses with our hearts and lives.

Students you have to begin to understand the importance of the preaching of the word of God.

It must become a desire of your heart to learn and glean truth from the words that you hear proclaimed.

I know it is difficult to sit through sermons every week, but you must prepare your heart before hand, ready and willing to learn from the Word.

Just as you prepare before a game or a test, readying yourself for what is ahead, so you must also ready yourself to listen to preaching.

To make preaching easier for you, let me suggest a few simple things.

If you want truly want to learn about God’s Word from the preaching ministry, do these things:

·       Prepare your heart to accept what is said(confess sin)

·       Remove distractions (cell phones, friends, people~*~*I sit up front to avoid being distracted)

·       Bring a study bible (to answer questions during sermon)

·       Take notes of sermon

/ /

How attentive are you in the church services to the sermon?

Are you grasping what is being said?

How can you become a better listener to the preaching of the word of God?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.    *Preaching involves God’s proclamation of His Son vs. 26* \\ /26 //that is, //the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints,// //27 //to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory./

Paul refers to the subject this proclamation a “mystery.”

What is a mystery?

In the world of Scooby Doo, a mystery was something that needed to be solved.

So Scooby, Shaggy and the gang would set off to look for what?

–clues.

So as they pieced the clues together, they came up with a solution to the problem.

Paul speaks in similar terms when we refers to the mystery “hidden from the past ages and generations.”

The past ages and generations that Paul is referring to would be the Old Testament saints and he reveals the mystery as Christ- the Messiah.

The context of the mystery is that Jesus Christ the Messiah was not what the Jews expected Him to be.

The mystery that eventually was revealed with the coming of Christ included the consummation of the church with Jesus as the Head.

The mystery also included this church would include Gentiles and Jews together worshiping Jehovah God. 

* \\ 1 Cor.

2:7-8*

/but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;// //the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;/

* *

So we can see from this passage that if the Jews would have understood the mystery that Jesus was truly the awaited Messiah, then they would not have crucified Him.

So although the prophets of the OT like Daniel and Isaiah spoke about the coming Messiah through divine inspiration, they did not know who the Messiah would be until God revealed that to the world.

In the world today, preaching is no different.

There is no longer the mystery to the saints, but the gospel which we also call the good news, is a mystery to the world.

And this mystery needs to be revealed to them.

And as we sit under the preaching of the Word of God, that preaching should be proclaiming Jesus Christ.

That is why I have so much problem with some of these preachers today who fail to mention Jesus Christ as Lord in their sermons.

One in particular is Joel Osteen who is a great encourager of the principles of the faith but does not communicate the truths of scripture any more than a blind man can see the sunset.

We must always be careful that whatever church that we attend, we are under good biblical preaching that exalts Christ and views the Bible as the complete, error free, Divinely inspired Word of God.

Are you learning more about Christ when you listen to the teaching and preaching of the Word of God?

The third truth is…

*3.    **Preaching induces spiritual growth   vs.

28, 2:2c-3* \\ /28 //We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ… attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself,// //3 //in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge./

Here Paul gets specific about the preaching of God’s Word by using the two specific words, admonishing and teaching.

One part of Paul’s preaching ministry was to “admonish every man” which means he was to take the word of God and “warn” every man with it.

The word /admonish/ “has to do with setting the mind of someone in proper order, correcting him or putting him right.

Paul uses the term of a ministry of admonition, criticism and correction.”

In 1 Thessalonians, Paul says to “/admonish the unruly/.”

In Romans and Colossians, we are encouraged to “/admonish with one another”/ but as we learn from Paul, we must admonish “/with tears/” or with gentleness and sorrow.

The second word after admonishing is teaching.

It would be incomplete for people to admonish others and omit teaching them truths of Scripture that back up the admonishment.

Paul wanted to teach the truths of God’s word to the nations so that is why the letters of the New Testament were written.

We learned last week in project 1616 that some of the letters were written to churches that Paul had never visited so they were like New Believers classes via the mail.

He was trying to teach the basic truths to young churches that need to grow spiritually.

These two words admonishing and teaching are the controversial yet necessary work of God’s Word in our lives.

When we are admonished and taught the truths of God, then we will grow in our sanctification- which is the process of growing in the knowledge of God and becoming more like His Son-Jesus.

Paul refers to this spiritual growth coming from preaching God’s word when he says in 2:2, “/attaining //to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself.,”/