Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Introduction:
Veteran’s Day Tribute — we need men and women to step up and serve and sacrifice in our military.
Why?
We live in a hostile world.
We are at war.
The same is true for us as God’s people.
We are at war.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
(Eph.
6:12)
In a physical war, battles are normally fought over territory or positions.
But in a spiritual war, the battle is over the story!
What is the story, the narrative that forms our hearts?
(Gen.
3—“Did God actually say …?" … Temptation of Jesus Matt.
4:1-11)
John has been challenging us to “abide” in the surpassing narrative—the gospel.
Main Idea: We are given two tasks in order to “abide” in the gospel and stand firm in the battle for our hearts.
Do Not Believe Every Narrative
Illustration: I am a Nigerian man, and I need to transfer 1 million dollars to your account.
P. T. Barnum made a fortune on the theory that “a sucker is born every minute,
Big News: Not all narratives are true
Is this exclusive?
— “you can believe what you believe and I can believe what I believe”
Ill.
Blind men and the elephant
Every narrative has a “spirit”—a spiritual reality that drives it.
Behind every teaching, philosophy, narrative is a spiritual reality.
Narratives are driven by core beliefs and have a built in value system
Ill.
Lord of the Rings—Characters and the story in the movie quite different )
Matthew 16—“to resist the cross is to be in league with the enemy” — Keller
We need to see the danger in the subtle ways that we resist the gospel.
Test Every Narrative
This means that we must first of all recognize the narratives that influence us
John is tells us we need to test the spirits, but he is not talking about the obvious, satanic, devil worshiping kind that may come to mind.
“Spirits” “false prophets” “anti-Christ"
He is saying there are counter-gospels (counter messages) that look very much like the real thing.
They sound really good.
They promise really good things.
This means that we must “test” every narrative/truth claim
John gives us two tests:
Doctrinal test— READ 1 John 4:2-3
Illustration: Counterfeit money—knowing the authentic helps know the false
The test is the attitude to Jesus Christ.
If the Spirit of God is in the claimant to inspiration he will affirm that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
More exactly he ‘acknowledges Jesus as Christ come in the flesh’; the human Jesus is nothing less than the divine Christ.
In the flesh underlines the reality of the incarnation; it is not simply that Jesus took human nature, but flesh (cf.
Jn. 1:14; 2 Jn. 7).
Love test — 1 John 4:7-8 Right doctrine is not enough.
We need to have experienced the love of Jesus to the point where we are loving others.
Conclusion
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