Sermon Tone Analysis

I want to play a game with you guys.

Is that alright?

It’s a simple game.

I am going to read a quote and you tell me what story it is from.

Okay? (PLAY THE GAME)

-Show pictures of stills from different stories and have the audience name them.

Why do we tell stories?

...... Then Read page 13 of BSH.

a. Show Pictures From different stories and name game

a. Show Pictures From different stories and name game

...... Then Read page 13 of BSH.

(Read BLUE HIGHLIGHT on page 13 of BSH Walton)

God tells us his story so we can understand him and love him

b.

Stories are universal.

Every culture and language has their own stories.

Stories are structured.

b.

Read Page 13 from BSH…..

And we know God through His story.

The Bible.

The infallible inspired words of God through human authors.

Stories are universal.

Every culture and language on the planet tells their own stories.

Stories entertain us, they help us remember important principles or events, and they serve as mirrors of our own lives.

Walton continues, saying, “(Read ORANGE HIGHLIGHT on page 13 of BSH Walton)”

God tells us his story so we can understand him and love him

We tell stories so that we can excite, remember/know, apply, go.... LOVE HIM

a. Do you remember children’s church?

We heard Bible stories like Noah, Jonah, Moses, David and Goliath, etc.

We tell stories so that we can excite, remember, apply, know, go.... LOVE HIM

c. Stories are universal.

Every culture and language has their own stories.

Stories are structured.

Do you remember children’s church?

What was the focus?

It was mostly full of stories like Noah and the ark, Jonah and the whale, Moses and the burning bush, David and Goliath, etc., etc.

Exciting!

God’s Presence

b.

While I’m up here for the rest of the year we are going back to Children’s Church.

We are going to study Biblical Narrative together and revisit these ancient stories and look at them in a way that you may have never seen them before.

In children’s church we often heard these Bible stories out of their context.

The story of say, Samson, was an isolated account of how God gave one man super-human strength in order to defeat his enemies and save his nation, despite having a tragic flaw of lust.

Read in context though… This is the story of a deeply flawed violent narcissistic individual who is only in it for himself… and How God uses him anyway.

Then the message changes from the isolated, “Ask God for strength and he’ll give it to you” to the even more amazing, “Though we are flawed and choose evil over and over and over again, God still chooses us to be His people.”

If this is the real meaning of the story than the question logically arises, “How can a holy God choose a flawed person?”

The answer in abstract is Love the answer in physicality is Jesus’s death and resurrection.

I firmly believe that the Bible is one unified story that points to Jesus.

The Old and New Testaments are irrevocably unified.

They are unable to be separated and read how they were meant to be read by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and faculties of the human authors.

Eden

Covenant

Exodus

Tabernacle

Temple

Incarnation - Jesus

Pentecost

New Creation

The Bible is a unified story that points to Jesus.

The NT picks up where the OT left off.

AS we go through this series on Biblical Narratives that we may hear in children’s Church, I want you to think of the the Bible not only as the inspired infallible Word of God but also as literature.

It is a story that has character, setting, plot, symbols, motifs, etc.

There is a type of story that really good authors try to tell that’s known as a four part story.

It goes like this:

Introduction to Characters and symbols

Crisis

Resolution

Recreation

Most stories have the first three parts.

But it’s the fourth part that makes it really a good story.

The key is that it ends up better in the end than when it began.

For instance take the Lord of the Rings Trilogy

a. Peace across Middle Earth (tension amidst races and no king in Gondor)

a. Do you remember children’s church?

We heard Bible stories like Noah, Jonah, Moses, David and Goliath, etc.

While I’m up here for the rest of the year we are going back to Children’s Church.

We are going to study 7 popular Biblical Narratives together and revisit these ancient stories and look at them in a way that you may have never seen them before.

This week we will look at the beginning of the world.

The creation and fall of Adam and Eve.

Then in other messages we will study Noah and the ark, Daniel and the Lions Den, Gideon, David and Goliath, Jonah, and finally the birth of Jesus.

In children’s church we often heard these Bible stories out of their context.

The story of say, Samson, was an isolated account of how God gave one man super-human strength in order to defeat his enemies and save his nation, despite having a tragic flaw of lust.

Read in context though… This is the story of a deeply flawed violent narcissistic individual who is only in it for himself… and How God uses him anyway.

Then the message changes from the isolated, “Ask God for strength and he’ll give it to you” to the even more amazing, “Though we are flawed and choose evil over and over and over again, God still chooses us to be His people.”

If this is the real meaning of the story than the question logically arises, “How can a holy God choose a flawed person?”

The answer in abstract is Love.

The answer in physicality is Jesus’s death and resurrection.

I firmly believe that the Bible is one unified story that points to Jesus.

The Old and New Testaments are irrevocably unified.

They are unable to be separated and read how they were meant to be read by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and by the faculties of the human authors.

c.

Every single Bible story, and there are hundreds of them, is a part of the whole story.

What is the whole story of the Bible?