Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

It is said that Charles Spurgeon once said, “I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit.

The habit of regular morning and evening prayer is one which is indispensible to a believer’s life, but the prescribing length of prayer, and the constrained remembrance of so many persons and subjects, may gender unto bondage, and strangle prayer rather than assist it.”

While rules and regulations are important for society, rules and regulations can severely dampen the life of a Christian.

The rules and regulations become the standard by which we are supposed to live live in order to “prove” we are truly saved because we don’t was to be seen by others as being a hypocrite when in fact if we set down rules and regulations, we will never be able to maintain that particular standard of living for very long.

The reality is, we are broken people that live in a broken world, and trying to maintain a set of moral standards that shouldn't have existed to begin with tends to zap the life out of us.

They serve as a remind of just how fallible we as humans are, and it becomes discouraging.

Maybe you have been a Christian most all of your life, and you don’t remember life before salvation.

Maybe you have not been a Christian all of your life, and you can remember life before coming to know Christ.

Perhaps, you are at a point in life that nothing seems to go right and every day is a struggle, and the joy of life is gone.

There are many reasons why we become less happy and more jaded along this path we call life.

In our text this morning, Paul makes a transition from being adamant to the Galatians about defending the Gospel’s purity to a tone of concern.

It would appear there was an attitudinal shift with the Galatians.

This was probably because they had been corrupted with a false teaching of maintaining their salvation according to the code of law.

Paul had already stated that if they didn't keep any one particular point of the law then they would become guilty of violating the entire law, then he goes into explaining what the true purpose of the law was for and that was to serve as a reminder of God’s standard of living and that apart from faith alone in Jesus Christ that not a one person would be able to keep the law.

Now, he enters in a section that he is going to encourage and exhort the Galatians to return to grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ in order to return to the joy they once had.

While there is no theology in this passage, there are some valuable lessons we can learn from the text in regard to true happiness, and when we feel like we have lost that happiness, we can be assured that if we truly have Christ dwelling inside of us, we can be happy knowing we have the truth through any trials of life.

Remember the happiness you first had when you met Jesus.

Exegesis:

Paul opens the passage with some very strong emotional terms.

This tells us, he is appealing to the readers on a very personal and intimate level.

He says, “Brothers, I entreat you...”

He has now gone from calling them “foolish” earlier in the letter to now calling them brothers, but we must also look at the next term: “entreat.”

This is a very emotional term.

Paul is begging with the Galatians now.

What is he begging them to do?

He says in verse 12, “become as I am.”

This is an imperative sentence, and gives us the idea of being a command.

He says, “become as I am, for I also became as you are.”

What does that even mean?

The word for “become” is “ginomai” and denotes a complete identity change.

What did Paul become?

He became free from the bondage of the law through his encounter with the risen Christ, so I believe Paul is encouraging the Galatians to return to what truly makes a person happy and that is being free from living up to a certain set of standards that are never going to be attained.

Paul reminds the reader of the circumstances that brought him ta Galatia in the first place.

Something happened to him that was probably a physical ailment that caused him to stop in Galatia which was not originally on his missionary itinerary.

Whatever it was, many commentators presume that it was something that when a person looked at him that would cause them to be taken back by his appearance, and the Galatians welcomed him warmly, and as Paul writes, “as an angel of God, and Christ Jesus.”

Bridge the gap:

Life happens.

It can get in the way of plans.

It can become frustrating.

I am not telling any of you anything new, but it’s how we react to those trials is what defines us.Think back for a moment to the time you first became a Christian.

For some of you that may have been since early childhood, and for others that may be in the not too distant past.

For those that have been a believing Christian since childhood, think back to when the gospel really took hold of your soul and you realized that life change deep inside you.

Do you remember the joy you felt?

Do you remember the zeal you had for Jesus and the desire to share that life changing message with others?

Trials of life tend to wear us down, and those trials never stop.

As we grow in Christ, the trials and tribulations can get pretty bad at times.

Sometimes, we must think pretty hard about how happy we were at the beginning of our Christian walk.

Recall what caused you to become unhappy/disillusioned

Exposition:

Paul then poses an introspective question to the Galatians.

He asks, “what then has become of your blessedness?”

The word used for blessed here means happy.

It is the same word that Jesus uses in the beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, and this root is used at least 48 times in the New Testament, so Paul is basically asking, “what happened to your happiness?

Where did it go?”

Like most new Christians, Paul points to the fact that they would have sacrificed anything for Paul, including their eyes, and now they are no longer characterized by that sacrificial spirit of giving.

Bridge the gap:

What characterizes your life right now at this moment?

Are you satisfied in the Lord, or is your life of faith characterized by cynicism?

Are you as happy and joyful today as you were when you were first saved?

Was there a turning point that caused that change?

What has you disillusioned with your faith?

Life is full of trial and tribulations, Jesus was very clear that the life of a Christian was not going to be easy:

Jesus promised that through Him we can overcome anything through our faith.

What has caused you to lose that spirit of sacrifice to others?

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Is your life characterized by sacrifice to others?

What are you willing to give up so that others may see the joy of Christ in you?

When we take up our cross and we make sacrifices for others, we are not only making them out of love, but as an act of worship toward God.

Too many times we get caught up in the “thou shall nots” of religion that we fail to stay focused on what truly matters and that is living for God’s glory through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Living by man’s set of expectations causes us to burn out on the Christian life, and that becomes a burden for us that weighs us down.

When we experience trials and tribulations, when we go through rough spots in our lives, we must always remember that it’s not always because we have sin in our lives.

We will always have that hanging about us, there are sometimes, that its just simply because we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world.

Return to the truth of God’s Word

Exposition:

Paul then asks the Galatians, “have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?”

Paul is a defender of the gospel, and to the Galatians, he was adamant about the purity of the gospel.

He did not want to see it corrupted by a set of false teachings and legalism.

The Judaizers would woo their converts by giving them compliments and making a big deal about their “progress” in relation to the guidelines of the law.

Basically what it became was a bunch of ego stroking and making each other feel good so they could take credit for the supposed progress of those Christians under their care.

They did all that in an effort to alienate the Galatians from Paul and the others that were teaching the true gospel.

Paul then affirms that it’s ok to be made a big deal of if it is for a good purpose and not for purposes other that ultimately glorying God.

Paul then ends that sentence with, “and not only when I am present with you.”

This shows the character of what true Christianity is.

How do we behave when other Christians aren’t around?

Bridge the gap:

Paul had already addressed an issue with Peter’s behavior when the Judaizers started showing up.

He had already been seen eating and fellowshipping with the Galatians until they started showing up, and he started to withdraw from them and separating himself from the gentile believers for fear of being scorned by his buddies.

Do our lives reflect the truth of God’s word all day every day?

When you come to Church and shout “amen” do you go home and shout the same things, or do you go home and never crack open your bible to draw closer to God or bow your knees in prayer to talk to God?

Is there a double life going on somewhere?

That will sap the joy out of life quickly.

Being two people will never last.

When we are around other Christians do we put on our “Sunday face” so they don't see how we truly are?

Do we talk a big game about how we are obedient in all aspects of our lives so that others will look at us with admiration?

Do you go around looking for the faults in other Christians and call it “holding them accountable?”

How do you really handle seriously errant Christians?

We must not be hesitant to handle errant behavior and beliefs, but we must take great care to not be condemning of other for things they may or may not be doing.

What about non-Christians?

Do you tell them what they should or should not be doing, or do you SHOW them how life is to be lived?