Galatians 5:7-12

Occasionally, I will sit down in front of the TV without any real reason and flip through channels.   There is a strange sense of delight in mindlessly flipping through hundreds of channels.  I will watch a couple of pitches of a baseball game and then watch a lap of a race, two lines from a soap opera, people getting knock down on a Japanese game show, some band singing, a rerun of one of the CSI’s and by the time I have gone all the way around it is time to turn it off and go to bed.  It is called channel surfing.  Maybe they will figure out how to make Channel Surfing an Olympic event.  By the way, Tanya loves it; not.  It may be a man thing?  Anyway, I like a little variety in my preaching so this morning’s sermon is going to be a channel surfing sermon. Ever heard of a channel surfing sermon?  But, pay attention there might be a point to these random channels. 

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1) ESPN - Running a Race
Bam, the gun goes off and 8 long-legged women dressed in shorts and tank tops come out of their stances and begin to sprint at full speed around the track.  The announcers begin to chatter about how so-in-so, a name that means nothing to you, is the fastest runner in the world. She is the Olympic defending gold medal winner. She is the favorite to win the 400 meters. And sure enough she begins to pull away from the field.  But then a challenger in the lane just inside of hers puts on an amazing burst of speed and closes the gap between them.  The announcers voices raise a notch in intensity and as it becomes a two person race.  The two competitors come around the 3rd turn. The challenger is just a half a step ahead of the defending world champion, when disaster strikes.  You watch in surprise as the challenger steps across the line dividing the two and cuts off the other girl. Their feet entangle and the fastest 400 meter woman in the world goes down in a pile of arms, legs and skint hands and knees. Before the announcers can catch up to what has happened the race is over and the challenger has won. 
** Click, the channel changes. **

2) Christian Television Network - Preacher
A tall good looking young man pauses to take a drink from a glass sitting on the edge of a Plexiglas podium.  The camera pans across the auditorium revealing a couple thousand people anxiously waiting to see what he is going to say next.  The well dressed young man takes a deep breath, smiles a 100 watt smile and takes off again, “If you want to be prosperous, if you want God to bless you, if you want to receive the 100 fold return, then you must do what the sower did and spread the seed.  God only blesses those who are willing to give it all to him.  When you give out of your bounty God blesses you with even more.  I call it the give and go.  The more you give the more you get to go.”  An 800 number appears across the bottom of the screen.
** Click, the channel changes. **

3) Food Network – Making Bread
A plump woman in an apron is chatting away, “The secret to making really good bread is the yeast.  You need to make sure that the yeast is fresh.”  She turns to a man standing beside her who obviously doesn’t have a clue what he is doing and says to him, “After you get all you ingredients together and mix in that fresh yeast, that is when the work begins.”  She demonstrates kneading the dough.  “Turn the dough out on a clean, floured work surface.  Flour your hands well. Use the heel of your hands to compress and push the dough away from you, then fold it back over itself.  Give the dough a little turn and repeat using the heel of your hands. Put the weight of your body into the motion and get into a rhythm. Keep folding over and compressing the dough until it becomes smooth and slightly shiny, almost satiny.”  She points to satiny texture and the camera zooms in. “The most common test for doneness is to press it with your finger. If the indentation remains, it's ready for rising, you've kneaded it enough.” The plumb cook turns to get one already done from the oven and says, “If the yeast has gone throughout the dough and you are patient the bread will look like this.” 
** Click, the channel changes. **

4) Court TV – The Penalty
Two women stand before another. The third woman is dressed in a black robe and a scow.  She looks down on the two women who are arguing over which one of them owes the other one a bunch of money, or not.  A gavel sounds with a sharp rap.  Both women stop in mid sentence and the judge says in a whiny voice, “The dependant will pay the cost of all damages plus $1,000 in penalty damages.”
** Click, the channel changes. **

5) History Channel – Life of Paul
Across the screen of your TV is an ancient sailboat making its way in a crystal blue sea.  On the deck is a bearded man.  You hear the voice in the background talking, “St. Paul would have traveled across the Mediterranean in a ship much like this.  Following his stay in Damascus after his conversion, where he was healed of his blindness and baptized by Ananias of Damascus, Paul says that he first went to Arabia, and then came back to Damascus. He describes in Galatians how three years after his conversion he went to Jerusalem. There he met James and stayed with Simon Peter for 15 days.  There is no evidence that Paul had known Jesus prior to the Crucifixion. Paul asserted that he received the Gospel not from any person, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul claimed almost total independence from the church in Jerusalem.
** Click, the channel changes. **

6) Sci-Fi – Slasher Movie
There is a dark and stormy scene with scary music playing in the background.  Lightning flashes revealing a frightened woman running through the woods obviously terrified.  Without any warning an axe swings and Tanya says, “Change the channel.”

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Do you like my channel surfing sermon so far?  No? The channels we have just flipped through aren’t mine. These six channels come from Paul’s brain.  Paul must have been wired when he wrote Galatians 5:7-12.  It was just like he was up late one night, after going to Starbucks, flipping through the metaphors of his brain. One after another Paul flips through each of the channels we have just seen.  Let’s go back and put these six channels into Paul’s paragraph from Galatians 5 and see what happens.  Remember they may be a point to this channel surfing. What point is Paul making with this series of channels?

1) ESPN
Galatians 5:7  You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?
Just like the one runner cut off the other, someone cut in on the Galatians and hindered them from running the race.  They were going to win.  They were doing great.  Christ was being formed in them. The Spirit was working vividly in their lives.  They had fellowship with the Father.  Then someone changed lanes and cut them off. They were in danger of losing the race. 

2) Christian Television Network 
Galatians 5:8  That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.
The Galatians were listening to the persuasion, but it wasn’t true.  Someone with a sliver tongue had persuaded them to believe a doctrine that did not come from the one who had called the Galatians; Jesus Christ! The pervasive one was convincing them to be circumcised and follow the law instead of eating the Graceburgers.  Just because a preacher says it doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.  Did I just say that out loud?

3) Food Network
Galatians 5:9   "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough."
Then we saw on the Food Network how yeast works.  Some little tiny creatures can spread through the whole church and change it.  A lie, a false doctrine, an untrue persuasion can change the whole loaf of bread.

4) Court TV
Galatians 5:10  I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be.
These words are courtroom words.  The guilty person, whoever it was, was going to pay the penalty for their lies.  There is a price to pay for misleading others; for teaching wrong, for cutting others off.

5) The History Channel
Galatians 5:11 Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?
We learned on the History Channel that Paul had changed.  He no longer preached circumcision, but instead he preached Jesus.  He got his message straight from Jesus.  He was being persecuted in his ministry because he taught the message of grace, because he taught the sanctification of the Spirit, because he taught the fellowship in the Father for the Gentiles! His message was true and the other one was false.

6) SyFy
Galatians 5:12  As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
Our brief stay on the SyFy channel and a slasher movie pretty much made the same point as Paul does here in verse 12.  Paul says he wished the agitators would go ahead and get caught in a slasher movie and get all cut up. These are pretty strong words. Paul is not being nice.  Paul is angry.  

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Why is Paul so upset?  Why does he flip through the metaphorical channels without stopping?  What is the point of all these different shows? Here is the simple but powerful point, I suspect you have already figured out; there are false teachers. There is such a thing as false teaching. There is wrong.  We live in a culture that has a hard time with this concept.  We live amongst a people who would have us believe that everything is a choice.  That everything is a matter of preference.  They want to believe you can pick truths like you pick food from a salad bar; “Oh I think I want a little free-will to be able to make up my own mind, a couple legalisms to feel good about self-reliance, some reincarnation so get another change, what about some karma to satisfy my sense of justice, don’t forget to save the whales, a little bit of Jesus for spice but not to much.”  Our culture would have us believe that theology is a salad bar where one pick; one choice, is as good as another!  

These series of six metaphorical channels teach us the exact opposite.  There is truth and there are lies.  There is right and there is wrong.  It does matter what you believe.  Truth is not a bunch of choices on the buffet which you can pick which ones you like and not pick the ones which are distasteful.  Truth is truth, because our Lord is truth.  We may struggle with it, sometimes we can’t figure it out, but there is truth.  Paul wants us to know this.  So he stacks up the images to make sure we get the point!  Do we get it?  “Hey, what was Tim’s sermon about?”  “He said, ‘Truth is truth!’”  “Oh.”

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Before I quit channel surfing this morning I want to go to one more channel and point out the Good News of this point.  This is way cool.  I don’t want to end a sermon simply hammering our culture.  I want to spread the Good News.  If there are false teachers and false doctrine and false beliefs, then there is truth. Consequently, we do not live in a relative world.  Isn’t that great news?  Our world means something.  There are things in the world which are right and true and will always be there.  We can depend upon the truth being the truth. There are doctrines which do not change.  There is a foundation that does not change and we can rest assured on it!  I want to know what I can count on.  Don’t you?  Isn’t that good news? Paul has one such truth in mind as he flipped through these metaphors; it is found on the E network – the one where they talk about scandals.  Here is part of a verse I skipped:

Galatians 5:11 Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? (part we skipped) In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.

The truth we can depend upon is the offense of the cross; the scandal of the cross. Here is the scandal: God offers Graceburgers for free.  The offense of the cross is that it is free.  “What, I don’t have to pay for it?  I don’t have to earn my sanctification.  I don’t have to deserve my fellowship?”  No.  “That’s ridiculous. That’s too good to be true!”  It is too good to be true but it is truth. We are called to rely upon Jesus for our salvation; to rely upon the Spirit for our sanctification; and to rely upon the Father for our fellowship.  That is the offense of the cross.  That is the truth we need to base our lives upon! That is the truth I can count on never changing!  Graceburgers are free!

Galatians 5:7-12 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

There is right and there is wrong. There is false and there is truth. And that truth is the scandal of the cross!

Los Alamos Church of Christ
July 26, 2009