Sermon Tone Analysis

*Preaching and Teaching the Whole Counsel of God – Col. 1:28*

* *

I am really looking forward to being with many of our men at the Shepherd’s Conference next week for a number of reasons.

Steve Lawson is one of my living heroes and I love to hear him preach with expository passion, thundering out exegesis and theology and applying it with the double-edged sword of scripture to the heart.

In his book on preaching that I list at the bottom of your note sheet, he begins his first page quoting Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said:

 

     ‘The most urgent need of the Christian Church today is true preaching, and as it is the greatest and most urgent need in the Church, it is the greatest need of the world also.’

[Lawson writes] If the doctor’s diagnosis correct … then a return to preaching – /true /preaching, /biblical /preaching, /expository /preaching – is the greatest need in this critical hour.

If a reformation is to come to the church, it must be preceded by a reformation of the pulpit.

As the pulpit goes, so goes the church.

The prophet Amos warned of a famine that would cover the land … of hearing the Word of the Lord (Amos 8:11) … we are living in such days of drought, a time when many forces are suffocating biblical preaching … What exactly is expository preaching?

… This is the true nature of preaching.

It is the man of God opening the /Word /of God and expounding its truths so that /voice /of God may be heard, *the /glory /of God seen*, and the /will /of God obeyed.[1]

The other book I list /Supremacy of God in Preaching /concludes:

     People are starving for the grandeur of God, and the vast majority do not know it … most do not discern that they were made to thrill at the panorama of God’s power and glory.

They seek to fill the void in other ways … This is the heart pang of every human being.

Only a few know it.

Only a few diagnose the longing beneath every human desire – the longing to see God … Christian preachers, more than all others, should know that people are starving for God … Who but preachers will look out over the wasteland of secular culture and say, “Behold your God!”? Who will tell the people that God is great and greatly to be praised?

Who will paint for them the landscape of God’s grandeur?

… Who will cry out above every crisis, “Your God reigns!”?

            …

     If God is not supreme in our preaching in our preaching, where in this world will the people hear about the supremacy of God?

If we do not spread a banquet of God’s beauty on Sunday morning, will not our people seek in vain to satisfy their inconsolable longing with the cotton candy pleasures of pastimes and religious hype?

If the fountain of living water does not flow from the mountain of God’s sovereign grace on Sunday morning, will not the people hew for themselves cisterns on Monday, broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer.

2:13)?

[I remember reading those words years ago and being moved and determining by God’s grace that if he ever considered me worthy to the high calling of a preacher that I would do my utmost to make God supreme, because if we don’t magnify Him, who will?

I pray God will always be supreme here]

    

We are called to be “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor.

4:1).

And the great mystery is “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Col.

1:27).

[/This leads to our text today, Colossians 1/].

And that glory is the glory of God.

And [the Bible also says] “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” – faithful in magnifying the supreme glory of the one eternal God.

If we love our people, if we love the “other sheep” [Jesus spoke of in John’s gospel] that are not yet gathered into the fold, if we love the fulfillment of God’s global purpose, we will labor to “spread a table in the wilderness.”

People everywhere are starving for the enjoyment of God.

[As the old theologians said man is created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, and when glorifying God is our greatest focus, we also benefit with the greatest joy for which we are created]

Jonathan Edwards said, “The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied … Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows, but God is the substance.

These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun.

These are but streams.

But God is the ocean.”[2]

This is the aim of biblical ministry – God.

As one ministry says it: “Everything we do aims to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples in Jesus Christ.”

We’ve been saying that glorifying God is why we exist as a church and shall be the ultimate purpose in all our activities.

The title of our message today is: Glorifying God by Preaching and Teaching the Whole Counsel of God.

There’s a connection between preaching or proclaiming God’s Word and God being glorified.

 

1 Peter 4:11 (NASB95) \\ 11 *Whoever speaks, /is to do so /as one who is speaking the utterances [oracles] of God*; whoever serves /is to do so/ as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; *so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory* and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Revelation 14:6-7 (NASB95) \\ 6 And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to *preach* to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; 7 and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and *give Him glory* …”

 

The final preaching in history will be the all-vital message “give Him glory.”

Preaching is to proclaim God’s glory.

We proclaim Him ultimately so that He will be glorified.

God is more fully glorified when His full counsel of the Holy Bible is wholly taught.

That phrase in our title “whole counsel of God” I’m borrowing from another passage, Acts 20:27 where Paul summarizes his ministry to the Ephesian church by saying “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”

Our text today is Colossians 1:28, which further amplifies how Paul taught and applied God’s whole counsel to the whole of God’s people so that they would be whole or complete in Christ.

*We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.*

Colossians 1:28 is one of those compelling yet concise summaries of God-glorifying ministry packed into just one verse.

We proclaim Him in the whole revelation of how Scripture presents God in all His glory and attributes and character.

Notice God’s whole counsel includes both the positive and the negative, the admonishing or warning, as well as the positive teaching and imparting of truth.

Notice that not only the whole truth is in view, but the whole congregation is in view.

Paul says “every man” in the verse 3x.

The whole congregation must be given God’s whole counsel and the whole truth must be brought to bear on the whole person, so that every man might be perfect or whole, complete in Christ.

OUTLINE:

*The Message* [or main subject] – “we proclaim Him”

*The Method* – “admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom”

*The Motive* – “that we may present every man complete in Christ”

 

THE MESSAGE – “WE PROCLAIM HIM”

KJV “whom we proclaim”, ESV “Him we proclaim”

“We proclaim Him” is smoother English.

Biblical ministry proclaims Him, not us.

Biblical ministry is all about Him, not us.

It should be centered on God, focused on Christ, who is especially the focus here in Colossians.

He is the subject, not just an afterthought, or something we tack on to what /we /want to say.

He is always the main character we should focus on in Bible stories.

When we teach from the historical books of the O.T. we should teach biblical history as His story.

Don’t make the human character the hero, God is ultimately the character who gets the glory.

Don’t focus on the great men of the Bible as they all to a man would want us to focus on their Supremely Great God who is the only reason they did anything.

When Paul says “We proclaim Him” of course he has been building up who this “Him” is for the entire chapter.

*1:15* He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

16 For by Him all things were created, /both /in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.

19 For it was the /Father’s /good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, /I say/, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, /engaged /in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—

 

This is the “Him” we proclaim – these great truths about Him are why we proclaim Him.

The end of verse 16 says “all things have been created through Him and for Him” – did you get that?

This universe was created for Him, not for us!

We enjoy it, but it was created for Him.

The heavens declare the glory of God, David said (Psalm 19:1).

Hebrews 2:10 says of our Lord Jesus that all things are for Him.

This is why we proclaim Him, not us.

Isaiah 43:7 says we are created for God’s glory.

Verse 20 of that same chapter says even the animals glorify God.

In the next verse God says “The people whom I formed for Myself will declare My praise”

In verse 25 God says He blots out our sins for His name sake (He doesn’t say for our sake, although we benefit – it’s for His sake)

 

Is it for our sake that God gives grace rather than His just anger?

God says a couple chapters later in Isaiah (48:9): "For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you ... For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned?

My glory I will not give to another."

We read earlier in Psalm 23 “He leads me in paths of righteousness … [for my sake?] for His name sake”

 

We are not the center of God’s universe, God is.

His name and glory are preeminent in all He does.

And we benefit when we say:

/Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but your name give glory./

We proclaim Him, because He and He alone is worthy of it.

Let’s read the context of Colossians 1:25-27 to get the flow.

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, 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.