Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Probably teh most well known painting by the surrealist Salvador Dali was this work of art taht he called The Persistence of Memory.

(SHOW ART)

This was one of his earlier works actually—he was less than 30 yeasr old—and while probably his best known, it was by far not his most bizarre.

He wanted, along with others who belonegd to the surrealist society, to push back the borders of what we considered as reality.

His whole life was an oddity.

He was named after his brother who dies as a todller the year before he was born, and his mother, while he was still young, took him to his brother’s grave and told him that he was his brother reincarnated.

That was the reality he understood for the rest of his life.

DAli later expressed his thinking about the world this way--

“What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.”

He became very famous and created quite a following by living out such a philosophy.

And with Dali, he always made it clear that his version of reality was a distorted world compared to what the rest of us knew.

Once when he was presenting … He came out dressed in a deep-water diving suit, carrying a cue stick and leading 2 Russian ____ dogs.

Before the speech was over he had to be rescued due to his inability to breathe.

(ORDER?)

That’s fun for an artist.

And for entertainers in general.

Everybody’s favorite pirate, Johnny Depp, once said,

“I try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face.”

Fun.

But what about the rest of us who don’t make $55 Million for pretending to be ____.

For those of us who live in the real world, who don’t get paid insane amounts of money and have the ability to live a surrealistic life—disconnected from the impact of confused living—teh confusion in the world can be a much more difficult thing to deal with!

My confusion happens at places like red lights that are out and a dozen drivers who don’t know what to do, or ___, or ___.

But I’m talking about a deeper and more impacting confusion.

I’m talking about living in a world that seems to be playing by an entorely different set of rules than teh one I lerned while I was growing up.

...

In our series…, relate to the notion that we are in a bizarre place...

But the question inevitably becomes what do I do to deal with all of this confusion?

Our World Can Be a Confusing Place

Ex

Ex

??Quotes here?

And with the constant flow of social media / fake news / etc—creates more polarization (number of posts, number of times “fake news” shows up, congressional reports, etc)

The irony is that mutually exclusive positions continue to gain more forceful arguments and louder, sometimes more violent, supporters

Illinois lady

UGA prof

alt right person?

Killing babies is immoral

controlling what a woman can do is hateful and immoral

the planet is going to die within the next generation

everything is as it always has been

etc

the issue isn’t that we simply disagree about which solution to apply to the problem—its that we don’t even see the same problem.

It’s like we’re not even looking at the same facts.

Maybe Dali was right.

Maybe the world is just crazy.

In fact, ours is not the first culture to experience confusion.

It’s been going on for a long time.

In fact, most cultures have to deal with it sooner or later.

the fact that our culture is confused is not news to you.

What may be less clear is where the confusion comes from.

Isaiah

Ahab

Wrestle not agains...

god of this world

other thing

Social Confusion is Often a problem of Spiritual Deception

AHAB story...

The power of spiritual deception is that it creates a convincing, culturally preferred alternative to the truth.

three principle concerns-

False narrative

False confidence

False

False enemy (this is the big deal)

False alternative--

cf here—that’s not really what God said...

in US—every 20th C national dysfunction first needed a softening of our hold upon some truth from God that we began to consider as passe

CF Harvard purpose statement, then and now

concern for words that feel uncomfortable

in this nation where offensive is worse that [fantasy], and the discomfort is worse than denial, we blunt the truth

So concerned we will hurrt ourselves with honest words that we prefer to blunt the edge of truth rather than risk being discerned / cut by it

Cf

*** The power available to Ahab was not the power taht was desireable to Ahab

*** Available truth was not desireable truth

The problem with this spiritrual deception that makes its way into [social action] is twofold

1- the ruin that follows for the people who are led by it (must see this—deceptive spirit doesn’t need to speak everyone—just to the ones who have the ear of the one who will lead the way—the devil only needs to get directly involved with the one who will influence the one whose actions will influence the many

*** that trend hasn’t changed

Cf schemes

The weakness that plagues the believers

Cf James—wisdom from above…from below...

“God gave you common sense didn’t He?” NOOOO!!

If you got any kind of sense from God at all, it was far better than common!

*** Problem—dilemmas created by social—urges us to take it head on

Back to Ahab’s story—who was the adversary most dangerous?

Th threat that he observed was not the real danger that he faced

** It was the lie!

The lie he preferred, not the army (threat) he observed, was the source of his greates harm

Spiritual issues need spiritual responses

THAT’S the [????notes??]—go vack to our own spiritual responses

SO--

Problem 1—culturak results

Problem 2—competing truths?

Everything spiritually good starts w/ God’s love

1cor 13

Message of gospel—God’s love makes you new

NOTE the story of the three characters—we love this transformation—we’re rooting for them—we even see it happening and want to shout at them—LOOK!

IT’S actually happening!

You’re becoming the thing you’re meant to be even as you say it isn’t so!

Fascinating to me how Baum saw a pattern that God Himself notes in this struggle of believers to become the spiritual strong men and women that we are meant to be

1 Tim re spirit fear etc

Notes 3 spiritual characteristics of teh new you—what the new spirit inside you has been born to be