Sermon Tone Analysis

The Scarlet Thread

Last time I preached I said I believed we were in the last days, the days of Noah.

God had a prearranged plan for rescuing the human race.

It is what we call the “Scarlet Thread”.

The scarlet thread refers to Christ and his sacrifice.

There are shadowy pictures of God’s plan of redemption throughout the Old Testament.

There are two pictures here, one of salvation and one of judgement.

These will be two sermons, and today we focus on the salvation aspect of Noah’s story.

I also want to acknowledge that I got a lot of what I am about to preach is from a book I read a while ago called, “Jesus Unmasked” by Todd Friel.

I am going to go over a few things, things that are pretty basic to our beliefs, but I hope as we go on this journey together, they will be in a much sharper focus to you - mean more to you.

Back to Adam and Eve

I said last time about Adam and Eve that they only had one commandment to obey, “Do not eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”.

It never took us long to break that law.

Even in the early days in the Days of Noah, it didn’t take us long to go so far as to merit a punishment to wipe us from the earth.

Less than 1,700 years after creation the human race fell into depravity.

I think we think too much of ourselves in this day and age.

This is going to run counter-intuiitive to the the “self-esteem” movement of our current age, but the people of Genesis 6 were not a special class of people, but people like you and me who probably just lived a little longer than us.

Left to ourselves, we will also do evil continually.

Not much has changed really.

Just 17 centuries after we were made in His image, we behaved so badly as to make God sorry He created us.

Why Did God Want a Clean Slate?

Does the statement that it grieved God mean that He made a mistake in making us?

No - it is just a word used that we can dimly understand as humans how God felt about our sins.

God has feelings, but not as we understand it.

God is not ruled by emotions because He is what we call “impassible”, that is without passions.

What does the Bible say?

God grieves - Ephesians 4:30

God rejoices Zeph 3:17

God gets angry Romans 2:5-8

God can be sad John 11:35

Like I said, God is not ruled by emotions.

Even though Christ sweated blood on the night of His betrayal, He still held fast, “Not my will, but yours” he prayed to His Father.

He was grieved, yet shows mercy.

Though He has feelings, He isn’t ruled by them like we do.

As His image bearers, that is where get our feelings from, but He has attributes of His own, that are unique to Him:

He alone is all powerful (omnipotent) Matt: 19:26

He alone is all knowing (omniscient) Isa 46:10

He alone is everywhere (omnipresent) Ps 139:8

Those things we share with Him are:

God thinks; we think Isa 55:8

God Works; we work Psalm 139:13-14

God as emotions; we have emotions.

What is Sin?

Sin is not just a violation of His commandments; Sin is totally contrary to the nature of God, of who God is.

God is not just a judge in a courtroom who hands out sentences to the human race, in obedience to laws written by someone else.

God didn’t write the moral code as something He Himself must keep, but they are a perfect representation of God’s Character.

They are not simply things written down that we need to observe, God is the law.

Romans 2:17-24

When break the law we are striking out at God’s Character.

We are essentially saying “I hate who you are”.

This is why Paul says in Romans 7:13 that sin is “utterly sinful”.

It is filthy.

The Human Race is Sinful

If we have one innate skill as a human race, it is that we sin.

We naturally sin, because it is our nature to do so.

If we pour out a carton of milk, milk comes out because milk is in it.

Ask any mother, or father for that matter, about the behavior of our seemingly innocent children:

From the moment we arrive, we cry because we want food.

Now

The antics that go on because we are told to go to bed.

Sulking because we are told what to do by our parents.

Do we really need to go into what we do as teenagers?

I could go on, but you get the point, we are sinful.

So Why Such a Big punishment?

While the sins we commit are bad, it is nothing in comparison to who they are committed against that truly makes them horrific

If I as Abby and Jonathan’s father take money from their piggy bank, nothing is going to happen to me?

Same offense, but in reverse, the child takes money from my wallet, the child might find him or herself in a little bit of trouble.

I might sit them down and explain what they did wrong and a light sort of punishment be given out.

If an employee takes money from their boss, you will get fired.

If you steal from a bank, or don’t pay your taxes - steal from the government - well…you might be sharing a bunk with some sort of unsavory character in the near future.

Same crime of theft, but the punishment increased in proportion to whom the crime was comitted -

each time greater and more powerful.

Now imagine stealing from God. God is infinite, eternal, inifitely powerful, all knowing, righteous, Holy.

Crimes against God are eternal and infinitely awful.

When God judges, it is not because He is being mean, it is because is nature demands it.

Because God is just, He cannot overlook sin.

The Cross

2,000 years ago Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that we might have the means of restoring the broken relationship between God and Man.

Jesus Christ the infinite God, had to come down as a representative of man so He could take our place.

The wages of our sin are infinite, so an infinite sacrifice was needed that needed to human, but also God.

This was the man Jesus Christ.

The only way our sins could have been forgiven, the only one who could have done it, to pay the infinite consequences of our sin.

The Bible records a shadowy picture for us in Noah’s Ark of what Christ Did.

Are Humans Valuable?

The short answer is no, we are not.

We are however valued by God.

As you can see we are quite unlovely.

God places His special love upon us anyway, despite what we are worth.

We are just dirt and water.

God’s love for you is not based on you and what you are worth, but based on Himself, and that should come as a huge relief.

You and I change, but God never changes.

Our zeal for Him can go up and down, but He will love us constantly.

If you are in Christ, God loves you as much as he Loves His Son.

When Love and Justice Meet

God hates sin because of His righteous nature.

These attributes, God’s holiness (hatred of sin) and righteous nature collided on the Cross.

How much does he hate sin?

He crushed His own Son on your behalf.

The sinless Son of God was credit your sin, and God poured out His wrath on Him instead of you.

We are credited with His righteousness, and sees our sin no more and we are forgiven.