Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

By now, most of you have probably heard about the Great Thompson Van Fire of 2019.

On the way home from homeschool co-op one day last spring, our trusty Kia Sedona suffered a major heart attack, flinging fragments of the rods and pistons through the engine, slicing the starter neatly in half and punching a hole straight down through the oil pan, releasing hot oil that caught fire as it came into contact with the manifold.

(Selah and Lizzie will be happy to recount the harrowing events of the day for you if you want!)

But the part of the story that you may not have heard is that we had had the van into the shop at least two other times before the catastrophic failure in the parking lot of the Brookville Fireman’s Club.

Over several weeks the engine had been developing an odd rattle that seemed to be getting worse as time went on.

The first time the mechanic removed some loose guards under the transmission, which seemed to account for the noise.

But the problem returned, and we found ourselves going back in again—this time they suspected some kind of timing issue with the transmission, which was checked and was fine.

As it turned out, the problem wasn’t in the transmission or the undercarriage shielding—there had been an internal oil leak that had gone out through the catalytic converter—which burned it all up so efficiently that there were never any signs of burning oil that would have alerted us to the problem in time to fix it!

(Needless to say, we check the oil in our vehicles a LOT more regularly now!)

But that sort of thing can happen to us a lot—we think we’re fixing the problem, but there’s another problem underlying the problem we think we’re fixing!

And unless we properly understand the underlying problem, none of the other “fixes” will ultimately make any difference.

The Apostle Paul wrote the book of Galatians to address the deadly apostasy that was gripping the churches—they were turning away from the grace of God in Jesus and trying to make themselves righteous by their own good deeds of the Law.

And in the past few weeks we have seen that one of the most devastating effects of that legalism is the self-centeredness it creates.

If you are trying to make yourself “good enough” for God by your deeds, then your focus has to constantly be on yourself.

And that selfishness will poison your relationships with other people in the church—that is why we have been hearing Paul warning the Galatians to stop “biting and devouring one another” (5:15).

And through the last half of Chapter 5 through the beginning of Chapter 6 (that we saw last week), Paul is laying out for the Galatians what a church that is led by the Spirit should look like.

Instead of following the Law of the Flesh (“my life over yours”), Paul says that we are to follow the Law of Christ (“My life for yours!”)

Instead of being harsh and proud and blaming others for our spiritual shortcomings, we display Christlike gentleness, humility and honest responsibility before God for our lives.

So Paul is calling the Galatian Christians to address the destructive effects of selfish legalism through Christlike selflessness.

But even here we have to think carefully, because--just like that rattle in the van that we “fixed” twice before it blew up--it is possible to be “selfless” in a selfish way! (C.S. Lewis once described a woman who “lived for others”—and you could usually tell the “others” by their hunted expressions!)

We can be “sowing to the Spirit” in such a way that we are actually taking pride in our selflessness!

You can be “fixing” the rattle of selfishness in your life in such a way that you are ignoring that underlying pride—and that spiritual pride in our selflessness can be every bit as destructive as our fleshly selfishness!

Jonathan Edwards once said that “Pride is a great obstacle to the entrance of spiritual light into the soul”.

And here is what Paul is showing us this morning in these verses:

We cannot be filled with the Spirit if we are full of ourselves!

We saw last week that Paul warns us against being “conceited”—the word in Greek literally means “empty glory” (KJV, “vainglory”)— “thinking we are something when we are nothing” as Paul puts it verse 3.

So as we are learning to fulfill the selflessness of the Law of Christ (“my life for yours”)—as we are learning to lay down our lives for one another as Jesus did—we see here that we need to guard against this “empty glory” of becoming proud of our selflessness!

And the thing is, it can be really hard to diagnose the presence of that “empty glory” in our lives—how do we know we are simply being “selfless” and not being proud of our selflessness?

One author made the distinction like this: When you are “waiting patiently” for someone, you usually don’t notice you’re waiting patiently!

If you think to yourself, “Wow, I sure am being patient waiting for her!”—you’re not being patient!

Paul gives three exhortations here in these verses that clue us in to areas where we tend to be full of our own “empty glory”, leaving us no room to be filled by the Spirit.

Look at verse 6:

Now, as Paul is giving us all of these exhortations of how to be selfless with one another, why does he introduce this particular topic?

If your pastor, your teacher, has taught you the Word, then share all good things with him!

Evidently the Galatians weren’t doing that, or Paul wouldn’t have brought it up, right?

They weren’t sharing with their pastors—they weren’t supporting them.

This brings us to the first area where our “empty glory” will undercut the Spirit’s work in our lives, and that is being “full of ourselves”

I.

In Our Discipleship (v. 6)

How were the Galatians being “vainglorious” in their discipleship?

How were they being “full of themselves?”

One Sunday after I had spoken at a church in another town, I had a fellow come up to me and shake my hand and say, “Good sermon.

Of course, I already knew all of that, but it’s nice to hear it again from time to time!” Now, what was he saying by that?

“You don’t have anything to teach me—I already know everything you know!”

Surely that is the issue at the heart of the Galatians not supporting their pastors and teachers (which Paul had taught elsewhere was appropriate to do - 1 Timothy 5:18, ox, laborer).

“This guy doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say—why should we support him?

He’s a lightweight—I’m more spiritual than he is; in fact, I could probably be a better preacher than he is!”

When we are full of ourselves, in our own “empty glory” of how knowledgeable we are and we don’t need to be taught, that pride will undercut the work of God’s Spirit in us!

And so Paul says that it is important to

Be a grateful learner

Don’t be like a three-year-old when it comes to your discipleship.

You know what I mean by that?

Have you ever had a conversation with a preschooler where every time you tell them something they respond, “I know… I know… I know...” Paul says, “Don’t act like you know everything—be willing to learn from your teachers, and show your gratitude by sharing with them and supporting them!

After all, when Jesus Himself was a boy, He didn’t sit in the Temple with the teachers saying, “I know… I know… I know...” The Scripture tells us in Luke 2:46 that he sat among the teachers, “Listening to them and asking questions!” Christian, if your Savior was humble enough to sit and ask questions of His teachers, where do you get off thinking that no one has anything to teach you??

But there is another implication here for the way “empty glory” can undercut the Spirit’s work: Not only are we called to be grateful learners, but this verse also means that it is essential to

Be a humble teacher

And I say this especially to you who have responsibilities for teaching and preaching here in the body and elsewhere.

Paul says that the teachers who teach the word are to be supported, not the teachers who use the Word as a springboard for their own ideas!

There is a bizarre, topsy-turvy sickness in much of Evangelicalism today when it comes to preaching.

If a preacher gets up and reads a Bible verse and then spends the next 45 minutes talking all about his struggles and his thoughts and the ways this verse makes him “feel”, everyone walks away and says, “Wow!

He’s so transparent, he’s so humble!”

But if a preacher gets up and reads the Scripture and then says, “This is the Word of the LORD—this is what the Almighty God has spoken to you, and you must obey it!”,

everyone walks away and says, “Wow, was that guy ever arrogant!

To say that he was speaking for God!”

Now which one of those men was being humble?

The guy who spent 45 minutes talking about himself, or the one who said, “Thus saith the LORD?”

The humble man is the one who submits to this Word when it says

In our Person of Jesus Bible study a couple weeks back we saw how everything Jesus ever taught in His ministry was directly connected back to the Old Testament.

And so if your Savior taught under the authority of the Scriptures, then you will too!

That is where humility in teaching comes from, and that is a teacher who is worth being supported.

We cannot be filled with the Spirit when we are full of ourselves in our discipleship, and in verses 7-8 we see the dangers of our “empty glory”

II.

In Our Holiness (vv.

7-8)

Here is where that “empty glory” can be spiritually devastating—when we think so much of ourselves that we disregard God’s warning not to “sow to the flesh”.

That vainglorious attitude makes us believe that we are so spiritual that we’re holy enough to sow a little bit to the flesh here and there!

“I know that gossip is a spiritually destructive sin, but just this once I’m going to call and dish on what I heard at work about so-and-so!”

“I know that anger is a work of the flesh, but he really had it coming!”

“Galatians 5:19 says that porneia is a work of the flesh, and those who practice it will not inherit the Kingdom of God, but just one video won’t be a problem!”

But when you do that, you are deceiving yourself, and you are making a mockery of God’s warning!

You can’t just “give yourself a pass”, because when you do that you are saying that God’s warnings don’t have to be taken seriously!

Instead of being full of your own empty glory that says you can “handle” a little sin here and there,

Be honest with yourself (6:3)

As Paul says in verse 3,

That “little sin” that you so easily dismiss, that doesn’t really even trouble your self-righteous conscience?

That sin put your Savior in agony!

Would you really be willing to approach Him on that Cross, beaten beyond human recognition, His final breaths rattling in His chest, what blood there was left in His body dripping from His feet onto the stones, and say, “Hey, You don’t mind if I just tell this one little lie to my sister—You forgive me, right?”

You need to be honest with yourself about your actions—it is not a “little” thing!

It is a sin that will damn you apart from the blood of Christ that you are taking for granted!

Be honest with yourself about your actions, and

Be dependent on Jesus (cp.

Gal.

2:20; John 15:5)

Remember what Paul said in Galatians 2:20:

And what Jesus Himself reminds you in John 15:5:

This life that you are now living is the life of Christ in you!

Jesus does not live His life in you to give you the ability to “handle” a little sin here and there—He lives in you to give you the ability to say NO to sin! His life in you is not a “free pass” to “get the slate clean so you can dirty it again”—His life in you is the power to live in holiness before Him! Don’t be full of yourself, in the “empty glory” of your own personal power to “manage” your sin—Jesus didn’t “manage” your sin on the Cross, He killed it so that you can kill it!

So depend on Him!

When we are full of ourselves, it affects us in our discipleship, in our holiness, and third

III.