Good evening, this is the third in our series called Movements on the Fringe of Orthodoxy, and tonight I'm going to be offering a review, basically, of a best-selling book by Joel Osteen entitled Your Best Life Now. Let me start off, though, by reading several scripture passages because I think these passages get to the heart of why we're having a Bible study like this tonight. Our purpose is not to tear anyone down, but to encourage or exhort the church to be discerning in what it approves and to test the spirits. This is what Paul wrote to the believers at Philippi in Philippians 1 9. And this, I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment." And then in verse 10, "...that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ." We can add to this John's caution to the church in 1 John 4, 1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit But test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. And for an even more dire warning, we can look at Paul's exhortation to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, 2 and following, where Paul exhorts the young pastor, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. That's exactly what we're trying to hit at tonight, what these three passages instruct us to do. That is, we are to be discerning, we are to be knowledgeable, we are to test the spirits so that we know what is proper to approve. I want to start off, first of all, by asking the question, who is Joel Osteen, the man, the author that we're going to be looking at tonight? Joel Osteen, if you've ever seen him on television or if you've looked at the cover of the book, Your Best Life Now, there he is in a large picture. He is a telegenetic, perpetually ebullient and smiling, and yet also sort of an aw-shucks, humble on the surface sort of fellow who currently serves as the senior pastor of the Lakewood Church. Houston, Texas. That church was founded on Mother's Day 1959 by Joel's father, John Osteen, and it was led by John Osteen until his death in 1999. In Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen tells a lot of autobiographical stories about how his father and mother went through various trials in building this church. A lot of it is autobiographical reflection on his family. According to Your Best Life Now, John Osteen, Joel Osteen's father, had been a successful pastor of what he calls a large denominational church. I believe it was a Southern Baptist church in Houston until John Osteen ran into some conflict when, according to Joel, again, this is his recollection in the book, his father began, quote, to delve more deeply into the things of God, end quote. Apparently, this was prompted by the childhood illness of Joel Osteen's sister, Lisa. And it sounds like John and Dodie Osteen, Joel's parents, then began to become seriously interested in healing and the teachings that were popular at that time of the Word-Faith movement. Again, on page 172 of Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen says that as his father, quote, studied the scriptures, he realized he wanted to do more for his people than most folks were accustomed to receiving, end quote. He continues. He told the congregation that he saw more clearly that God was a good God, a heavenly Father, rather than a demanding, impossible to please judge. And as Joel describes it, there was this switch or change in his father's theology. Instead of preaching a God who was this impossible to please judge, he began preaching that God was good and apparently began teaching that God's desire was to heal those in his congregation that were sick, etc. To Osteen's surprise, John Osteen's surprise, the folk in this denominational church did not appreciate his quote, fresh discoveries, end quote, because it did not fit into their quote, denominational guidelines, end quote. So after a divided vote on his pastoral tenure, John Osteen and some of his followers left and began a new church. And so many churches begin in this way. out of conflict, and this movement, John Osteen's movement, began in this way. They began to meet in an abandoned feed store called the East Houston Feed and Hardware. Again, Mother's Day of 1959, this church started. Now, over the years, the Lakewood Church grew in number. Joel Osteen, who's our subject tonight, was one of five children born to John and Dodie. And by the way, Dodie was John Osteen's second wife after a first marriage of his ended in divorce, and that's described by his son in Your Best Life Now. Originally, Joel Osteen was involved in the television ministry of his father's church. According to one site that I found, Joel apparently had a semester of college at Oral Roberts University and left those formal studies to work in his father's ministry. And for 17 years, he apparently worked with the John Osteen television program, and he also worked apparently in a private venture to establish KTBU-TV 55 as an independent television station in the Houston, Texas market. As Joel Osteen describes it in Your Best Life Now, his father became ill. His father was on dialysis. And then one week in 1999, out of the blue, John Osteen asked his son Joel if he would like to preach on the next Sunday. By his own admission, Joel Osteen says he had never preached a sermon before. He never prepared a message. And initially he told his father, no. But after talking to his wife, he had second thoughts and he called and said he would agree to do it. And so for the first time, he preached at the Lakewood Church, which by that time was already a megachurch, a large church with a huge television ministry in the word faith tradition. He preached that Sunday and five days later, John Osteen died. And within then a couple of weeks, Joel Osteen was inaugurated as his father's successor. With no previous experience, he began preaching to a huge audience week after week. Again, in 1999, when Joel Osteen became the pastor, it was already a megachurch attracting thousands and reaching millions through a TV broadcast. Many people doubted that Joel would be able to be successful in taking over this ministry. And yet over the last six years, and this is an amazing thing to consider, this man is having so much impact on so many people's lives, he has only been preaching in this church for six years. In these last six years, though, he has led the church to, I think, quadruple in its attendance, and it is now considered to be, by religious demographers, to be the largest church in America. More people attend this church on any given weekend than any other place in America. He has expanded the television ministry to reach multiple millions, not just in this country, but around the globe. The church made news in recent days by moving into a multi-million dollar remodeled compact center in downtown Houston. And in addition to the weekend meetings, the television ministry, Osteen also leads national kind of speaking concerts to sold-out audiences in major U.S. cities throughout the nation. Again, sold out because, in fact, patrons have to purchase tickets to attend these meetings so they can worship with Joel Osteen. Now, the church, according to its website and surface view of it on a broadcast, will tell you that it is a model of racial diversity with equal parts white, Hispanic and African-American. The church website mentions as part of its vision, helping people to, quote, experience the perfect peace that comes from faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to the Holy Spirit. And the church claims to help Thousands of people through various studies, community ministries and special programs. If you go to the church's website and look around at it, you will actually find a link to a page that describes what we believe. And if you look at their doctrinal statement, it is very minimal. There are seven brief statements. But if we were to look at it, we would find many things that we would say, yeah, this sounds orthodox. This sounds like it's something that could be affirmed. They say, first of all, they affirm the Bible as without error. Secondly, they say that there is one God who exists in three persons. The word Trinity isn't used, but there's an apparent affirmation of the Trinity. Thirdly, it says that salvation is found by placing our faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross. Fourth, it affirms water baptism. Fifth, the regular taking of communion. Sixth, that every believer should have a growing relationship with Jesus by obeying God's word. And seventh, a closing emphasis on believers as conquerors who are to experience the abundant life. Now, in fact, we don't want to be hypercritical in looking at this, but I think there are some glaring omissions in this minimal doctrinal statement. that actually speak volumes to some of the problems we're going to discover with this ministry. Absent, for example, is a statement on the doctrine of human sin. Absent is a statement of a doctrine of the church. Absent is a doctrine of the end times, a doctrine of final resurrection, of judgment, of heaven and hell. And as we shall see, all of these omissions, I think, are problematic for Osteen's theology. Another observation, just looking at the website of this church, you would note the strong involvement of the entire Osteen family. It is almost like a family business. At the top, of course, we have Joel and his telegenetic wife, His telegenic wife, Victoria, and they also have two sons. She regularly assists him in the ministry, leading in various aspects of the service and accompanies him much as her mother accompanied her father or his father in his ministry. If you look on the church's website under church leadership, there are only five people mentioned, and four of those five are Joel's relatives. His brother Paul, who apparently is a doctor by training, has an M.D., is listed as the associate pastor. His sister, Lisa Combs, is listed as an associate minister. And her husband, Joel's brother-in-law, Kevin Combs, is listed as the church administrator. Also listed under the leadership is Joel's mother, Dodie Osteen. The only non-family member listed in the leadership is a man called Duncan Dodds, who is called the executive director of Lakewood Church, and he is hailed as, quote, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, end quote. Now, I've got to tell you that I don't have cable television in my home, and so I had not watched Joel Osteen's television program. So this week I did sit down and I watched at least one complete broadcast through the internet of a complete service. It was interesting to watch. It was very uplifting. The music was uplifting. He gave about a half hour talk, which I might refer to a little bit later. There were a lot of things that were very upbeat. He said a lot of nice things. You should talk nicely to your wife. You should be kind to people. But as we shall see, I think there are some very difficult things also theologically about what he had to say. My interest in Osteen tonight is primarily to look at his 2004 book, Your Best Life Now, subtitled Seven Steps to Living at Your Full Potential. Again, published in 2004 by Warner Faith. It has been atop the New York Times bestsellers list. Under inspiration, I noticed that it was just one below Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life this week as listed there. It's become a publishing phenomena and I noticed on the broadcast it is heavily promoted through little text ads that are run throughout his television broadcast. According to Your Best Life Now, John Osteen, again, was very influential in forming this church. And Osteen, Joel Osteen spends a lot of time in the book telling a lot of things about his family, his own personal experiences. Let's just turn over now our second part. First, we were asking, who is Joel Osteen? Secondly, let me just ask, what does your best life now teach? Let me give an overview of the book. And I had a chance to read it, about 310 pages. First of all, interesting looking at the book, if you look at the front, to the Library of Congress categorization for the book. The first categorization for it is under self-actualization psychology. Religious Aspects Christianity. The second heading is Success Religious Aspects Christianity. And certainly, if you've read this book or if you've ever watched Joel Osteen, that listing is appropriate because it is primarily about self-actualization, about psychology. Joel Osteen, to hear him talk, to read his book, it is basically personal motivation speaking. It's in the tradition of Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people, or crossing those things over religiously. It's in the tradition of Norman Vincent Peale, the power of positive thinking, or Robert Shuler's feel-good hour of power sort of thinking. The book, again, is subtitled Seven Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, and the seven steps are 1. Enlarge your vision. 2. Develop a healthy self-image. 3. Discover the power of your thoughts and words. 4. Let go of the past. 5. Find strength through adversity. 6. Live to give. Seven, choose to be happy. If you had to state the thesis of the book, I think it would be that those who have a healthy self-esteem, who envision a prosperous and successful future for themselves, who are not bogged down by past failures or a negative attitude, and who are kind and generous to others will be blessed by God with happiness and success in this life. You can have your best life now. The book is made extremely easy to read. The chapters are short, brimming with anecdote and humor and stories. Story after story after story appear on the pages of this book. I read one description of this book on a blog site. that said Osteen's preaching style and his writing style was what he called skyscraper writing or speaking. That is, he stacks up one layer of story after another. There is story upon story upon story upon story upon story in this book. It's brimming with these little short, pithy, memorable sayings and cliches. For example, he says on page 124, stop talking to God about how big your mountains are and start talking to your mountains about how big your God is. On page 154, he says a bitter root will produce a bitter fruit. On page 184, he says God can turn your scars to stars. On page 192, he says, Be a winner, not a whiner. On page 252, he says, Be seed-oriented, not need-oriented. On one hand, we might say that Osteen is harmless. Many of the things he says we might even describe as laudable. Again, husbands should be kind to and appreciate their wives. And by the way, when I watched the broadcast this week, I noticed that there were many more women than men, it seemed to me, in the audience. And I think a lot of things that he says, stressing psychology, stressing self-esteem and whatnot, I think probably is particularly appealing to some women. He says we should do our jobs with excellence and integrity. We should be generous in helping others. And again, A lot of that, who really would be against any of those things that he says? So on one hand, we can say this is really harmless. But on the other hand, this movement raises, I think, some very serious questions, primarily because he is presenting this self-actualization philosophy in the name of biblical Christianity. The biggest problem with what he has to say and write about is that it is so thoroughly man-centered. It sees Christian faith as a form of self-help for men to achieve personal fulfillment and happiness. In other words, it makes man the chief end of God. If I could borrow a cliché that perhaps Osteen would appreciate, The Bible is not concerned with our happiness, but our holiness, and that seems to be completely missing as an emphasis in Osteen's work. Let me go on now, more specifically in our third part, to some doctrinal difficulties within your best life now. And I've listed seven deformities, I think, in Osteen's doctrine or theology. First and most important, I think, is a deformed view of the sovereignty of God. God is presented in your best life now as waiting upon and serving the needs of men. According to Osteen on page 38, God wants to make your life easier. He wants to give you his favor. so that you can achieve particular things in your life. And that was a very important theme in the book. Osteen believes that he has God's favor and that those he is writing to can somehow achieve God's favor. And the illustrations he uses to illustrate, to describe what it means to have God's favor include things like When you drive into a full parking lot, if you have God's favor, then you can find a parking space right at the front of the lot. If you're waiting in the airport, if you have God's favor, you can receive an upgrade on your air flight and sit in first class rather than in coach. He tells the story of a family who got their child into a particular preschool, even though their child was too young to meet the school's age requirements. He says, the favor of God can cause people to make exceptions for you. And of course, that's problematic because he pictures God bending the rules to serve People, again, man-centered. In fact, I think this is problematic for Joel Osteen. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the rest of his ministry, because what it does is place him above the rules. It makes him the exception by saying that he has God's blessing. In fact, in your best life now, man is presented as more powerful than God. One of the things that's repeated over and over again is that we can limit what God can do by not having the right kind of vision or positive attitude for our lives. On page 23, Osteen asks this question, Are you limiting God? When he talks about overcoming your past on page 144, he even says, You may even need to forgive God. And that's interesting. When he talks about forgiveness, he doesn't talk about man needing to seek the forgiveness of a holy God because of sin. No, he says men may need to forgive God. What's the implication of that? The implication is that is that God is a sinner, that God has done wrong. And that is really a blasphemous assertion, although he Tries to, I think, hedge this teaching a little bit, like, for instance, on page 195, he says, God is not like an ATM machine. It's hard to avoid that very image as Osteen's image of God, God as an ATM machine, God as our cosmic bellhop who is just waiting to do our bidding. That is so different than the biblical vision. You wonder if Osteen has ever read Isaiah? Has he read the book of Job? Has he read the places that talk about God's sovereignty? Contrast what Osteen says with Daniel chapter 4 and verse 35, where it says, all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He, that is God, Does, according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done? Does O.C.' 's picture of us being able to limit God fit with scripture? No, it doesn't. Second, deformity. I think he has a deformed view of man. This deformation begins with an overconfidence in the ability of man. Your best life now presents a man-centered, again, power of positive thinking kind of philosophy of life. At one point, Osteen exudes, quote, get rid of that small-minded thinking and start thinking as God thinks. Think big. Think increase. Think abundance. Think more than enough. He continues and says, if you dwell on positive thoughts, your life will move in that direction. He continually repeats, stay focused on the positive things. And he assures us on page 118, God works where there is an attitude of faith. And here, under this point, we see his teaching given the most evidence of the influence of the word faith movement. If one can envision a certain future outcome for his life, then it will come about. God is obligated to do the things we envision, according to Osteen's philosophy. Of course, the question is, does this fit with the biblical picture of man? Does man have this kind of power? And I think certainly that is not the biblical picture of man. It is not that God conforms to our will. But we are to be conformed to God's will. Let me go to point number three, the third deformity, which dovetails and fits and parallels with the deformed view of man. And that is a deformed view of the doctrine of sin. In fact, the word sin is largely absent from this book. You may defend Osteen by saying he's talking to secular people, unchurched people who would not understand the concept of sin. But I think the problem is much deeper than that. He talks about man's flaws, about mistakes, about weaknesses, about shortcomings, about imperfections. But he never talks about sin. He never talks about man's inability, man's unholiness before a holy God. Osteen seems to believe in the unspoiled basic goodness of man. And he ignores scripture's witness to the fatal impact of sin. Contrast what Paul said in Romans 7 18. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. A power of positive thinking view does not comport well with a biblical view of the sin of man. A fourth deformity, a deformed view of faith and salvation. The word faith, as used in your best life now, seems to me to be a completely different concept than the biblical definition of faith. Faith in your best life now is not presented as having a fundamental trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not confessing Jesus is Lord. Faith is presented as confidence in the things that God will do for me. Again, so man centered. Faith is the confidence of what God will do for me. At the beginning of the book on page 11, he says, my question is this, will you believe? Will you allow that seed to take root? End quote. Later, he says on page 33, quote, God works by faith. You must believe first and then you'll receive, end quote. But what he means by that when he says you must believe or will you when he asked, will you believe? He's not saying, will you believe in Jesus as Lord? He's saying, will you believe that God will accomplish good things for you? He doesn't call men to believe in Jesus. He calls men to believe in themselves. There is an absence in this book. And again, I know it's not a systematic theology. I know it's not a life of Jesus, but he claims to be talking about what it means to have a relationship with Christ. There is an absence of any serious reference to the life and ministry of Jesus. including his death on the cross, his resurrection, or any reference to the preaching of the gospel or what the gospel is. On the very last page of the book is an afterword The book does offer a very superficial evangelistic plea that is extremely man centered. It says, you know, you can give quick mental assent and you can you can make Jesus Lord. But outside of that, there is there is no conventional explanation interaction with the biblical gospel. Fifth, fifth deformity, a deformed view of scripture. Maybe this is the place we should have started at because all the other deformities, of course, flow from here. Ostensibly, again, in their statement of faith, they affirm that Scripture is without error, but there is certainly not a clear understanding of Scripture expressed by Osteen. The broadcast I watch, and apparently this is a common thing that's done at every broadcast, Before Osteen spoke, he had all the people there in the arena lift up their Bibles, and they joined in saying this mantra. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God. I boldly confess. My mind is alert. My heart is receptive. I will never be the same in Jesus name. Now that with that starting, I think, well, maybe he does take scripture seriously. Maybe he does really want people to understand that we are who the Bible says we are. That is desperate sinners in need of a savior. And yet I don't think that's what he would intend with that statement. Osteen has a view of Scripture, it seems to me, that is completely separate from a grammatical, historical reading of the text. What he relies on are superficial proof texts of Scripture. There is no meaningful exegesis of Scripture. What he offers are kind of greeting card style quotations that are wrenched out of the context of Scripture. And he uses these to support points that have absolutely nothing to do with their original intention. And so his sermon texts are a string of isolated quotations. If you go online and look, you'll often list two or three or four verses from different parts of the Bible, often from the Proverbs, just taking them out of context and using them to support his power of positive thinking philosophy. He likes to use the message a lot. There's no sense of trying to deal honestly with the original intention of Scripture. Let me just take one example. On page 75, Osteen quotes Matthew 9, 29 through 30, the story of Jesus healing two blind men. And he uses the quote, according to your faith, be it done unto you. His interpretation of that is, quote, those men believe God could do something spectacular in their lives and they receive their sight, end quote. But again, what is the point of the story? It's not about faith in what God can do for you. It is about the power of faith in Jesus Christ. It is about the power of Christ miraculously to open blinded eyes. Jesus is presented as the object of faith. It's not that the deed is done for the ones healed. They are not the object of faith. Jesus is the object of faith. And that would be just one example. We could go we can list many, many, many, many misunderstandings of Scripture. Six deformity, I think a deformed view of discipleship. The words discipline, disciple, discipleship are largely absent. There's little said about prayer, about Bible reading and study. About fasting, there is no discussion of self-denial and separation from the world. Think of what Jesus said in Luke 9, 23. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. There's no critical reflection about whether or not some of the things that you want from God or want in life might actually be holy and right and just things to desire. There's no talk about denying yourself for Christ. What Osteen presents is a hyper-individualized and privatized view of life and of Christianity. There is little mention of community and church within the book, certainly no mention of commitment, of membership, of responsibilities and privileges. In fact, it seems to me that the Lakewood Church is essentially there to serve as a trophy for Osteen's own success. I'm not even sure that the people who attend the meetings or who watch this broadcast on TV understand that really what they're contributing to is not a church by the biblical definition, but what they are contributing to is basically just a trophy of Osteen's own success. How does he know that he has God's favor? Because he has so many people coming to hear him, because he has so many people watching him on TV and people are falling into a trap because they don't understand what a biblical church is supposed to be. And they're taking this golden calf church in place of the real thing. They're taking a golden calf view of God rather than the real thing. A Sabbath deformity, a deformed view of the present existence and the future hope. The title of the book, I think, is not accidental. Your Best Life Now. Well, from a Christian perspective, our best life is not now. Of course, we want to begin living the abundant life here on earth. But our best life cannot be achieved now. The technical term for this error is an over-realized eschatology. You know, no false teachings, no errors, it seems, are new. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, there's nothing new under the sun. And if you go back in Paul's letters to Second Timothy, chapter two, verses 17 and 18, Paul described an erroneous teaching in the early church. It was being promoted by two men called Hymenaeus and Philetus. And in Second Timothy, two seventeen in eighteen, Paul wrote, and their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort who had strayed concerning the truth. saying that the resurrection is already past and they overthrow the faith of some. Now, I think Osteen's error is very similar to that of Hymenaeus and Philetus. They apparently were saying that the resurrection, the general resurrection had already taken place and that believers could have a kind of a full and abundant life as will be enjoyed at the resurrection. And essentially, in some ways, Osteen is saying something similar, that Christians can have this super triumphant living where we get all the best parking spaces and we get all the best favors that God can give us in this life. But the biblical view of life is very different. First of all, it's not man-centered, it's God-centered. It's not about what we can get, but it's about serving God. But also the biblical view of the Christian life is that we're here on a brief pilgrimage. Our hope is not in the things that we can achieve in the flesh in this life. Our hope is in the resurrection. I've been preaching in Second Corinthians on Sunday mornings, and I thought of what a contrast Joel Osteen's teaching and the teaching of Paul in his letters, and particularly in Second Corinthians 4.16, where Paul says, Therefore, we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. Paul didn't think his purpose in life was to try to prop up the outer man. The outer man is perishing, wasting away. The inner man is growing and being renewed day by day, longing for the resurrection hope. Osteen has no mention of God's justice, of his wrath, of the coming judgment on the assignment of men to heaven or hell for eternity. based on whether or not they have confessed faith in Jesus Christ. And so what he offers in the end is is a deformed view, really an absent view of both our present existence as believers and our future hope in the Lord. Looking back again on the end of this, we're not here Just to tear down this man and his ministry, I would pray, if he's not saved for his salvation, that he would understand the Scriptures and not teach an unbiblical gospel, an unbiblical understanding of what the Christian life is like. And I think we should pray toward that end and use any influence we have with those who might be watching this program. Indeed, there are many people who are desperate and who are hopeless and who need to hear the good news of the gospel. And my prayer is that they would not settle for any false alternative, including that offered by Joel Osteen.