Sermon Tone Analysis

Slide - Title slide

ATTN

“I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.”

that’s what Ernest Hemingway said of his life.

How could that be?

He was known for his tough-guy image and globe-trotting pilgrimages to exotic places.

He was a big-game hunter, a bullfighter, a man who could drink the best of them under the table.

He was married four times and lived his life seemingly without moral restraint or conscience.

But on a sunny Sunday morning in Idaho, he pulverized his head with a shotgun blast.

“I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.”

that’s what Ernest Hemingway said of his life.

How could that be?

He was known for his tough-guy image and globe-trotting pilgrimages to exotic places.

He was a big-game hunter, a bullfighter, a man who could drink the best of them under the table.

He was married four times and lived his life seemingly without moral restraint or conscience.

But on a sunny Sunday morning in Idaho, he pulverized his head with a shotgun blast.

Slide - Ernest Hemmingway

Slide - Ernest Hemmingway

But there was another side to Ernest Hemingway that you may not know.

He grew up in an evangelical Christian home.

His grandparents were missionaries and his father was a devoted churchman and a friend of none other than D. L. Moody, the great evangelist.

His family conformed to the strictest codes of Christianity and, as a boy, he was active in his church.

But something didn’t ring true for Hemingway.

While he seemed to embrace all that he encountered, there was a hollow ring in his soul.

It came bubbling out when he went away to WW1 as a war correspondent and observed the death and despair that only war can bring.

His cultural Christianity failed him.

He soured on God and rejected his cultural Christianity.

That’s what we’ve been talking about over the last 2-3 weeks in this series we’ve entitled: The Real Thing.

We are trying to define what it means to really be a disciple of Jesus Christ—to have the “real thing.”

What we’ve discovered is that there is a religion in this country that calls itself Christianity that is simply an expression of American Culture.

In fact, as I have already told you a couple of times, Al Mohler, the president of Southern Seminary says that we are “swimming” in this American, Cultural Christianity and that this “religion” is committed to five basic beliefs:

The Beliefs of Cultural Christianity

· “A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.”

· “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.”

· “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.”

· “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.”

· “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

We also said that this cultural Christianity gets expressed in a few specific ways and that each of those ways has a specific obstacle of faith that keeps them from really connecting with Christ.

Last week we talked about the liberal Christian and saw that, because the liberal Christian fails to understand the nature of the Bible—that it is the God-breathed revelation of God—he fails to believe the necessary doctrines of Christianity that make you a genuine Christ-follower.

This week I want to talk about another expression of cultural Christianity.

Let me introduce you to Danny:

Slide - Man helping

Danny is a great guy.

He’s always stepping in to help his wife with housework and pick up the kids so she can be present at work.

He never misses a single event that his kids are involved in, and other dudes secretly hate him because all the wives wish their husbands were more like him.

By all accounts, he’s a fantastic guy.

When you think of your lost friends, you’d never think of Danny, because honestly, he behaves better than you do.

He’s a better husband and a better dad.

There’s no glaring character flaw.

Unlike people who feel their failure and need for a Savior, you and Danny kind of feel like he’s got it covered.

He seems unapproachable for gospel conversation, because neither of you know how you’d get to the part where Jesus is our only hope.

Quite honestly, you’d be afraid to bring up how lost Danny is to him because he can point to places where he actually lives a more sacrificial life, perhaps, than you do.

You’re afraid that, if you bring it up, he might just begin to point out what he’s doing and what you’re not doing.

So you’d never dare imply that Danny is going to hell.

Still you know what the Bible says.

tells us that if eternal life depends on the good things WE do, Christ died for nothing.

tells us that if eternal life depends on the good things WE do, Christ died for nothing.

NEED

But that’s the tricky part of reaching the Christian moralist.

You have to tell the best guy in the neighborhood that he is lost without Christ.

That doesn’t actually begin with Danny, that begins with you and me.

We cannot be in denial about Danny the Dynamic Dad.

Denial (on our part, not even necessarily his) might be the biggest obstacle to reaching him for Christ.

Now, often these people have an acquaintance with the gospel and might even affirm it’s facts, but if you ask them about going to heaven, they will immediately start reciting all the good things that they have done.

And, in that, they are like most people.

That’s why I want you to listen this morning.

I’ve had enough gospel conversations with people to be able to tell you that, if you ask someone on the streets of Wilson why God is going to let them into heaven when they die, 90% of them will tell that it’s because they have been a “good person.”

That may make us hesitate to share the gospel with them.

Just ask yourself, when most of us meet a guy like Danny:

Do we have a tendency to give him an exception clause because he’s such a nice guy?

Do we rationalize that he’s a Christian because he’s so moral or nice?

Do we mistake Christian morality for saving faith?

If so, are we the judge of who is good?

Or is God?

After all, why did Jesus die?

Was His death meaningless?

If nobody’s perfect, and you have to be “good” to get to heaven, just how good do you have to be?

And who sets that standard?

And here may be the most telling question: Do we believe heaven and hell are real?

If we do, we can’t be in denial about his eternal state.

He is not an exception to God’s declaration that there is no one righteous.

You see, the Christian moralist is lost, but he really may not know it.

He may not be arrogantly denying his sinfulness, he may not know what the Bible really says.

What does the Bible say?

Well, the book of Romans thoroughly explains the gospel.

In chapter one Paul indicts the Gentile pagan for his unbelief and willful rejection of God.

In chapter two, he skewers the proud Jew who thinks that just because he has been given the law, he is righteous even though he cannot and does not keep it.

In chapter three he concludes both Jew and Gentile to be under the judgement of God telling both groups that the wages of their sin will be death.

In chapter four, he presents the way to real righteousness.

It is through faith.

Trusting in Christ makes us right with God, not keeping the law.

Now all of this would have been confusing to the average Jew.

On what basis was a holy, righteous God able to accept a sinful man?

The answer to that question is addressed in these verses.

Read with me beginning in chapter 5, v 6:

6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.