Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

You ever heard of the book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball?

I had not either until I was working on this message.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to try to “wax eloquent” on the revolutions you can do around feline fur.

No, I’m more interested in what the book said than I am in its title.

You see it was written by Gordon Mackenzie.

For more than 30 years, Gordon Mackenzie worked at Hallmark, eventually convincing the company to create a special title for him: "creative paradox."

Along with challenging corporate normalcy at Hallmark, MacKenzie did a lot of creativity workshops for elementary schools.

And those workshops led to a fascinating observation that he shares in his book.

MacKenzie would ask the kids upfront: "How many artists are there in the room?"

And he said the pattern of responses never varied.

In the first grade, the entire class waved their arms like maniacs.

Every child was an artist.

In the second grade, about half of the kids raised their hands.

In the third grade, he'd get about 10 out of 30 kids.

And by the time he got to the sixth grade, only 1 or 2 kids would tentatively and self-consciously raise their hands.

All the schools he went to seemed to be involved in "the suppression of creative genius."

They weren't doing it on purpose, but society's goal is to make us less foolish.

As MacKenzie says, "From the cradle to the grave, the pressure is on: Be normal."

I could embellish that.

You see, “be normal” really means be like everyone else.

Don’t be excellent, just be good enough.

Jim Collins made the saying famous.

Three simple words made up the title of his landmark business book.

The three words?

“Good to Great.”

He begins chapter one writing:

Good is the enemy of great.

And that is one of the key reasons why we have to little that becomes great.

We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools.

We don’t have great government, principally because we have good governement.

Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.

The vast majoirity of companies never become great, because the vast majoirty become quite good–and that is their main problem.

And you could apply the same thing to the church.

We don’t have great churches because we have good ones.

We don’t have great disciples because we have some “good” ones, at least in the way we define good.

The bottom line is most people settle for mediocrity in their lives.

We sacrifice greatness on the altar of “good enough.”

NEED

Know any “good enough” Christians?

I bet you do!

These are the believers who are in love with religion and not with God.

You hear it in their vocabulary.

Ask them if they know the Lord and they’ll start talking about going to church.

Ask them if they are led by the Spirit, and they’ll start talking about good deeds.

Ask them about sacrificial living and sacrificial giving and they’ll start about the $10 they put in the plate every month, or even about the 10 percent they give occasionally.

They’re caught up in religion, but they’re not captured by the reality of God.

They think they’re good, but they aren’t great.

They are good enough Christians.

Know any good enough unbelievers?

I know you do!

These are the people who think they can get to heaven just because they’re good enough.

The Bible very clearly divides humanity into two categories.

There are the lost and the saved.

There is God’s family and there is the devil’s family.

There are those who have God as their Father, spiritually speaking, and there are those who have Satan as their father spiritually speaking.

Yet these “good enough” unbelievers want to create a third category.

They will say things like, “I know I’m not a sold out Christian, but I’m not a bad person.

I’m not in the devil’s family.

I’m not great, but I’m good enough.

Now the question today is this: How does a person get out of goodness and into greatness?

How do I stop settling as a Christian?

How do I stop lying to myself as an unbeliever?

How do I go from good to great?

Paul answers that question in Phil 3:7

7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.

8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Paul, in essence, says, “Good will never be good enough for me.

I want to know Christ.

That is the excellent thing.

That is the great thing and that, my friend, is the one and the only thing that can squeeze the mediocrity out of your life and make you great.

The question is, how do you get to know God like that?

How do you come to the place that you move from good to great as a Christian?

Well, you have to overcome some obstacles that keep you mediocre.

There are some roadblocks to spiritual greatness.

Paul discusses them here as he gives his own testimony.

The first roadblock is the roadblock of:

DIVISION 1 STATEMENT: RELIGION (YOU CAN BE SPIRITUALLY GREAT WHEN YOU OVERCOME THE ROADBLOCK OF RELIGION.)

EXPLANATION

Now here in Philippians 3, Paul, was writing to a group of Christians who were being intimdated by those who claimed that they had to be circumcised in order to be right with God.

They were telling the Philippians that the only way to be spiritually great was to submit to a ritual that didn’t even matter anymore.

They were urging the Philippians to settle for outward symbolism . . .

for religious conformity, if you will, instead of seeking the reality of the presence of Christ.

They were doing this because they believed that only through the practice of circumcision could someone really know God.

Paul counters their heresy in these verses.

He writes in v 1:

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.

For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.

Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,

Now the great Apostle Paul calls a spade a spade here.

He says, “Beware of the dogs.”

Not a flattering title!

He calls these subversive people dogs who opportunistically prey on the unsuspecting.

But he goes further.

He calls them “evil workers.”

There is no equivocation.

He doesn’t hedge his bets nor try to “thread the rhetorical needle.”

He calls them evil.

Then he says, “beware of the mutilation.”

He uses the term mutilation to describe circumcision.