Sermon Tone Analysis

There is coming a day of reckoning… where all broken things will be unbroken… where all sad things will be made untrue…

describe some of what the world will be and look like in the wake of that day of reckoning...

In this sense of reckoning, yesterday was not that day.

If today is that day, we don’t know it yet.

And if today is not that day, tomorrow could be that …

THE DAY OF RECKONING… THE DAY OF REDEMPTION…

Our lives are littered with lesser, yet still sobering, days of reckoning… of redemption.

Les Miserables --

“Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store.

One more dawn… one more day… one day more!”

We all sing and pray for a redeemer… someone or something to reset all things broken to unbroken… all things sad to making them untrue...

Such songs and prayers are the cries of every orphan… always over-estimating the power of their circumstance and underestimating the power of their redeemer.

Hurricane this week — the world bending… a country of such intellect, resource, and power… cowered in our closets hugging a blanket… as our redeemer — the creator of the winds, storms, and seas — asserts again the POWER of the heavens.

Only to have a redeemer make their way to the boat of your life and the first feeling you feel is… terror.

He is walking on the water — through wind, waves, and storm — and he redeems them.

Perhaps you are torn and worn that God has not unzipped your world and stepped into it.

I tell you, when God does that, it is likely you will find yourself cowering in a closet under a blanket praying for mercy with fear… that the power of a redeemer is so potent — what if they choose to receive me? what if they don’t?

Story of Ruth… Naomi… and Boaz...

“This is an irredeemable situation”

Orpah leaves… Ruth continues.

“One day more… another day, another destiny… this never ending road to Calvary....

“Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store...

One more dawn… one more day… one day more!”

As we continue in our series Adopted, we see here the stories of 3 people...

Naomi — a widow who has returned to her home

Ruth — the Moabite immigrant

Boaz — the man who stayed rooted in his homeland

Much more than a romantic, sentimental love story...

Ruth — redeemed from outsider to insider… now in the lineage of David and Jesus.

Naomi — redeemed as Boaz buys her husband’s land… restores her to the community, and gifted her with a grandson.

Boaz — the kinsmen redeemer… un-breaks what was broken… makes Naomi’s sad assessment untrue...

He is a REDEEMER.

When we think of Redeemers… we think of the Head Redeemer — the Lord Jesus...

And there are other, lesser redeemers than Jesus in our lives...

And there are other, lesser redeemers...

Boaz was not their only option...

O Hills’ emails of redemption by adoption…

Stories of Adoption are stories of Redemption…

Not only babies and teenagers who are orphans…

But:

Stories

Circumstances

Relationships

Injustices

Tragedies

Parents, kids, spouses

Who will adopt them?

Who will un-orphan them?

Do you hear their song of hope against hope?

““One day more… another day, another destiny… this never ending road to Calvary....

“Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store...

One more dawn… one more day… one day more!”

And, do you recognize the redeemers in your life?

I think of Marla who is contending for things before and about me that I have not yet come to understand or embrace...

I think of Dallas… whose books saved me from a theological system while fueling my love for Jesus.

And none more so than the Lord...

Rom 8:38-

“One day more… another day, another destiny… this never ending road to Calvary....

“Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store...

One more dawn… one more day… one day more!”