Sermon Tone Analysis

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

“The Least Understood Best Seller” • Redeemer’s • 2/2&3/19 • Selected

Intro: The Harry Potter series is one of the blockbuster book series of all time.

Since the first book was published 20 years ago, the series has sold nearly 500 million copies in 68 languages, averaging 25 million a year!

But every single year in the past century, the Bible has sold more than 100 million copies across the globe in +2100 languages.

Nothing else even comes close.

In fact, the Bible is excluded from every publisher’s best sellers list, because it would always take the top spot.

The YouVersion, the free digital Bible has, in its short existence, had more than a quarter billion downloads (330M) and it’s still growing.

Still, the Bible is one of the least understood best sellers of all times.

•I can see why.

It has over a 1000 pages depending upon the printing and formatting; it’s composed of 66 separate documents written by 40 authors who lived over a 1500 year period of time.

The authors wrote from their own perspective against the backdrop of their own language, culture and customs—and the story unfolds rather indirectly, like life itself: it has twists and turns, and often isn’t wrapped up with a nice bow in a short time.

Drop into an unfamiliar section, and you’ll find lists of laws that make little sense to us today, or hear a man speak for God about what’s wrong with the Canaanites, or read a page that sounds strangely like someone’s journal entry.

There’s lots of stories, and histories, but also you can find yourself feeling like you’re reading someone else’s mail—letters to Corinthians and Galatians.

How does one put it together?

That’s what I want to help you do.

The Bible does indeed tell a single, amazing story about God and man, about human history’s origin and outcome, and about life and death.

In fact, the story is one that God himself has orchestrated, and has related to us through the Bible.

I want to help you be able to drop into any part of the Bible, look around, identify where you are, and make sense of it.

Here we go!

I. THE BIBLE FROM A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

•The [Bible] has two unequal sections—the [OT&NT].

The pivot point between the two is the arrival of a person promised from ancient days, who would be unique among all people who ever lived or will live.

He is called, in Hebrew, the [Messiah, or the Christ] (in Gk).

He would be the rescuer of the human race—the one who would make all things right and restore us to a relationship with God.

He is predicted from the beginning of the OT, & arrives in the first few pages of the New.

And he challenges & changes everything.

•The OT can be divided into [two unequal sections].

From the Creation in [Eden] until the Israelites settle in Egypt, and from the [Exodus]/escape from Egypt until the resettling of Israel back into the Land after the Exile.

This first part of the story is from a single book [Genesis] & spans [thousands] of years, whereas the second part of the story covers [about 1000 years], and the entire rest of the [OT]—Exodus-Malachi.

•This [1st section] is absolutely critical to our understanding everything else.

Genesis (the name comes from the Gk translation of the book & means, beginnings—an appropriate title because it explains the beginning of everything except God: the universe, people, marriage, family, sin, death, civilization, governments, languages & cultures, & the nation of Israel.

This 1st book provides the backdrop against which the entire rest of Scripture is seen.

The rest of the story of the Bible is compelling because of its beginning & ending.

Without the beginning, everything else get really confusing.

OVERVIEW OF GENESIS [See Chart] Zero in on:

[•Four Great Events]

[1.

The Creation: How did we get here?]

(1:1) If you believe those ten words, it will shape how you see everything else.

One writer observes: [MBH p. 7/x] I cannot think of a single conviction that will have more influence on how I view the world around me, myself, my own life, my responsibilities, my relationships with others, than this single truth: There is a God—an eternal, uncreated being responsible for the existence of everything else—everything we see and everything we can’t see.

He is behind the order and design of the whole universe; all matter, energy, space and time originate from his hands.

He created all things, and all things therefore belong ultimately to Him.

That is how the Bible begins.

•The Bible begins with and is primarily all about God: who he is, what he’s like, what he has done, and what he promises to do.

We learn that God is creative, powerful, self-existent, eternal, sovereign, personal, and moral.

Secondarily, the Bible is about us—about human beings and our existence in God’s vast universe.

In fact, we learn that the pinnacle of creation is none other than man: (1:26-28).

We are significant, valuable, reflecting something of God that no other part of creation can reflect.

We are entrusted with the stewardship of the earth, and are to manage it well for God.

Though we can delight in creation, and be amazed at its vastness & beauty, we must never confuse creation with the Creator, or worship or serve it; our place is to manage and enjoy it, but to worship God.

•In first 2 chapters of Genesis, we gain insight into human beings: we were made by God for Him; all of us were created to live in a close, even intimate relationship w/Him.

We were never intended to live apart from God.

Further, we are by design social creatures; we were made for & need companionship—the height of which is marriage—a male & female bonded together.

•So all of life has dignity and importance as the Creation of God.

We were created by God and for God, that we are significant and valuable.

But something has gone terribly wrong:

[2.

The Fall: What’s wrong with us?] Are human beings basically good or flawed?

Why do I have to die?”

These are the Qs answered by The Fall.

What is the “Fall”?

Not a season of the year, but an event with lasting consequences.

In a fully free and sinless world, God had a single restriction: (2:16-17).

In paradise, our ancient parents were encouraged to eat from every tree as they desired; the single restriction was not to eat from one specific tree.

Tempted by evil, Eve believed the lie that God was withholding something good from her, and rebelled, ate from the tree, and gave Adam who also joined her in eating, That joint rebellion between the first two humans and their Maker affected not only them but us.

Somehow, the Fall brought sin and a broken relationship w/God into every subsequent life.

We sin because we are sinners; not the reverse.

Cut off from God, we sink into our own small world of selfishness.

Our ancient parents rebelled against God, and did the one thing God specifically commanded them not to do.

Because of their disobedience, they were ejected from Paradise, and their offspring were infected with “human nature”—a propensity for independence from and disobedience to God. (No big surprise to us.)

•Death was promised as the ultimate penalty: but it comes faster than any expected: In chpt 4, Cain envies his brother, Abel and murders him.

By chapter five, the judgment on a sinful race begins to be individually seen: (5:5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27, 31).

Don’t be put off by the length of life; stare at the common end of life.

We not only inherited from our ancient parents a propensity to sin, but the certain penalty of death.

•It really doesn’t matter what the original sin was—eating an apple or a pear, or transgressing a border—what matters is that they did what God had forbidden them to do.

They weren’t weighed down w/a lot of don’ts.

They were encouraged to indulge in whatever their hearts desired.

With a single exception.

They doubted God’s goodness & wisdom, thought better of themselves, & took matters into their own hands.

When we fail to believe God and disobey his instructions, we do so at great cost.

•Of the 1189 chapters in the Bible, only four of them don’t involve a fallen world: the first two (before the Fall), and the last two (after God makes all things right and new).

“The rest is a chronicle of the tragedy of sin.”

•The first sin separates man from God, and a husband from his wife; further, creation is corrupted and diminished.

And the next major sin separates man from his brother.

Despite the devastating curse of the Fall, God makes a promise that through a descendant of the woman, the power of evil and sin will be crushed: () It is only a whisper of a promise overheard by Adam and Eve, as part of the curse for the serpent’s part in man’s fall.

The Rescuer will come—as one of the human race; it is the first ray of hope that what has happened won’t be fatal.

This theme will be repeated a thousand times throughout the centuries: God taking the initiative to forgive and restore despite man’s disobedience; we look forward to The One, the Rescuer from God & the Woman, who will reverse the curse.

BUT it gets far worse before it gets any better:

[3.

The Flood: Will God judge us?]

The early history of the human race is dark.

In the first generation from Adam, there was murder between brothers.

Polygamy, rule by violence, and a host of other sins flourished with each new generation.

It became so bad that the average person couldn’t think straight without have evil inclinations staining his mind: (6:5-6).

The result is that God was sorry...sorry he had ever created us.

The Flood was heaven’s way of washing the moral dirt from the earth.

The one exception was a man by the name of Noah.

God told him to construct a boat/ark, and gave him an exact blueprint of how to do it.

(Measuring it out, its displacement would have been 43,300 tons—not a small boat—the equivalent of 500 railroad stock cars.)

He does so, and it takes him not a little while.

Eventually, there is a male and female from every genus of land-dwelling creatures on that floating zoo—and the last day dawns: (7:16b-23).

And God starts over with the human race.