Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In September of 1787 Benjamin Franklin was one of the participants in the United States Constitutional Convention that met in the old Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.

The story is told that when the Convention adjourned for the last time and the delegates were leaving the hall, a young woman named Eliza Powell called out, “Well, Doctor?

What have we got?

A republic or a monarchy?”

And Franklin’s famous reply was, “A republic—if you can keep it!”

(Convention and Ratification - Creating the United States | Exhibitions - Library of Congress.

(n.d.).

Retrieved September 19, 2019, from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/convention-and-ratification.html)

It seems to me that something similar could be said about the life of a church and its fellowship.

What do we have here?

What kind of group is this, here in this room?

In 1 Timothy 3:5 Paul compares the church to a family.

Are we a family here at Bethel?

We are a family—if we can keep it.

1 Corinthians 12, Paul compares the church to a body.

Are we a body here at Bethel?

We are a body—if we can keep it.

You see, just like the federal republic that the framers of the US Constitution created, this fellowship that we live in today is not automatic.

It must be looked after.

In fact, we see in the Scriptures that it is indeed fragile.

In the Scripture reading earlier from Revelation 2, we see that the church in Ephesus was in danger of being snuffed out because they had “forgotten their first love”.

Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth was necessary in large part because they were fighting and arguing so badly that they were on the verge of flying apart at the seams.

And the quarrels and personality conflicts between two women in the church at Philippi went so far as to force Paul to call them out in the pages of Scripture itself!

(It makes me wonder—how bad was their fighting that their correction from the Apostle wound up being immortalized for two thousand years??)

The fact is that

We cannot take our church fellowship for granted.

Now, I believe that God has richly blessed us here at Bethel—that there is a real and growing sense that this is a family.

That we are a body that loves one another, that ministers to one another, that looks out for one another and enjoys one another.

But I also believe—from the teaching of Scripture and years of life and labor in local church ministry—that it really is true that at any given time, any given church is six months from a church split.

Beloved, I am not being overdramatic to say to you that it is entirely possible that by March 29th, 2020 this church congregation could be reduced to a fraction of what it is today, our reputation and ministries in Sykesville in tatters, and in six months the people that you love dearly—people you looked forward to seeing and worshipping with today—will be people that you will try to avoid by ducking down a different aisle at WalMart so that you don’t have to talk to them.

If you have been a Christian long enough, you know the kind of pain and heartbreak I’m talking about, because you’ve been there.

You know the kind of devastation and shame that can come out of a church that fights one another to the point where it splits up.

And you might be saying to yourself right now, “No!

There is no way I will let that happen again!

This church is different!

We cling to God’s Word, we feed on good, solid teaching and doctrine, we can’t fall apart like that!”

But when we look at our text this morning, we see that even the churches planted by Paul the Apostle himself were not immune to bitterness, divisions and broken relationships!

In these verses we hear the pain in Paul’s voice as he pleads with the Galatians—pain that’s all too-familiar in our experience: “What happened to your blessedness (happiness)...? How have I become your enemy...?” (v.

16) .

You hear his anxiety over what has happened to them: “I am afraid all the time and energy and love I’ve invested in you was a waste of time!” (v.

11).

“I am at my wits’ end—I don’t know what to do!” (v.

20).

And if this could happen to a church planted and taught and discipled and preached to by Paul the Apostle himself, then surely we cannot be arrogant about our ability to stand!

So what was going on in the Galatian churches that had caused such a change in them?

Remember why Paul was writing this letter: They had abandoned their faith in Jesus alone to save them, and had begun to believe that they could win approval from God by their own good works.

That it wasn’t enough just to believe the promise that God made to save them through Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection—they also had to keep the Ten Commandments and observed the kosher food laws and became circumcised as Jews so that they could earn their salvation.

This is what Paul is talking about in verses 8-10:

Paul is agonizing over the fact that they had begun to embrace legalism instead of grace for their salvation.

And that legalism killed their fellowship with Paul (and with each other.)

That temptation to legalism exists for us as Christians today as well, doesn’t it?

The temptation to be acceptable to God by means of “keeping the rules”.

That legalism usually comes at the end of a sentence that begins, “You’re a bad Christian if you” [fill in the blank].

“go to movies… wear a beard… go dancing… take a drink… have been divorced… ” Or the other side of it is “You’re a good Christian if you [fill in the blank].

“A good Christian gets up early for personal devotions every day… Only reads the King James Version… never ever misses church… only watches Fox News… can find any reference in their Bible in 5 seconds or less…”

Those are the blatant ones—they’re like the big “E” on the eye-chart at the doctor’s office.

But there are more subtle ways that legalism can sneak into our lives, ways that we drift away from resting in the grace of God and start trying to earn God’s favor.

If left unchecked, those small, subtle, “reasonable” rules we put on ourselves and others will grow, taking up more and more room in our hearts until we eventually define our Christianity exclusively in terms of the rules that we keep.

And when that happens in a church, fellowship dies.

What we see here in this passage this morning is that

Our only defense against church-splitting legalism is fellowship grounded in the grace of God.

So the question for us this morning is: How do we keep watch on our hearts to make sure that we are living in the grace of God, and not in the legalism of our own good deeds?

How do we detect the subtle encroachments of legalistic tendencies in our lives?

Now, you’ll remember that Sykesville started out as a mining town—at one time we had a lot of mining families here at Bethel.

One of the greatest dangers in the mines was the heavy, deadly carbon monoxide gas that settled in the shafts—odorless, colorless and invisible, it would suffocate anyone who breathed it.

And so the miners would take songbirds in cages down in the shafts with them—their tiny systems would be overwhelmed quickly, giving the men warning that they were in danger.

(That’s where we get the expression, “canary in the coal mine”).

I believe that this passage provides us with three “canaries”, as it were—three elements of a healthy church that will begin to suffer if legalism begins to seep in.

And when we see these early warning signs in our fellowship it is a signal to run back to the grace of God.

The first warning sign that church-splitting legalism is creeping into our fellowship is in verses 12-15:

I.

The Death of Compassion (Gal.

4:12-15)

We don’t know the exact nature of the “bodily ailment” that Paul was suffering—some say it was directly related to his weak eyes, some say he had some kind of illness like malaria, some say it was his scarred and battered and broken physical appearance from so many beatings and torturings he had suffered (such as his stoning in Iconium in southern Galatia in Acts 14).

But Paul looks back on his first meeting with them and remembers how compassionate they were—they didn’t shun him for being weak and broken, but they treated him like an angel—they loved him the way they would love Jesus Himself!

He says they were even willing to tear their own eyes out of their sockets and give them to him!

But now, he says, “What happened to all that blessedness?”

That compassion that had once characterized them was gone.

They didn’t love like that anymore—the legalism that was poisoning them had killed their compassion!

This is what happens when legalism begins to poison a church:

Legalism says “You pay for your own weakness!”

“You made your bed, you lie in it.”

“That’s what you get for disobeying God!” “You clearly screwed up your life somewhere along the line, that’s why you’re suffering the way you are.”

Legalism drains compassion out of your heart—and when we see that attitude begin to pervade our hearts, when we see that attitude begin to characterize our church life, then that is a sign that our church family is in danger of breaking up!

When legalism takes hold in a church, compassion dies.

“You pay for your own weaknesses, your own failures.”

But

Grace says “My strength for your weakness!”

(v.

15)

Before their legalism took hold and the Galatians were living in the grace of God, they were willing to trade their sight for his blindness!

“I will go blind, Paul, if it means that you will be able to see again!” Beloved, that is what it means to run back to grace in our fellowship.

To look at the weaknesses that we each struggle with and say, “Let me help you—let me enter into your weakness, let me help you carry that burden.

Let me join you in that mess, even if it means I get messy with you!

I will trade my comfort for your distress—I will move out of my place of ease and security and take on your hardship and uncertainty!”

Beloved, that is a church that loves the way Jesus does!

And if we see that compassion beginning to suffer, then it is a warning sign that legalism is seeping in, and it means that we must fly back to the grace of God!

The second warning sign that we see here in this passage is in verses 16-20:

II.

The Death of Unity (Gal.

4:16-20)

Paul looks back in the past and sees how much the Galatians loved him—caring for him and cherishing him as if he were Jesus Himself—and now he has become their “enemy” (v.

16).

He sees that the false teachers are carrying out a classic strategy with the Galatians that we still see today in some religious circles:

This is another sign that the fellowship of a church is in danger of breaking up:

Legalism creates an atmosphere of “us versus them”.