Sermon Tone Analysis

Direction Directions

Sermon on the Mount Intro 6   |   Shaun LePage   |   April 2, 2006

 

 

I.

Introduction

A.   As a man was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang.

When he answered, he heard his wife warn him urgently, “George, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on Hwy 280.

Please be careful coming home!” “I’m on 280 right now,” said George, “and it’s not just one car.

It’s hundreds of them!”

B.    George thought he was headed in the right direction.

But really he was going the wrong way.

It is just as possible for you and me to think we’re headed in the right direction—spiritually speaking—but in reality, we can be going the wrong way.

C.

Last week, we looked at the three men Paul describes in 1 Corinthians: The natural man, the carnal man and the spiritual man.

I set up three chairs to represent each of these men.

1.     Chair 3 was the natural man—the person who is in his natural, sinful state; who has not been “born again” as Jesus said in John 3.

2.     Chair 2 was the carnal man—the person who is a Christian, going to heaven when he dies, but living very much like a natural man; living a self-focused life rather than a God-focused life; living in the “flesh” rather than walking in the Spirit.

3.     Chair 1 was the spiritual man—the person devoted to God; who has the mind of Christ; a servant of Christ; a model of Christ to the world around him.

D.   We want to be in Chair 1.

We want to be spiritual men and women.

That’s the direction we should be heading.

1.

Only when we are spiritual people will we have the eternal perspective necessary to understand how Jesus could say in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

Rejoice and be glad…!”

2.     Only when we are spiritual people will we have the strength to obey Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount, “Do not resist an evil person, but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

3.

Only when we are spiritual people will we be able to model the command Christ gave us in the Sermon on the Mount: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you…”

4.     Only when we are spiritual—Spirit-filled and Spirit-led—will we fulfill our God-given purpose of glorifying Christ with our lives.

Only then will we find peace, fulfillment and joy in the journey of the Christian life.

E.

As we search the New Testament for directions on how we can head in the right direction—*direction directions*—we find that three commands related to our relationship with the Holy Spirit provide the direction we need to become spiritual persons.

F.    Now, I like to take something that is very common in our lives and transform it into a reminder of a significant truth.

1.

For example, the stars are used in Scripture to remind us our role as light in a dark world.

Every time I look at the stars, I am reminded that there’s a whole lot more darkness up there, but the darkness doesn’t have a chance of hiding light.

The stars stand out in all that darkness and the stars are what make space beautiful.

2.     Chairs are another example.

We have chairs everywhere!

My hope is that after last week’s sermon, every time you sit down in a chair you’ll remember those three chairs we talked about last week that represent three different responses to God.

I hope every time you sit down in a chair you’ll evaluate yourself: Am I living my life as a spiritual man right now—thinking like Christ, serving like Christ and modeling Christ to the world around me? Or, am I living my life as a carnal or fleshly person right now—childish and selfish and not really any different than a natural, unsaved person?

3.

This morning I want to use another illustration.

I began to think, what else is as numerous as the stars in the heavens?

What else is as common as a chair?

What else do we see every day, constantly?

Then it came to me: The traffic light!

This is a perfect way to illustrate the three commands we’re going to look at today and my hope is it will transform traffic lights for you.

From now on, instead of sitting at a traffic light saying, “Green, green, green…” you can use that time to evaluate your spiritual life.

Am I headed in the right direction—obeying those three commands related to my relationship with the Holy Spirit?

II.

Body

A.   Let the red light represent: Stop grieving the Spirit with sin.

1.     Here’s the basic premise: Sin grieves the Holy Spirit.

So stop sinning and confess your sins to receive forgiveness.

*a)    *I can see you’re not moved.

I can see you’re thinking, I’ve heard all this before.

This is Sunday School stuff, for crying out loud! Don’t sin?! Come on!

Confess your sins?! Tell me something I don’t already know… I knew you were gonna say that.

So let me say this.

b)    Last week we saw that the carnal Corinthians were toying with their sin.

Paul chastised them for not mourning over their sins!

We’re not expected to be sinless, but sin-haters.

There was grotesque sin in the Corinthian church.

Listen to 1 Corinthians 5:1, “*It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife*.”

But it gets worse: their response to this sin in their midst was just as bad—if not worse!

Look at v.2: “*You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst*.”

They should have mourned over this sin—instead they “*have become arrogant*,” Paul said.

Exactly what that means, we’re not sure.

Maybe they boasted about it and were somehow condoning it.

Maybe they were just ignoring it or apathetic about it.

Either way, the correct response would have been to “*mourn*”!

c)    Listen to James 4:8,9: “*Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom*.”

This is the correct response to our own sin or the sin of others.

Why?

How do we know that?

Because we know that sin grieves God!

*d)   *Turn to Ephesians 4:30.

We are given an astonishing command here.

How can we “*grieve*” the Holy Spirit?

Look at the entire context in which this command is found.

I’m going to read 4:17-32 and I want you to see that it’s a long list of sins.

Read 4:17-32.

*e)    *What does it mean to “*not grieve the Holy Spirit of God*”?

It means, do not sin!

It “*grieves*” the Spirit when we sin.

This is very important: the Spirit will not leave—He will grieve.

Our sin does not cause the Holy Spirit to leave.

It causes Him to grieve and mourn.

Do you see the irony of the situation in Corinth?

The Corinthians weren’t */mourning /*over their sin, but the Holy Spirit was—He was “grieved.”

The same is true when we sin and don’t mourn over our sin.

We may not mourn, but the Holy Spirit will.

*f)     *Why does He mourn?

Why should we mourn?

Sin is a big deal!

We don’t get it!

We either don’t understand or we choose to ignore the fact that sin always causes death or pain or suffering.

We think we can just mess around with it.

Toy around with it.

It’s no big deal.

We must remember: Sin is so grievous and resulted in such a desperate situation that it required God Himself to die a horrible death in order to provide the only solution.

Sin grieves God.

It should grieve us as well.