Sermon Tone Analysis

4~/27~/08

1 John 3:21-4:6

\\ 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; \\ 22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.

\\ 23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.

\\ 24 The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him.

We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

\\ \\ 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

\\ 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; \\ 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

\\ 4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

\\ 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.

\\ 6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.

By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

\\ \\

I.  WHAT IS TRUTH?

-Pilate: “What is truth?”

*-Webster’s: That which is real and verifiable by experience.*

*-What’s wrong with that definition?

(Experience?

What of faith?)*

-Truth in the absolute sense of that which is real and complete as opposed to what is false and wanting (Mk.

5:33; Eph.

4:25).

The Christian faith in particular is the truth (Gal.

2:5; Eph.

1:13).

Jesus claimed that he was truth personified (Jn.

14:6; Eph.

4:21).

He mediates the truth (Jn.

1:17) and the Holy Spirit leads men into it (Jn.

16:13;  14:17; 1 Jn.

4:6), so that Jesus’ disciples know it (Jn.

8:32; 2 Jn.

1), do it (Jn.

3:21), abide in it (Jn.

8:44), and their new birth as God’s children rests upon it (Jas.

1:18).

This truth is more than a credal formula, it is God’s active word which must be obeyed (Rom.

2:8; Gal.

5:7).

* *

-How does the world define truth?

-How is truth discerned in the text?

(Love, Obedience, Theology)

-“Test the spirits”:

-I Thess 5:19-22 “Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances; but examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.”

-2 Cor 13:5 “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!

Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you – unless indeed you fail the test.”

-Gal 6:3-5 “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.

For each one shall bear his own load.”

-I Cor 11:27-28 “Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.”

II.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

A.  –“The problem that the early Christians encountered was that as the gospel of Jesus Christ was presented throughout the Mediterranean world there were people who were fascinated by the message but who then sought to draw the message about Christ into their own philosophical framework (worldview!).

In effect they would take possession of the name and some of the teaching of Christ, but then redefine and recast these Christian elements so that they would /harmonize/ with the point of view into which these persons were already settled.

The result was a domesticated Christianity.

It would be as if a person who had already decided upon the main motivational influences of his life then reached out to the Christian faith in order to support the position he already held.

Jesus Christ would be incorporated insofar as He agreed with the previously decided position; where disagreements arose He would be either ignored or redefined.

(Witnessing at Toro to Laotians)

But the more serious threat to the integrity of the gospel was occurring from the Greek side of the Roman world.

It posed the danger of /the spiritualization of the Christian faith./

Many in the Greek world wanted to escape from what they saw as the inferior physical existence of the earth and the body into the superior spiritual realm of reality.

They were basically elitist in outlook; they were basically escapist in goal.

Both of these outlooks are on a collision course with the realism and the universality of the gospel.

But the most fundamental collision point has to do with the understanding of the center of the gospel, Jesus Christ Himself.

They want a form of salvation that is not salvation at all; they want their “redeemer” to assist them toward a spiritual escape from the real world; they want to be dazzled by overwhelming spiritual experiences.

B.

SCRIPTURE:

1.  2 Corinthians 10:5: “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

2.  Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

3.  1 Peter 3:15: “But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”

4.  Eph 1:17 "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him."

There must be knowledge of Christianity in order to live it out.

III.

TODAY (Taken primarily from www.Probe.org)

-A return to the days of Noah.

“Every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

A.  ILLUSTRATIONS (HOW-TOS; BASIC ERRORS)

 

Consider the story of three baseball umpires.

-One said, “There’s balls and there’s strikes, and I call ‘em the way they are.”

Another said, “There’s balls and there’s strikes, and I call ‘em the way I see ‘em.”

And the third umpire said, “There’s balls and there’s strikes, and they ain’t nothing until I call them.”

-Their three different views of balls and strikes correspond with three different views of truth.

The first is what we might call /premodernism/.

This is a God-centered view of the universe that believes in divine revelation.

Most of the ancient world had this view of true and believed that *truth is absolute* (“I call ‘em the way they are”).

By the time of the Enlightenment, Western culture was moving into a time of /modernism/.

This view was influenced by the scientific revolution, and began to reject a belief in God.

In this period, *truth is relative* (“I call ‘em the way I see ‘em”).

Today we live in what many call /postmodernism/.

In this view, there is a complete loss of hope for truth*.

Truth is not discovered; truth is created *(“they ain’t nothing until I call them”).

-------------------

-A student said "there is no absolute truth".

When asked if he was absolutely sure, he said, “Absolutely.”

*What's wrong with that?*  /So he essentially said that he absolutely believed there was no absolute truth, except the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth!/

-/Various religions and religious groups make competing truth claims, so they cannot all be true./

/"Discerning Truth From Error"-discuss./

-For example, God is either personal or God is impersonal.

If God is personal then Judaism, Christianity, and Islam could be true.

But the eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) are false.

Either Jesus is the Messiah or He is not.

If He is the Messiah then Christianity is true, and Judaism is false.

We used to live in a society that believed in “Truth” (with a capital T).

This has now been replaced by a new word with a capital T.

And that is the word “Tolerance.”