Sermon Tone Analysis

Spiritual Fruit and Fleshly Works

16 I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

These are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 Now the works of the flesh are revealed, which are these: adultery, sexual immorality, impurity, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, rage, selfishness, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.

I warn you, as I previously warned you, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 meekness, and self-control; against such there is no law.

24 Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.I.

Introduction.

If Happiness could be distilled, and somehow bottled.

I promise you, I gaurantee you: One ounce of happiness would be far more costly than an ounce of Gold!

People spend vast sums to secure houses and lands, their own personal island, megayachts that sit idle but for a few weeks a year.

Vast fortunes in cryptocurrency!

Stuff and more stuff that does very little for the inner man.

But how many would give it all away for the peace in this room right now?

There is such sadness in our world.

Much pain, and little peace.

A patient complaining of melancholy spoke to his doctor and therapist, who consulted together at length.

Finally they approached him with this advice:

“There’s nothing physically wrong with you: What you really need is some amusement!

A good laugh will be far better for you than any perscription!”

“Tell you what, there’s a famous comedian in town this week.

He’s really good!

Now tickets are sold out, but I’m gonna pull some strings and get you in.”

“No thanks said the patient, I am the comedian.”

Folks, people are not happy.

This emotional pain, this spiritual pain of unhappiness, loneliness and discouragement is the default setting of all humanity ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.

I mentioned Marilyn Monroe the other day.

The very personification of beauty, happiness, and glamour according to the world.

Always the winning smile.

You know, I feel so sorry for her.

I really do.

It seems as though nobody was ever interested in the real, actual person that she was.

What were her most creative thoughts?

What was the thing most noble thing that she ever did?

The world doesn’t know, and the world doesn’t seem to care.

The world chewed her up and moved on.

Did you know that wasn’t even her real name?

Or at least is wasn’t her birth name.

Home life was not good.

Her Mother and two grandparents were eventually committed to mental institutions.

Married to a neighbor at 16, she was working in a munitions plant when she caught the eye of a photographer.

Then after the initial fame and the failed marriages, the last movie she worked on, fired her for extended absences.

“You’re fired!

Get it together will ya?”

And while the world says one thing, this sad person, this eternal soul, made in the image of God, more valuable than all the money in all the world, is desperately lonely, lost, confused and wounded in spirit.

Hollywood doesn’t sell a person as they are.

Notice how they create a narrative and that’s what they sell?

Plastic, smoke, mirrors.

But beneath all of that God loves the person!

The eternal soul of man!

Not for anything they can offer!

But simply because each of us, no matter our faults, is a child of God.

Did you know that a certain evangelist visited Marilyn after she presented a show.

You’d all know his name if I said it.

He said that the Lord had sent him to her to give her the gospel.

After hearing what he said, she responded, “I don’t need your Jesus.”

A week later, they found her dead in her apartment.

She was 36 years old.

Such Sadness this world, such Despair.

Back when High-rise buildings had windows you could open, one captain of industry flung himself from his Grand Manhattan office, falling to the street below.

The note he’d left on his desk read: “I am wealthy by the millions, but I am desperately poor in spirit.”

And so they are… Poor in Spirit.

But thank you Jesus, we know the cure!!!

I hope I’m preaching to an Apostolic church today!

Cause you have the answer!

You know His name!

We know how to help the hurting!

We’ve got solid answers for Sonoma county today!

And here it is:

If you really want to be happy, you need the Holy Spirit!

You don’t need to waste your body and your money and your youth on coping mechanisms!

Folks will tell you it’s a sickness, that the destructive behaviors are illnesses.

And what that does is make it so that the individual is not accountable for their actions.

I don’t buy it folks!

Why don’t we just call a spade a spade?

Right is right and wrong is wrong and sin is sin!

But where there is sin, Much more did Grace abound!

He can wash that sin away!!!!

Repent!

Come clean already, to the God who forgives

Baptism in Jesus Name is what this world needs!

You don’t need to try and manage a sin problem, Let Jesus fix it!

Those things that pollute the souls of mankind, Jesus can wash all that out and set you free!

Sonoma County:

You don’t need to self-medicate!

You don’t need that bottle!

You do not need another empty, shallow relationship, with another selfish, hurting person who can’t help you!

Stop wasting your years!

What you need, is true joy!

You need a little peace in your home!

That self loathing that robs you of contentment, trade it for confidence toward God!

A life not yet committed to Christ is a hard life to live!

It’s like an engine that is hot! there is friction!

This cannot go on for long until something blows!

But Jesus is that smooth oil that fills all the empty spaces!

His grace removes the friction!

His Mercy takes out the heat!