Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Bible Reading plan 2020

Acts 6:4

vActs 6:4 (ESV)

4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

7 And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Have you ever been a chess player?

Yeah, me neither.

But I’m told that good chess players begin with the end in mind.

They play thinking at least five moves ahead.

At the beginning of a new year, I don’t want us to think about what is our next move for this year or even what is our next five moves for 5-year / 10-year plan.

I want us to begin this year with the end in mind.

In one sense, that is how Peter is writing his letter.

He is writing to a group of Christians at about the mid 60s AD — more than 30 years after Jesus had left this earth with the promise that he would return to bring about the end of all things.

A whole generation had passed and things weren’t getting better, in fact, they were getting worse.

They were confused and discouraged, but Peter wrote his letter to “sojourners and exiles” (aliens) to remain pure and have hope even though, now for a little while they might be “grieved by various trials.”

To whom is Peter writing?

Context of 1 Peter

Despite what is happening around them, Peter does not want the believers he is writing to to be discouraged or distracted.

Instead, he wants them to continue to follow Christ in this world with an eternal perspective.

7-11

1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

In other words,

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore. . .

ILLUST - The Rope and the Dot

the rope represents (poorly) eternity and the dot represents our time on earth - our earthly life (birth, childhood, teenage years, marriage, retirement, death).

Four realizations when the end has come:

1) We spent a disproportionate amount of time focused on the dot given the length of eternity.

How many of us really spend time thinking about eternity?

It might pop your brain.

“Satan's greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.”

- John Owen

How much of your day is really spent thinking about how grand heaven will be?

If we understood heaven to be the greatest place imaginable (as we understand the title, ‘heaven’) then we would spend more time contemplating it.

ILLUST - Dr. Dorsey on thinking about heaven “wrongly” - “I wonder what they are doing in hell?

It must be more fun than this.”

Only because we understand heaven wrongly.

Best things about heaven:

We won’t be angels

There will be no more.

. .

pain, temptation, grief, sickness, cancer, taxes, stress, calories, disappointment, death.

We will have satisfying work

There was work in the Garden

God is a worker

We will still learn

Omniscience is an incommunicable attribute

All things will be new

earth

the decay of sin will be gone.

We will have the fullness of the presence of God.

The two greatest tools of Satan are deception and distraction.

- He would love nothing more than for us to hear a message about how much God loves us and the things He can do for us to make 2020 the most prosperous and happy new year.

- While it is true that God loves us, His focus is NOT the dot but the rope.

37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

2) We lived life focused on the dot - oblivious to the rope.

We, in practicality, live as though the rope does not exist.

We daily make choices and decisions based solely on the here and now with no thought to the there and then.

We sing as Christians on Sunday, but live as Atheists on Monday.

If we make our daily choices without eternity in mind, then what sets us apart from the atheist?

What do we have to offer the atheist when they struggle with choices or circumstances?

While in practicality we may live in the “here and now.”

The reality is two-fold:

1) There is existence after death.

- We all know it.

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

There is no annihilation

Scripture has many examples of life after death.

There is life after death.

2) Everyone will face it.

The question of eternity is not if it exists but where you will exist while it is.

The problem is, most of us live as though this life is all there is.

We plan for tomorrow so that next week will be good.

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life?

For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil.

You don’t know when your dot will end.

James calls life a ‘mist’ — fog that burns off.

In , David asks this of God:

(ESV)

4 “O Lord, make me know my end

and what is the measure of my days;

let me know how fleeting I am!