Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

COVID-19 changed a lot of things in our world.

Change is difficult and much of the change that we experienced was extremely hard to endure because it was so sudden and many of us experienced significant loss.

In the midst of loss and sorrow and difficulty, I pray that you and your family learned some positive things along the way in 2020 and beyond.

I was looking at some research about positive changes in recent years and I believe that many can relate to at least some of them.

We’ve been forced whether we like it or not to spend more time together as a family.

We’ve had to get creative about how we communicate.

We don’t take our time for granted.

Lots of people pursued further education because they were at home.

One of the changes that has stuck around years after and has thrived is the change in ways that people shop.

Whether it be through Amazon and its 100 million US app users or through Walmart grocery pickup, the way that people shop has changed dramatically!

One of the cool things whenever Walmart debuted its grocery pickup option was its substitution feature.

If you wanted a 20 ounce orange gatorade and all they had was a 28 ounce orange gatorade, they’d substitute the larger one in place of the smaller one and originally they’d do this at no extra cost!

That’s a pretty good substitute as you’re paying for a smaller version and receiving a larger version and the company eats the cost difference.

Think about some substitutes that we experience in our world - in the classroom whenever a teacher is absent often times they have a substitute teacher who fills in and God bless those brave souls!

Think about parenting as well.

A child is completely dependent upon their parents for years and years of their life.

If a parent only plays and assists a child whenever it is convenient to them, the child won’t fully develop… they’ll have needs that will not be met.

Every parent must make a conscious decision to sacrifice or substitute their freedom in place of their child.

Your freedom must decrease in order for theirs to increase.

Substitution can be difficult… but in the Bible we see that substitution is one of the most glorious truths concerning Who our God is and What our God does!

The God of the Bible chooses to substitute Himself in our place even though He never once sinned or made a mistake so that sinners like you and I would be saved.

As many things as COVID changed, COVID didn’t for one nanosecond change God’s perfect plan!

This morning as we continue looking at Hebrews, we’re going to be in Hebrews 2:5-9 looking at the substitution of Jesus Christ as He suffered in our place so that we will one day reign with Him in glory.

This is a good change but it is a costly one that we must never forget.

Let’s read from God’s Word this morning

Our Purpose: Glorify God (5)

In the Garden of Eden we read that humans are created with the responsibility to rule over creation and to fill the earth.

Have you ever wondered why God commanded Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth?

What is so special about the two of them that God would give them this special command?

What about Adam and Eve stands out from the rest of creation?

Genesis 1:26 tells us the answer as they are created in the image of God! Imagine that you are the leader of a company and you have a product that turns dirty water into clean, drinkable water.

This is a wonderful product and you are passionate about its use and how it will literally change millions of lives.

You want every person in the world to have this product and you want your company to expand to the point that it has offices in every country in the world so that people will benefit and drink clean water.

Why do you want to fill the earth with this product, in our selfish brains maybe we’d argue this so that we’d become really rich and famous!

On the practical side, though, we know that this will help others live longer and healthier lives without problems that unclean water can bring to them.

God commands Adam and Eve to rule over this world and multiply it - why?

So that His image is spread throughout the world.

Now, is God saying this because He’s a businessman most interested in making money?

No.

He owns all things!

Is He a politician who is most interested in people voting for Him? No. He’s already won and is reigning as King today!

So, why would He give them this command?

So that He would be glorified!

See, you and I are a part of something far bigger than ourselves, we’re apart of God’s perfect unfolding plan and His purpose for our lives is to bring Him glory.

Bringing God glory is not only something that pleases God but it is something that benefits others including people around us who don’t know Christ as Lord.

Michael Kruger shares that the more humans there are, the more God’s glory and image are spread.

This is the purpose for mankind today and in the world to come, but one of the incredible things that we see in verse 5 is that in the world to come, things will look a little bit different.

We were created as humans to rule over this world, the angels were not created to rule over this world.

Here is that comparison yet again between angels and God’s people.

Everything said to this point in Hebrews has been forward looking - our eternal destination with God.

That world will not be ruled and governed by angels, instead it will be ruled by humans.

This is the focus of this passage of Scripture - chapter 1 focused on the divinity of Jesus and how He is the eternal Son of God, here in chapter 2 we see a focus on Jesus being fully man in addition to fully God.

Why emphasize the humanity of Jesus and why remind his audience of the inferiority of angels?

Because it’s easy to get things a bit out of order in our mind at times.

Adrian Rogers shares that there are 3 views of mankind and only 1 of them is correct:

Understatement - Man is no different from the rest of creation, we are accidents, we are cosmic flukes

Overstatement - We are our own gods and we have the power to speak things into existence because we’re perfect and our own little gods

Biblical Testament - We are made in God’s image to bring Him glory but we are not God.

So many of our problems today stem from not knowing what the Bible says concerning our purpose in this life!

We must get this right in order to get anything else right.

Either we understand that we’re made in God’s image to glorify Him with all that we do and pay attention as Hebrews 2:1-4 reminded us to make sure that we’re actually glorifying Him with our life… or we fail to do this!

My purpose is to glorify God and to serve Him faithfully in this life and in eternity to come.

Today the angels have much power - we read in Scripture that this world is known as Satan’s dominion.

Angels are powerful and they exercise some authority here and now as Daniel 10 and Ephesians 6 tell us, we might even be tempted to think that they are more important than us as humans because of this power… but nothing could be further from the truth!

God didn’t create angels to rule for all eternity and bring Him glory - that’s what He created humankind to do!

This is good news - except for the fact that we quickly realize that we have a problem

Our Problem: We’re Guilty Before God (6)

Our chief problem according to God’s Word is not our poor communication skills, busyness, job, weakness, or lack of understanding… the Bible tells us that our problem is that we are guilty before God because of our sinfulness.

Further than disobeying God with our actions and thoughts, we read in the Bible that each and every one of us has a fallen sinful nature that means that not only do we choose to sin, but deep down we are sinners.

This isn’t God’s design in the Garden, though.

This isn’t what God intended for humanity.

God created man in His own image to bring Him glory and to spread His image around the world!

Yes, we’re still made in God’s image, but that image is distorted today because of sin.

Have you ever gone into the Grand Father’s Mansion at Silver Dollar City?

If you don’t have any clue what that is, I’m sorry because it’s a classic at SDC and you can just think of a mirror maze.

The Grand Father’s Mansion is always a fun but confusing place because you look around and you see yourself but it’s a distorted image of yourself.

In some mirrors you’re 2x as tall as you really are… in others you’re half the height that you really are… in some you’re 2x as wide as you really are and in others you just look like a cartoon character because you’re lopsided.

God created us to be His image bearers on this earth but what sin does is even worse than walking through the Grand Father’s Mansion.

Whenever you look in to the mirror, you should see the grace, mercy, and holiness of God because you’re in His image yet because of our sin it’s like a rock has been thrown at that mirror and it is shattered in a million pieces.

You see glimpses of God’s character peeking through the cracks but by and large you can’t see anything and the reason why is because of our own sinfulness.

The fall in Genesis 3 completely changes the story for humanity because it makes all of us guilty before God.

We discussed this during our Bible study on Wednesday night - does this seem fair to you?

Does it seem fair that we’re marked as guilty before God because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden?

For many people they’d say no, that doesn’t sound like God is fair for counting us as sinners because of their mistake and disobedience.

But this is what the Bible clearly teaches us

God gave Adam and Eve a straightforward command: rule over the world and don’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Eat anything else, and you’re fine!

One rule and what did they do?

They failed to obey… We love picking on them but if we’re being honest with one another, would we have faired any different?

Let’s do a case study.

You can think of anything you want and you’re fine but if you picture a 5,000 pound pink elephant riding a unicycle you fail.

300 people just failed because what did we all just imagine in our mind?

A 5,000 pound pink elephant riding a unicycle!

If you have a child and you tell them not to do something, what do they almost always go and do?

The thing you tell them not to do! Why?

Because we’re sinners.

We give into this temptation to sin and this has been true from Eden until today and it will remain true until Jesus returns to rule with His people forever.

Adam’s sin dooms us.

Death spreads to all the world and to people of all generations simply because he sinned and, again, we don’t think this is fair!