Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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[next slide]
What would it be like to be able to see the universe from God’s perspective?
We are constrained by the laws that govern light, time and gravity.
Light is the fastest thing in the universe and travels at 186,282 miles per second.
Scientists say that if we could travel faster than light then we would be able to go backwards in time.
But matter can’t travel the speed of light, and so we are constrained by our limitations.
We can’t even see into the universe except that we see light and calculate its properties.
Everything we know about the universe is based on our understanding of gravity and light.
What if we didn’t have those limitations?
What if we could see the universe in the way that God sees it?
The God that said, “let there be light.”
[next slide]
Go past our beautiful and complex planet that God says He made in a mere six days.
Go beyond our small solar system so that you can see galaxies.
Eliminate the laws of time and observe galaxies moving through space, colliding, and entangling.
Fly through the web of the universe and observe its structure and complexity.
And recognize, as you see things outside of the laws of gravity and light, that God is bigger than all of His creation.
Admit it, you want to confine God.
You want him to be understandable.
You want Him to fit into your conceptions.
You want him to exist on a throne somewhere out beyond Orion’s nebula.
You want Him to be definable by our limited vocabulary.
You want Him to conform to your ideals of behavior and emotion.
There’s really no other way that we can relate to God, except through our limited perceptions, but God cannot be limited by His creation.
He is more vast than all of His creation.
So vast that nothing He created can contain him.
So vast that He can be present throughout all time and in all places.
He is the limitless God who created the universe, and the God who takes personal interest in all his creation—and even you and me.
[next slide x 3]
And so God says,
[next slide]
Here’s how I’d summarize the big idea here: God is saying, “Don’t try to put me in a box.
Don’t use one of my creations as a stand-in for me—especially not an idol of your own making.”
[next slide]
God says He’s a jealous God.
That’s not to say God succumbs to the selfish emotions of human jealousy.
God is jealous of our love because He knows how wonderful He is, and that nothing else will satisfy us.
He also knows that everything else we attempt to worship will harm us.
He’s jealous on our behalf, not with selfish emotions or prideful desires.
He knows that He is the only one who is worthy of worship.
In fact, the word “worship” contains the word “worth”—worthship.
It’s the act of recognizing the worth of one as so significant that it requires our sole devotion and highest praise.
God alone is worthy.
[next slide]
In his book, Laws of the Heart, Bill Hybels asserts that,
“It’s so much easier for us to change God than it is for us to conform to His will.
… Who wants an accurate image of a sovereign God when they can create a convenient image that never interferes with their selfish desires?” Laws of the Heart, p 28
[next slide - black]
In the second of the Ten Commandments, God is forbidding self-willed worship—worshiping God as we choose rather than as He outlines.
To the Israelites meant that they were to make a mobile sanctuary where God’s presence would abide, and where they would bring their offerings with confessions of their sin.
Christ fulfilled the many symbols in the sanctuary but he left us with new ceremonies and symbols.
Instead of the passover we perform the Lord’s supper and wash each other’s feet.
Instead of a laver of water we go through the ritual of baptism.
Instead of a festival system we meet weekly or even more often to consecrate ourselves to God, celebrate His grace, and launch each other back into the world as witnesses for God.
God Wrote Love
One thing many like to do as they apply the 2nd commandment to life today is to explore all the modern forms of self-willed, idolatrous worship.
For example, the crucifix that many employ as a good luck charm or a mechanism of prayer.
We could talk about prayer beads which are much like the prayer wheels of the Tibetan Buddhists.
We could talk about the pictures of Jesus that many hang prominently in their homes as if a fictional picture would give them access to the presence of Christ.
We could talk about religious icons and so many other things that people use as a representation of God in their worship.
We could also discuss the fact that idolatry is a state of the heart, not just an image made by the hands.
Its a false representation of God that we form in our minds, or the alternatives to God that we create in our lives—addictions and codependent relationships.
[next slide]
We could talk about all those things, but we’re at the beginning of an incredible journey to discover what the law allows, not what it prohibits.
We could learn a lot from examining the protective fence that keeps us from evil and harm, but there’s so much that the law empowers us to do that we don’t have time today to discuss all of that.
So, once again, let’s turn our backs on the fence, and explore the vast possibilities that the law enables in this second part to our series on the Ten Commandments called, God Wrote Love.
[next slide - the unbounded God]
When we obey the second commandment and stop making idols to represent God, then we are freed up to explore the depths of the character and attributes of God.
We too often put God into a little package that feels good for us, while failing to see the awesomeness of God’s unending attributes.
He’s not just an idol that’s there to meet our needs and be available at our beck and call.
We can’t set Him on our mantle or constrain Him to our will.
If God cannot be constrained by us, then any interactions God has with us are intentional.
God’s involvement with our life isn’t an interruption for Him, it’s an intimately planned affair where He pursues us long before we even knew we had a need and long after our need is satisfied.
We don’t call upon God so much as we respond to His calling on us.
[next slide]
In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says,
We are the ones responding to God, not God to us.
[next slide]
1 John 4:19 tells us that,
In this unbounded-God-pursues-us scenario, God is so much more awesome than one of those idols that people use to call on God.
[next slide]
Those prayer wheels I mentioned earlier are a good example of idolatry.
At their center is a Life Tree, and wrapped around that are thousands, or in the case of the largest prayer wheels, millions, of repeated mantras.
According to the Tibetan Buddhists a prayer wheel has as much effect as saying the matra verbally as many times as it has been written on the prayer wheel.
So, walk by a prayer wheel and spin it and you’ll have all the power to get god’s attention as if you prayed over and over and over and over again.
People apparently think that God is so busy that he doesn’t have time or doesn’t care much about you and me.
So, we have to repeat ourselves a lot, or we have to call out to him loudly enough, or we have to catch him as he passes by on some other errand.
Our understanding of God takes the form of the idol we put in His place.
We always limit God when we try to symbolize Him or fashion an example of Him.
But He is unbounded, and untamable.
[next slide]
CS Lewis, in his religious fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia, wrote about the lion he calls Aslan—the one who fills the role of Jesus in his books.
He says about Aslan that he is not a “tame” lion, but that he is “good.”
CS Lewis captures some of the challenge we have with God.
We want a tame God.
A God that we can put on a leash.
But the second commandment frees us up to have a wild God that is infinitely good and loves us immensely.
How much better to have a God who loves me, than to have a God that I can control or manipulate?
[next slide]
Exodus records an encounter between Moses and God where Moses asked God to show him His glory.
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