Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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I don’t know if they do this anymore but I remember a few years ago it seemed that JC Penney was advertising the biggest sale of the year almost on a weekly basis.
They advertised these “you don’t want to miss this!” sale so often that eventually it became meaningless.
Really, it seems that the only time you can really be sure it’s the biggest sale of year is on January 1st.
We get ads all the time.
Tons of things online, on television, as we drive, in the store, everywhere clamoring for our attention and trying to hook us with statements like, “you don’t want to miss out on this”.
It’s a similar type of appeal that the author of Hebrews is making.
Now don’t hear me wrong—he’s not trying to sell Jesus like some product.
But he wants his hearers to know that Jesus is superior and the kingdom that he is bringing about is far superior and that they don’t want to miss out.
But I wonder if we’ve become jaded to that.
We’re no longer captivated by Jesus and I think our gospel presentations sometimes reflect this.
We often start with how messed up man is and then try to move on from there.
Rather than doing something like the author of Hebrews we resort to gospel presentations that are a bit more like saying, “you stink, it’s okay Jesus still loves you.”
Or “you don’t belong to the party—being such a loser and all—but you get to come anyways.”
The author of Hebrews as we’ll see here in our text this morning is instead saying, “No, this party actually was created for you.
Yeah, we’re boneheads and we’ve messed up our right to be there…but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t created for…here’s how to get back to the party.”
See if you can hear that in the text.
READ
The first four verses, which we looked at couple weeks ago, was the author saying, “you don’t want to miss out on this.”
It’ll be to your peril and your shame to neglect such a great salvation.
It’ll end in your judgment.
It’s the height of foolish arrogance to not want to be at this party.
But apart from diligence—apart from grace-wrought diligence—you will neglect and you will drift.
And you don’t want that.
So here is what I want to do this morning.
I want to show you the party—what you were created for, the longings, all those things in your heart this very moment.
And then I want to show from this text and from even what you know to be true that things aren’t as they were supposed to be.
And then I want to show you how all of those things are—and are being—restored and redeemed and made even better than they ever were before.
Most of our text this morning is actually a quote of the Old Testament.
We read it earlier in the service, .
It’s a Psalm where David looks at how big the world is and how majestic God is and his creation and then he looks at himself and says, “why in the world does such a big God care about such a little dust mite like myself.
What is man that you are mindful of him?”
But then he goes back to and says, “and yet you’ve placed everything under his feet.”
What’s he doing there?
He’s going back to Eden.
What do we find there?
And then he moves on here and tells us a bit of a story about what God is doing in the world.
In we see that God made man and woman in his image and he places them over all of creation.
And he said be fruitful and multiply.
Now what is that?
It’s God making us as his image-bearers.
He’s placing us in charge and tasking us with filling the earth with His glory, His goodness.
Make this place look like me.
Love.
Joy.
Peace.
Patience.
Kindness.
Goodness.
All that.
The whole world should be filled with the greatness of God.
And they were placed in this garden to keep it.
And the word “good” appears all over this text.
But it’s hard to describe this because it’s a bit like me trying to describe how amazing it is to climb to the top of Mt.
Everest and the beautiful view that you have when you are up there.
I’ve seen a picture.
But I’ve never done that.
I don’t know what it looks like.
I’ve never been there.
And so also when we talk about Eden and what life was like before the Fall…not a one of us has experienced it.
But we get glimpses don’t we.
Those moments when things seem to right with the world.
Sitting on the couch with a loved one, nothing to do but relax, watching it snow as an old scratchy record is playing in the background.
A beautiful sunset that just captivates you so much that you can’t look away.
A night sky filled with stars.
Or going camping and seeing about a million fire-flies light up trees as if it’s Christmas.
Conversations that just feel right—where you’re actually connecting with another human and there isn’t all the baggage and fear and distrust or other things so often attached…just honest good friendship conversations.
Or when you’re working on a project in your home and you need a board that’s 15 and 3/4 inches and you look in your shop and you see a piece of scrap wood that just so happens to be 15 and 3/4 inches.
And you think…man that NEVER happens.
And that’s kind of the point.
We see glimpses but what we mostly know is Eden in the negative…by what we don’t have.
You see this even in .
“No more pain, no more crying, no more death, no more futility, no more distance between us and God”.
Notice how he has to phrase this so that we understand.
He looks at all the bad stuff—that we do know, oh so painfully well and says, it’ll be no more.”
And the big note that we see throughout the Scriptures is this idea of futility.
Not being fulfilled at all by your work or your relationships.
It’s just never enough.
We are haunted by an emptiness.
Tom Brady.
There’s got to be more.
Madonna.
There’s got to be more.
Is this all there is.
That’s part of the curse and part of the fall.
That’s what God said would happen in .
When we decided to make the world about us and spread our glory instead of God’s that’s what happened to humanity.
And God said, “okay, now everything is gonna come up empty.”
And yet we keep striving and striving and striving to in some sense bring our world back under our rule.
We want that control back.
We want to be able to say, “here kitty.
And it actually come and not just look at us like we’re stupid.”
That’s what cats are doing.
That’s why they are here…just to remind us of the fall of humanity.
Every time you say “here kitty.
And it just stares at you remember—that’s because the world isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
That cat thinks he’s in charge.
The order of things is all messed up and that cat is a painful reminder that we’ve shipwrecked our mighty calling.”
But sometimes the cat does come to you and perhaps that’s a reminder that redemption is happening.
Let me show you this from Hebrews.
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