Sermon Tone Analysis

Note: Paul continually brings his readers back to the reality that they must grasp the contrast between what they had been as pagans and what they now were as Christians, between their old and new life, and further to grasp the deeper underlying theological basis for which that change takes place.

“Futility of their minds”

Futility: Pointless, meaningless, useless

The definition of futility is having little or no purpose or importance or has little positive outcome.

An example of futility is getting the outside of your truck washed before taking it off-roading in the mud.

A futile act.

(countable) Something, especially an act, that is futile.

Bertrand Russell: Consequences of Atheism

The futility of a life apart from Jesus Christ is illustrated in the life of Bertrand Russell.

Russell was an English Voltaire, Cambridge educated, child of privilege, renowned philosopher and mathematician, and famous for his diamond-sharp intellect.. .

.Russell's powers of analysis were so formidable that one friend called him "The Day of Judgment."

Russell once wrote, "I feel myself so rugged and ruthless, and somewhat removed from the whole aesthetic side of lifeâ"a sort of logic machine warranted to destroy any idea that is not very robust."

But this was not the whole story of Russell's life.

His life was anything but a logic machine in the way he lived.

He was orphaned at the age of three by the death of his parents, and orphaned philosophically at the age of sixteen by his atheism.

His life was a search for a home, for love, and for children of his own.

All his life he was torn between his atheism, his four wives, and many mistresses.

This man who thought of himself as a logic machine wrote:

The root of the whole thing is loneliness.

I have a kind of physical loneliness, which almost anybody can more or less relieve, but which would be only fully relieved by a wife and children.

Beyond that, I have a very internal and terrible spiritual loneliness.. .

.I have dreamed of a combination of spiritual and physical companionship, and if I had the good fortune to find it, I could have become something better than I shall ever be.

Paul points to the way we they were darkened in their way of thinking.

Their empty inward-ignorance in them leads to becoming callous, and unclean.

Over and against the darkness lies the truth in which those who have heard and applied Jesus teaching bear an unwavering testimony to the power of ignorance and error that corrupts where the power of truth liberates and refines the believer.

vs. 17-19 “The Pagan way of life”

1. Don’t walk as if your Adoption is pointless

*Hearts become hardened when they choose to ignore TRUTH.

Note: There are several reasons throughout scripture where someones heart is hardened, however, here it represents a willful hardening of the and a deliberate rejection of the knowledge of God.

Note: The parallel’s of Romans show a habit of mind and interpretation that is both thoroughly Jewish in its evaluation of Gentile lifestyles and heavily influenced by OT Scriptures.

STAGE ONE: Obstinate

Someone who is stubborn, hard to reason with, dog headed.

Definition: Stubbornly refuses to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.

Romans 1:18-32 Ephesians 4:17-19

(1) Hardness of Heart.

(Due to their hardness of heart)

18 ‘Men by their wickedness suppressed the truth’ 18 ‘Due to their harness of heart’

21 ‘Although they new God they did not honor him as God’

28 ‘They did not see fit to acknowledge God’

STAGE TWO: Darkness

(2) Darkness of Mind.

21 ‘They became futile in their wary of thinking 17 the futility of their minds

and their senseless minds were darkened”

22 ‘ They became fools’ 18a They are darkened in their understanding

28 ‘A base mind’ 18b The ignorance that is in them

STAGE THREE: Death or Judgement

(3) Alienated from God

24 ‘therefore God gave them up’ vs. 18 ‘They are … alienated from the life of God’

26 ‘For this reason God gave them up’

28 ‘ God gave them up’

STAGE FOUR: Recklessness

(4) Recklessness of Life.

‘God gave them up to’

24 ‘impurity’ 19 ‘They have become callous and have given themselves

26 ‘dishonorable passions’ up to licentiousness (meaning public indecency of a shameless

27 ‘shameless acts’ kind), greedy to practice every kind of uncleaness.’

28 ‘improper conduct’

29-31 ‘All manner of wickedness...’

SPIRITUAL GANGLIONEUROPATHY

This is a subgroup of peripheral nervous system diseases which specific characteristics, such as the primary and selective destruction of the dorsal root neuron in the spinal cord.

If the ganglia nerves cease to send any messages, the alarm system of the body is gone.

We might think it would be great to have no pain.

But it could mean death.

Many are like this spiritually dead.

No warning system.

Sin with no pain or regrets.

I. THERE CONDITION

THE CONDITION OF THEIR SPIRITUAL GANGLIA

Understanding Darkened - to be Ignorant of the Will of God.

(Romans 12:2, transformation allow us to know the will of God)

Alienated from the life of God - Separated.

(we were all separated from a life with God through the original sin of Adam, Romans 5:12 “Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all have sinned.

1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Blindness of their heart (vs.18) meant a stone harder than marble; petrified.

This is a life so hardened by the world that it has lost the power to feel.

Sensuality, Every Kind of Impurity

Aselgia (Greek) the word here is something so sinful that they do not try to hide sin.

They do not care how much they shock the public, how much they defy decency so long as they can gratify the desires of the flesh.

Ceases to be human and reverts to being no better than a beast.

Continual Lust for More.

(Greedy)arrogant greediness; the person who does not care who they hurt and what method they ust so long as they get what they desire.

II.

PAST FEELING

*Callousness leads to a SEARED heart.

They have not human sympathy for their actions or anything they do, but they are driven by greed and passion of the flesh.

How can a person kill for nothing, make an addict of a friend, lie, cheat, and steal and still live with himself.

Their nerve centers have died.

ANSWERS OF HUMANITY THAT WE HAVE TO ASK “WHY”

Why will men hurt themselves?

Because they do not know the purpose of life - that the body is the temple of God?

Why will people hurt others?

Because they do not know they should love their neighbor as themselves.

Why are marriages falling apart?

Because they have fallen away from the Lord.

'The Last Jedi' Prompts: 'Is There Hope in What We Are Trusting?'

Authentic hope is a hard thing to kill.

In the heart of the one who knows that outcome is not driven by perception or circumstance, hope may just be immortal.

In the 8th installment of the Star Wars saga, Kylo Ren, son of Han Solo & Princess Leia, has embraced the Dark Side of the force and bowed to the power of a Sith Lord named Snoke.

Donned in a black robe and helmet like his grandfather Lord Vader, Ren believes he has crushed the rebellion once and for all.

But Snoke knows better.