Sermon Tone Analysis

Christianity has been feminised in our day.

I don’t mean that men are unwelcome among the churches or that there is overt feminist anger toward men.

What I do mean is that acting manly—accepting responsibility to provide guidance and to build up the penitent, maintaining vigilance while standing firm against wickedness (incipient and blatant), performing difficult tasks without grumbling, protecting the vulnerable and the marginalised—is penalised.

Personal comfort is of greater importance to contemporary saints than is personal integrity.

Ease of life is to be sought rather than fidelity to the Word among modern Christians.

The pulpit is seemingly unwilling to address the emasculated, enfeebled and enervated condition of contemporary Christianity.

Contemporary preaching is anaemic, flaccid, insipid.

Someone has said, quite accurately, I fear, that modern churches demand that their preachers prepare sermonettes for Christianettes—a recitation of pious platitudes that offends no one and threatens only vague phantoms incapable of materialising.

Tragically, the modern sermon may best be described as a bland individual reciting bland statements blandly urging bland parishioners to be more bland.

During the past five decades we witnessed churches making a concerted effort to make the Faith friendly to women; however, those efforts have had the effect of marginalising men by penalising them for being manly.

Consequently, the Christian Faith is suffering a deficit of godly manliness.

When we take seriously the New Testament, we are confronted with a virile Faith that is rejected by most churchgoers today.

The demands of the New Testament are too great to be welcomed by the banal and bored occupants of the modern pew.

What is lacking, and what is desperately required if the churches of this day will again reflect the dynamic faith found among apostolic saints, is a return to manly Christianity.

Such faith is revealed through the encouragement provided in the writings of the New Testament writers.

One such place is found in the concluding remarks the Apostle to the Gentiles penned to the troubled and troublesome congregation of the Corinthians.

There, Paul commanded the believers, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

Let all that you do be done in love.”[1]

*The Urgency of the Commands* — We are prone to forget that this is a letter to problematic Christians.

Only centuries after he had written the letter was it divided into chapters and verses.

I bring up that issue because Paul is speaking about the resurrection.

Then, without pausing he speaks of the giving anticipated as a mark of the worship of believers.

Just as precipitously, he speaks of his immediate plans for service and provides some general instructions concerning his co-workers.

Then, without hesitation, he issues the commands that are our focus in this message.

What should be apparent when reading the final chapters of this book is the urgency characterising the Apostle’s words—an urgency that is absent from much of the preaching in this day.

Whereas much of the preaching in this day sounds almost academic, Paul’s words are energised with earnestness that reveals a singular desire that Christians should excel in godliness.

This intensity is seen throughout all of his letters to the saints.

Consider but a few examples.

In a later missive to this same congregation, the Apostle speaks of his intense desire for the believers to excel in godliness and righteousness.

“I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” [*2 Corinthians 11:2*].

Such language reveals the passion of the Apostle’s heart, and humbles contemporary preachers as we are compelled to confess the deficit of passion for God’s glory in our own service.

The Apostle was not, as so often is the case in this day, a preacher content to say, “Repent, after a fashion, and believe, such as it were, or be damned in a measure.”

To the Ephesian elders he could state without fear of contradiction, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house-to-house, testifying both to Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Shortly after making this declaration, he boldly stated, “I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” [*Acts 20:20, 21, 26, 27*].

This is bold preaching, unlike some who imply to church bosses, “Tell me what you want to hear and I’ll say it!”

Frankly, the Apostle would not be welcome in many of our churches because his message would appear so demanding.

There would be no comfortable pew so long as Paul was preaching.

Listen to other places where the Apostle speaks passionately of his concern for the people of God.

“The appointed time has grown very short.

From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.

For the present form of this world is passing away” [*1 Corinthians 7:29-31*].

Permit me point out the evident urgency of the apostolic message in yet another passage drawn from that same letter.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?

So run that you may obtain it.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.

But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” [*1 Corinthians 9:24-27*].

In the Second Letter to the Christians of Corinth, the Apostle pleaded for active engagement of the Christians with the culture in which they lived, presenting Christ and living wholly for His glory [*2 Corinthians 4:13-18*].

“Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

“So we do not lose heart.

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Consider but a few other instances in his letters where the Apostle spoke of the urgency of the hour.

To the churches of Galatia, he would pointedly write, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” [*Galatians 1:6-9*].

Or, consider the plea issued in the letter we have received as the Book of Ephesians.

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” [*Ephesians 5:15, 16*].

Permit me to point to one final note of urgency found within the letters of the Apostle.

“[God] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me” [*Colossians 1:28, 29*].

Two aspects of Paul’s writings stand out as you read his instructions to the churches: his passion for God’s glory and the urgency imposed by the brevity of time.

Until we recapture that passion and that urgency, modern churches will be a caricature of the New Testament model.

*Five Commands* — There are five commands issued in these two verses.

It is not unusual for the Apostle to include a fusillade of commands at the conclusion of his letters;[2] the commands actually reveal something of the ongoing concern that he had for the people to whom he wrote.

In this instance, Paul is deeply concerned that the congregation possess, for want of a better term, muscular faith.

He is concerned that their faith and practise express virile Christianity.

They were living in the midst of a world that was hostile to the Faith of Christ the Lord and which sought to seduce them from their secure position in the Lord.

The situation was not unlike that in which we find ourselves in this day.

Let’s do a little housekeeping before we actually examine the apostolic commands.

Take note that each of the verbs used in these commands is a present imperative.

The import of this somewhat obscure fact is that Paul is commanding the Christians to adopt attitudes for life.

These are not momentary attitudes that are enjoined upon us as believers in the Son of God; rather, Paul is describing a continuing state that is expected of believers in the Risen Master.

Note, also, the martial theme—the first four commands are actually military orders and the fifth is an overarching direction that is necessary to ensure that the first four are not distorted.

What should be apparent is that Paul is not offering suggestions to ensure that we have a happy life.

It is a general truth that God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life, as presented in a well-known spiritual tract.

However, we dare not imagine that this means that we can ignore the will of God once we have received Christ Jesus as Lord.

I have often said, and I shall undoubtedly say again, either Jesus is Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.

Let me expand that observation to stress the importance of what was just said.

Contemporary Christianity treats God as though He were some sort of a cosmic busboy who always stands ready to satisfy every craving we may have.

The emphasis in modern church life is the happiness of parishioner.

Church members anticipate that they can waltz to heaven without any real commitment to Christ and without any trouble in their lives.

They can participate in the life of the Body if they feel like it, and if their own desires are in conflict with the demands of Christ, well He will just have to understand that we must have time for recreation because we work so hard!

We focus on our comfort rather than on advancing His Kingdom, and God would never interfere in our pursuit of what makes us happy.

However, the New Testament model is considerably different.

Listen to a couple of instances where New Testament Christianity is presented.

“Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you” [*2 Timothy 1:8-14*].

Soon after writing these stirring words that demanded the utmost of Timothy, the Apostle wrote: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal.