Sermon Tone Analysis

FCF: We may be too passive about our progress.

Main Idea:

Passivity prevents progress

AQ

How do we know if we are passive or not?

We are able to identify the why and how of impeded progress (7-9)

Why? (7)

They were settling for less than joyful obedience

Running refers to progressing or developing positively

They were, after professing faith in Christ, progressing in the faith well.

That is,their progress in the faith was going in a good direction.

Pal was pleased because he believed that God was at work and was being honored through their obedience.

This kind of obedience is not mere conformity.

It is not reluctant or lazy progress.

Joyful obedience as a descriptor of running well is captured by the author of Hebrews:

We see the same word, run from our text in Gal.

here in Heb.

12:1.

And it is clear that our running, that is to say, our living obediently to God is challenging.

It includes casting aside all that could hinder our running (our living for God).

This is hard and grueling work.

But notice how our efforts to live this kind of challenging but good life is described: looking to Jesus.

We look to Jesus as we strive to live for Him in this world.

We don’t look to the world for encouragement.

We look to Christ.

And what does the author of Hebrews say about Jesus?

His obedience on earth certainly included hardship: he endured the cross, despising the shame, but notice what it says in v. : who for the joy that was set before Him.

Joy and hardship both comprised obedience.

For the Galatians to have been running well would mean they were striving with hardship and against sin and anything else that could hinder their progress in the faith.

But it also means doing it all with joy.

Why joy?

Because we enjoy the hardship?

No.

We have joy in running because as we look to Jesus, we know that Jesus:

endured the cross and paid the penalty of our sin

he took the shame of our sin

He rose from the dead and

He’s reigning over us from the right hand of the Father

Yes, our running is difficult but we have an abundance of reason to have joy in it all.

And the Galatians started off this way, but somewhere along the line they began to settle for less than joyful obedience.

They apparently became passive about their running and as a result became vulnerable.

This is the why of impeded progress

But how does it happen?

For the Galatians, they became passive and as a result, vulnerable and that’s when they were hindered by the false teachers from obeying the truth.

So let’s consider the how of impeded progress

How (8-9)

persuasion is a unique word in the NT.

It appears only here.

It’s flattery and cunning.

It’s eloquent manipulation.

The false teachers, as we have noted here several times throughout this series, to the Galatians the false teachers were not obviously false.

They knew they were teaching something that contradicted Paul’s teaching.

They knew that the people of the Galatian churches had come to love Paul.

Had come to love the gospel and love Jesus.

So they needed to persuade the church to believe their message with, I suppose, a careful combination of flattery and eloquence and polite disagreement and charisma.

But notice what Paul makes clear about the Judaizers’ efforts: it’s not from Him who calls you.

This is a common way for Paul to refer to God… the one who calls you.

He referred to God this way in 1:6: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you.

And we need to be careful what we attribute to God.

We need to guard against a pragmatic view of God and what He does and does not do in the world and in our lives.

The Galatians perhaps thought that in light of how persuasive the Judaizers were, they might have thought their teaching reflected what God says.

Do we understand that just because someone may sound impressive or be impressive, at least according to our own standards, that does not mean that what they are saying or doing is the truth.

Just think about one of the key characteristics, in the key quality of Satan himself: deception.

People are deceived because the efforts to deceive are impressive… those efforts are effective.

So when you are are struggling.

When we are enduring hardship.

When we are desperate for God to move in a particular way in our lives, and nothing seems to be happening.

That is often when an effort to deceive us comes our way.

We are vulnerable in those moments, so when we hear something that sounds good, and is close to what we want, we may be tempted to believe it.

But we also need to recognize that not only does the how of how of impeded progress utilize eloquent manipulation it also come by subtle corruption

Notice verse 9: A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Now when it comes to leaven, the Jewish people celebrated a feast once a year in which they ate unleavened bread.

Passover.

The feast that celebrates God’s sparing of His people in Egypt.

Everyone who was in their homes while God’s judgement was being poured out on the Egyptians for not freeing the Jewish people from bondage were spared.

But what was distinct about their homes?

The blood of the lamb.

The blood was the marker for the judgement to pass over them.

It’s not that God did not know what homes His people were in, but His instructions to Moses and his people was to put the blood of a sacrificial lamb on their door posts so they would be spared from death.

And Paul’s point is that the teaching of the Judaizers, which was essentially legalism, had no more right to be among the Galatian church that did leaven had to be in a Jewish household on Passover Eve.

But just a little leaven, just a little corruption leavens or corrupts the whole thing.

We need to be concerned for purity.

Pure doctrine.

Pure theology.

Pure gospel.

But in order to guard against this subtle corruption, we need to know the truth well.

And this may have been more where the Galatians were, we are also susceptible to this eloquent manipulation and subtle corruption when we are not firmly grounded in the truth.

When our understanding of the Bible is rudimentary, that is, limited and basic, our ability to detect eloquent false teaching will be limited.

So as much as anything, our consideration of the why and how of impeded progress and determining if we are being passive about our spiritual growth which is our sanctification, it is a call to be serious students of the Bible.

You know what will be true until we die or Jesus comes back.

We will be busy.

There will always be reasons why we cannot or do not have the time to devote to studying the Bible and meditating on the Bible.

Here, we have in addition to Sunday morning worship service, Sunday School at 9:30 AM on Sundays, ladies bible study on Tuesday mornings, Life Groups on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month, quarterly men’s breakfasts and we are aiming to restart men’s Bible studies on Saturday mornings again.

We have a ministry to students on Sunday nights twice a month.

We have children’s church on Sunday mornings.

And my point in outlining all of that is not to suggest that we all should be involved in everything, but we do have opportunities to learn and grow together.

Priorities.

What we do with our time.

What’s important to us.

We cannot be passive about our sanctification.

About our progress.