Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Be thankful.

54 weeks ago, I preached in Mark 10 and gave a mini-seminary lesson on chiastic structures in literature, especially the Bible.

A chiasm, as a reminder, is when ideas flow, like a door on a hinge, such that there is a Thought A, a Thought B, and a Thought C (possibly a similar Thought C’), that then connects with similar Thought B’ and concluding with a similar Thought A’.

I could go deeper, but I will spare you a full repeat of that lesson.

I wanted to explain possibly dozens of chiasms in this little book of Galatians, and that in Galatians 5:15-26 I found a possible four chiasms!

Oh, how I wanted to point out similarities between the various thoughts and how God used Paul to connect our own infighting and envy, getting over ourselves, and the goodness of God; how certain works of the flesh correlate with each other!

Instead, I will not gratify my own desires and nerdiness for language and grammar.

I will leave you in the freedom of not being lectured on the intricacies of such things … so that you do not slip into sinful rage against my boring interests.

No, I will just focus on stepping on everyone’s toes, pointing out how sinful our world is and we ourselves can be!

I even admit that looking at the list of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5, I see too much of myself … in all 15 things and things like these.

And, hopefully, as we go through Galatians 5:16-26, you also find the encouragement and freedom we have in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit against our own sinfulness and in His grace.

Who are we gratifying?

There are many things that we want to do.

There are many things that feel good.

Maybe they are not in and of themselves bad, but are they necessarily the things we should be doing.

If we are in church - or even listening online or later - we are probably seeking to live good and godly lives.

A good church - good pastors and leaders - will point out that even as Christians we often fail to perfectly live good lives.

How do I know?

I look at my own life!

I am sure most if not all of you would be willing to admit that you know where, when, and how often you fall short.

Hamartia - the Greek word for sin that literally means “falling short of the target.”

But we do get encouragement from God’s Word, when Paul reminds us in Romans 7 that he, too, fell short:

We are content to live our lives assuming we are living well, but then God’s Law shows us that we consistently fall short.

And before anyone can assume they are doing okay, we are also reminded in Romans 2 that God has written His Law on our hearts.

Our own consciences betray us, knowing what we should or should not do and doing the opposite.

In other words, we are enslaved to our own sinful desires when left to our own devices.

We would rather gratify our sinful, fleshly desires than seek God.

Now, as pastors Scott and Aaron have reminded us the past two weeks, when we are found in Christ we are set free from the confines of the Law.

We are free to choose to please God rather than our own desires.

Paul has now told us twice - in Romans 7 and back here in Galatians 5 - that our flesh keeps us from wanting to obey God, but in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit we are able to fight back, to cast off the yoke of slavery to sin to willingly take the yoke of Christ.

The Law reminds us we can’t measure up, but when our faith is in the So n of God, the Father sees the Son’s faithfulness and empowers us with the Holy Spirit to walk in the same righteous faithfulness of Christ.

But there are many who teach a twisted form of this truth.

The “Gospel” of the Flesh

Some quick definitions and explanations:

Sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality:

Sexual immorality is our translation of the Greek “porneia” - denotes sex outside of marriage, where we get our word for “pornography”.

And as Jesus informed us in the Sermon on the Mount, even lusting is adulterous, so not merely the physical but also the emotional and imagination.

Impurity comes straight out of this, that we taint the marriage bed by pursuing fantasies, personal gratification, or non-husband-and-wife relationships that interfere with marital relationships.

Sensuality also comes out of this, by being tempting to others, dressing for attention (both male and female!) especially in a sexy way, pushing boundaries (“How far is too far?”).

Idolatry and Sorcery, sorcery being the Greek word “pharmakeia”, where we get our word for “pharmacy” - it can mean medicinal research (so not all bad), but it carries the implication of using drugs or magical manipulation to alter reality or our perception of it, i.e. trying to play God by creating new things from nothing or by illicitly combining elements of things.

In other words, putting things before God or playing God, including addictions and trying to do things apart from Him, including seeking eternal life and personal happiness.

Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy:

Enmity and strife are making people enemies by purposefully spreading lies or gossip with the intent of causing harm, thus ...

Rivalries, dissensions, and divisions - purposefully and malevolently seeking to harm others to selfishly get ahead.

“We’re better than they are because ...” The Greek word for divisions is “hairesis” or “heresies”.

People who make up new meanings and teachings to help themselves.

Fits of anger and envy are slipping into rage and desiring harm to others, thinking others have it better off because of special privilege or advantage and therefore need to be taken down a peg.

Drunkenness and orgies go together, as the implication of drunkenness (Greek “methai” - which sounds a lot like our drugs Meth, but while that is merely coincidence it should serve as a good reminder) is one who lives in a perpetual state of being drunk, i.e. an alcoholic or addict, and the word translated “orgies” implies alcohol fueled parties in which anything goes and often does.

When I look at this list and compare my life 16 years ago, I remember thinking reading this in 2007 that my life (as a Christian!) had become all but two things on this list - sorcery/witchcraft and orgies.

Yet, knowing the deeper meanings today, I can see that many of the parties I attended the previous two years fell into this, because we would have hookah mixed with other things or the crazy drink concoctions (sorcery) while having mass make-out sessions (included in the understanding of orgies).

All of this is one of the reasons I understand and appreciate the Parable of the Prodigal Son and God’s grace so much more!

But let’s work through these works in light of what others may teach today:

Our world tries to teach us that “as long as nobody gets hurt, what’s the harm?” (Sexual sins and drunken parties.)

You can be whatever you want - male, female, gender neutral, something else - (just don’t try to be a different ethnicity or conservative white male).

(Sorcery/Magic, sexual sins, and even rivalries and divisions and envy.)

You can have your best life now.

God only wants to give you good things.

We are basically little gods.

People like to point out all of the accounts of abuse in churches, thinking it proves the Church is merely another religion of men trying to control other people.

While a few of those caught in abusive scandals in recent years do look like orthodox preachers who did horrible things, we must realize that a) non-Christians and even the irreligious are at least as guilty as people found doing such things in the Christian churches and b) the vast majority have been caught teaching heresies, man-made doctrines, and/or twisted gospels.

It is an expected sign that people teaching/promoting heresies and such are later caught in abusive behaviors, be they controlling others (often through emotional and spiritual abuse) and/or sexual sins and/or addictive behaviors.

The Hillsong scandals of the past two years: a church that promotes the prosperity gospel and has been associated with known false teachers.

I specifically mean those in the New Apostolic Reformation full of false prophets and apostles, such as the Bethel Church of Redding, CA, group, and the International House of Prayer out of Kansas City.

Why do I mention them?

Sure, they occasionally get a prophecy right and typically have good sounding statements of faith (if they have one), but the vast majority of their prophecies have been wrong.

According Scripture (Deuteronomy 13 and 18, as well as smatterings throughout the Hebrew Bible), it only takes one false prophecy to be a false prophet.

These people and even some historically sound teachers argue that it merely means they attempted to prophecy in their own power, not that they’re false prophets.

This is definitely a heresy (division in our list today), and it is definitely a blasphemy.

They have attributed falsehood to God, what Jesus (in Matthew and Luke 12) calls blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

It is people who teach we need to be doing certain things to be saved or to prove we are saved or to finish our salvation by doing works or making reparations for our sins and the sins of our ancestors.

It is the so-called pastors who twist Scripture to justify their own teachings and lifestyles, saying things like “Jesus never said anything about gay marriage” or “words like homosexuality were added in the past 120 years” or “they were writing to the cultural context of their day only.”

If the changes in society govern how we should interpret Scripture, it would mean it is not the eternal Word of God that it claims to be, that God - who the same Scriptures say does not change - changes with the times, too.

Our fruit, they say, is to admit that love is love and that we need to be tolerant of each others’ personal truths.

Embrace your fruitiness, come out of the closet, and don’t judge!

Jesus said don’t judge, so stop being hypocrites and celebrate our diversity and inclusivity!

Yet, these are the very people who show their fruit by demanding their rights over the rights of others.

These are the people who say they don’t care what God’s Law says, they have their own personal freedom to do what they want when they want.

They may think it is good to have out-of-control protests and riots.

These are the people who say “my body, my choice,” and then attack others - verbally and physically - such as demanding we forfeit our religious rights for their preferences, or deface and damage businesses and non-profits that they disagree with, taking away the choice of others.

(Yes, I am referring to the news of the past week (and two months) of Roe v. Wade being overturned, as well as Pride Month.)

All of these are different gospels, things they those who profess them think are “good news”, but like Paul reminded us (and Pastor Scott in his messages has reiterated) these are no gospels at all.

They are false gospels from false teachers.

They think they have freedom, but they are still slaves to their sinful desires.

I know.

I am being a bit confrontational.

Science and Scripture are actually on our side.

And I can hear some of the rebuttals:

“But aren’t you being divisive with these words?”

“What happened to loving your neighbor?”

“Aren’t you told not to use your freedom in Christ to hurt others?”

And technically these are true, but this is using the same tactics of the serpent in the Garden.

“Did God really say …?” - “Why are you going against God’s Word?” (While they twist it themselves.)

“You will not surely die ...” - “God didn’t really mean what He said.”

“You will be like God ...” - “We have freedom, too!

You are the ones not obeying!”

“Those people” are the ones misunderstanding.

Jesus commanded us to judge rightly, not hypocritically, in Matthew 7, using God’s Word to examine ourselves and each other.

And how do we love others?

By revealing God’s truth, even when it hurts.