Sermon Tone Analysis

Folks, this is some strong language here!

It’s not the kind of polite language that you might tend to hear in church.

I think most of us understand what Paul is saying in verse 12.

And if you don’t, you can ask someone after the service without me getting to graphic up here.

Paul feels very strongly about this message of getting the Gospel, right.

Proclaiming the Gospel of Freedom.

And as we go along, I feel myself becoming more passionate about it as well.

This passion was strengthened this past week, as I was freeing up some space in my email inbox, deleting old emails.

I was just about to push the delete button when I spotted a headline in a certain email that read

We’re Experiencing Another Reformation, and Not in a Good Way.

In this article they talked about how Christians in America are moving away from Biblical teaching, not toward.

We are being reformed, but not in a good way.

And they based their findings on a survey that was done by the Barna Group

In this survey, Barna basically asked people whether they agreed or disagreed with certain biblical truths

There were a number of categories, but this one jumped out at me.

Christians from different denominations were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with this statement:

People cannot earn a place in Heaven by being good or doing enough good works:

% Disagree

Catholics: 85%

Mainline Protestant (Lutherans, Prebyterians): 61%

Pentecostals: 49%

Evangelicals: 58%!

If you took a snapshot of the churches in this community and in Iowa City, and you took average people from each church and gathered them together in this room,

Over half of them would possibly think, “Yeah, I think that if you try hard enough and are good enough, God couldn’t help but let you into heaven”.

I believe now more than ever, the Gospel of Salvation and being made righteous by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ must be proclaimed and taught.

Last Sunday, I shared some things that are on my heart as we think about this subject of “getting the gospel right”.

And maybe you had a lot of questions as you left the church last Sunday.

“What does he believe anyway?

Is he saying that anything goes?

Are there no absolutes?

What’s going on here?”

I trust that it is becoming apparent by now that my desire for us is that we deal openly and honestly with heart issues.

It’s fairly easy and straight forward to make rules about how we should live and practice, and mandate that we should follow them

But it’s a much harder thing to ask us to deal with what is in our hearts, and to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us from the INSIDE out.

Too often, I think we have tried to do it the other way.

From the outside, IN.

In other words, if you are disciplined enough, and really teach yourself to live Biblical commands, your heart will follow.

And maybe there is something to that, but generally it doesn’t seem to work.

It sure hasn’t worked very well in my life.

And if it were that easy and straight forward, then why do we still have so many issues and divisions in churches that have pages of rules for folks to conform to?

It’s because the heart is still the heart, and we do what we do because we want what we want.

So, as we think about how does God want us to live, both on a personal level, and as a church

I believe that from this passage that we just read, there are some questions that we can ask ourselves

Does it lay a heavy burden on me? (vs. 1)

For Freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery

Galatians 2:4-5 “4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.”

Honest question: has anyone ever felt that being a Believer, or being part of a church is a heavy burden, almost too heavy to bear.

I wonder how many people have left the church because of burdens that were placed on them which just seemed to heavy to bear.

It happens in Mennonite churches, Baptist churches, all different denominations

It’s called legalism.

And it can happens so subtly, and it can seem so “spiritual” and right

Nobody really wants to be legalistic or find themselves in a legalistic church, but it happens.

A LOT

It can be burdens that others place on us.

Hey, I see you are reading your Bible and it seems like you are really getting into the Word.

yeah

Well, havent you read where it says to do...”this”?

No, I hadn’t noticed that

Oh yeah.

I mean, that’s what really pleases the Lord, if you do…this

And before the Holy Spirit has a chance to show you and teach you about it, you feel a weight placed on you

A weight to do something that you don’t understand, in order to “measure up” some how.

Legalism can be burdens that I place on myself

Expectations to be someone that I’m not.

or excel in areas that I’m not gifted in

Expectations to act in certain ways that make me “acceptable” to God or to others

Paul entreats the Galatians.

He pleads with them: “STAND FIRM! Don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery

“But I thought that following Jesus, being a Christian, was supposed to be a weighty and a heavy thing”

I mean, didn’t Jesus say, “Take up your cross and follow me?”

That sounds pretty heavy and weighty to me

Sounds like we are supposed to be pretty serious about our lives.

Yes, Jesus did say, “take up your cross”.

He did say, “count the cost of being my disciple”

But He also said, Matthew 11:28-30 “28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.””

How can this be?

How can He say, “Take up your cross and follow.

And, my burdens are light?”

It’s because our life in Christ, our relationship with him is one that should be founded on love FOR him.

We’ve talked about this many times

He said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

And in 1 John 5 it says that His commands are not burdensome.

Why, because we LOVE Him.

Church life becomes burdensome, often too heavy of a burden to bear when we focus on obedience

And we don’t teach people what it means to LOVE him.

We say, “Just do this, and your feelings should follow”.

But do we present Jesus who is worthy to be loved?

or a taskmaster who is laying heavy burdens on me?

Very closely related to this question is this next question:

Does it put the onus (responsibility) for your righteousness on me? (vs.

2-3)

Galatians 5:2-3 “2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.”

Paul makes it clear that if you submit to the requirements of the law, even in this one area, Christ will have no value to you

And in doing this, you put the whole responsibility for your salvation and being made right with God, on your own shoulders.

And we think, how silly!

I would never do that!

Yet, it is so easy to do and we find ourselves slipping into this mindset so easily.

Maybe for us it looks like...

Oh, I’m so glad that I’m not as “Liberal” as those folks over there.