Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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The Rodeo
The rodeo is in town.
Sold out shows.
Some great horsemanship.
Professional cowboys and cowgirls at the highest level.
The Los Fresnos Rodeo calls itself the biggest little rodeo in Texas.
What if we all showed up and the horses weren’t bucking, the calves weren’t running, the bullriders fell off the bull barely out of the gate, and the clown wasn’t all that funny?
We’d want our money back.
The Biggest Little rodeo in Texas would be a broken promise.
We hear the word “biggest” and we have expectations.
We’re used to having promises broken.
We know the restaurants we don’t go to anymore.
We know the car dealers we won’t buy from any more.
We know the Capn Crunch just doesn’t taste like it used to.
People put church in that category.
The data tells us that around 40% of our neighbors here used to go to church, and are no longer going to church, and don’t really want church.
They still want Jesus.
But they don’t like the church.
And when you start digging into that 40%, you begin to hear a running theme… broken promises.
Whether it was being treated badly, abuse, or simply finding the church to be irrelevant to their lives, underneath it all is broken promises… unmet expectations.
But this room, this sanctuary, this worship service, this Table, this life… this is all Promise.
This is where Jesus delivers on his promise to forgive, and to save, and to give us life.
Every week.
And our Bible lesson today is all part of that very same promise.
The Task
Our story is found in Acts, but the beginnings of the story go all the way back to the very beginning of time and our first parents, Adam and Eve in their garden.
God made the world.
God made a beautiful world that was full of perfection and harmony.
He made Adam and Eve.
And then he gave them a task.
Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.”
There are a couple of tasks there, one of which is to subdue and rule the earth.
Adam and Eve were created as co-rulers with God and that rule and kingdom was to be spread over all the earth.
The other task here, the one we are focusing on is the first… be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.
God’s intent for Adam and Eve, who were created in God’s image, was to fill the earth with God’s image and his glory.
The entire earth was to be full of those who reflect God’s glory and his love for his people and creation.
And we know what happened.
Adam and Eve sinned.
They were kicked out of the garden.
And as sinners, no longer capable of filling the earth with God’s image.
It looks as though God’s plan has been ruined.
But God promises to make everything right through an offspring of Eve.
The Promise
But hundreds, thousands of years go by.
The earth isn’t full of God’s image.
In fact, it seems as though that will never happen.
Until God shows up and has a conversation with Abraham.
And you heard earlier what that promise was to Abraham:
Genesis 12:1-3 “I will make you into a great nation...all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Nations and kings will come from you.
I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore.”
The task that Adam and Eve failed?
God is saying, I’m going to do something about that.
I’m going to take care of it.
The command to fill the earth with God’s image is now a promise.
It’s a promise because humans are incapable of doing it.
They only fill the earth with bad things… that’s the story of Noah and the Flood.
Now God is saying that he is going to fulfill that task himself.
I will make you a nation.
I will make your offspring too many to count.
I will.
I will.
And oh, by the way… I will also fill the earth with my rule.
Kings are part of the promise.
What’s funny is that, again, many centuries go by.
While there is a nation that comes from Abraham, it’s not a nation that fills the earth.
God’s name and fame and glory and love and grace and forgiveness do not spread far and wide.
The people who love and worship God are not as many as the sand on the seashore.
Everything seems stuck in a little piece of land in the Middle East.
and for the most part, the nation itself is disobedient.
The Promised One
It looks bleak until the offspring that was promised to Eve finally shows up.
God is going to make good on his promise, finally.
A baby is born in Bethlehem and here’s the promise when an angel appears to a man named Joseph:
Matthew 1:21 “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
There is that promise language… He will.
He will save.
And that’s what happens.
Years later, Jesus dies as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
God fixes the sin problem, just like he promised Adam and Eve.
But God is also making good on his promise to Abraham.
And that’s where our story picks up in Acts 1.
In Acts 1, Jesus has risen from the dead, and he is spending his last few days with his best friends before He leaves to go be at the right hand of His Father.
One of the big questions for his friends is what will happen when Jesus leaves?
Now what?
Is it over?
Will we spend our days simply teaching what you taught and living out what you taught and talking about the resurrection and that’s it?
Before Jesus leaves the earth, he leaves with Promise on his lips.
I find this fascinating.
If you were to take a poll of Christians, even Christian leaders, you would think that before Jesus left this world, he left us with a bunch of commands.
“Make sure you do this.
Make sure you do that.
Don’t do this.
Don’t do that.”
The last words from Jesus to his best friends and followers were all Promise.
Acts 1 is one big promise.
The Holy Spirit
Here’s what the Promise looks like.
It comes in three parts.
First, Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit.
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