Sermon Tone Analysis

According to the National Geographic website (their kids' version that is) the Pufferfish can inflate into a ball shape to evade predators.

Also known as blowfish, these clumsy swimmers fill their elastic stomachs with huge amounts of water (and sometimes air) and blow themselves up to several times their normal size … But these blow-up fish aren't just cute.

Most pufferfish contain a toxic substance that makes them foul tasting and potentially deadly to other fish.

The toxin is deadly to humans—1,200 times more deadly than cyanide.

There is enough poison in one pufferfish to kill 30 adult humans, and there is no known antidote.

Like Pufferfish, human beings can blow themselves up with pride and arrogance to make themselves look bigger than they are.

And this pride can become toxic to a marriage, a church, or a friendship.

No wonder the late Bible scholar John Stott once said, "Pride is your greatest enemy...”

It is said that pride comes before a fall.

And it is pride that will be our downfall as a society, culture, and or community.

Pride will destroy us.

And in our current culture, it is pride that is pervasive.

There is a story told about a salesperson who closed hundreds of sales with this line: "Let me show you something several of your neighbors said you couldn't afford."

It seems that many of us struggle with it.

But what is more… pride is one of those things that even those in non-Christian behavior sciences have to address its devastation.

An article in Psychology Today by Dr. John Amodeo he writes, “Perhaps there’s a good reason why pride has been considered one of the seven deadly sins.

We’ve all been repelled by people who have an inflated view of themselves.

They may talk about themselves excessively and rarely show interest in others.

They pump themselves up and come across as snooty, exuding an attitude that makes others feel judged.

Such over-confidence and arrogance push us away.

Instead of relating to us as equals, they display an obnoxious superiority that makes us feel small.

They have the knack of making us feel the shame that they refuse to face within themselves.

Pride is often driven by poor self-worth and shame.

We feel so badly about ourselves that we compensate by feeling superior.

We look for others’ flaws as a way to conceal our own.

We relish criticizing others as a defense against recognizing our own shortcomings.”

But family, the scriptures have been clear on this for some time now.

Pride is how we deal with shame.

We inflate ourselves.

We do not live honestly with others.

This is how we deal with out shortcomings.

And this is devastating when it comes to the living God.

This is the underpinning that causes people to reject the gospel.

How do you get a person so inflated, so self-absorbed, so self confident, so full of pride and arrogance to see their need to repent before the living God?

We can receive mercy and grace, but it is pride that will lead to wrath and destruction and we will see this dynamic in our passage of scripture today.

There is still time…but pride will wait till its too late.

Let’s take a look.

The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.

Gather

Seek

The first thing we will look at today is the all important having the right perspective as to who we are when we gather.

Second, we will explore the significance of humility in receiving grace from the Lord.

Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to be blind to the reality and true perception of ourselves, it is the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the scriptures that will cause us to see that the Lord opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

I. Gather

- Getting the right perspective.

A. One of the reasons why I’m still in favor of studying biblical languages like Hebrew and Greek, we sometime lose the imagery.

First things first, anytime we see a repeat, there is something being emphasized here.

The imperative to gather together is repeated… so heads up.

But the Hebrew image here is rather striking.

The scripture here is helping us to get perspective.

B. The command to gather is clear in our translations…and it is clearly right.

It is said that the verb used for Gather is unusual coming from the root for stubble.

So we should understood that there a a bit more being communicated than simply gathering.

So maybe… gather together like stubble.

Getting the right perspective.

Dr. O Palmer Robertson, “Understood in this context, the admonition may be interpreted as a form of derogatory address.

Judah is worth no more than stubble.

It populace ought to bunch together in a manner that acknowledges this utter worthlessness.”

C. We are gathered like that which is useful only to be burned.

Worthless.

Gather together all of you who are worthless stubble.

Wait... so God is calling the people of Judah worthless.

Yes.

Its a derogatory address.

That’s just rude.

That seems uncalled for.

Mighty disrespectful.

How could he talk to people like that?

Well, here we go again… I will not apologize for God.

Because I do not need to.

The Lord is not subject to our policies and ideologies of current popular and acceptable behavior decided by the standards of men.

So many will reject the Lord because of stuff like this and why many a preacher will try to soften it.

But are we getting the right perspective?

D. What would you think about a person who stands before a mirror that shows him that he has dirt and mud on his face and hair that is messed up and then he screams at the mirror, cusses at it, complains as to how rude it is, hits it and walks away thinking that his face is clean and having a good hair day.

Would we not here think he lost his mind?

It is the same with our Lord.

E. He is not doing this because He is insecure.

He is not doing this because he has to make us look bad so that he can look better.

He is not trying to manipulate.

He is not trying to get some kind of sick enjoyment out of it.

When he calls us worthless… it is because we are.

We have to get the right perspective.

He is trying to get us to see what we are so that we will know exactly what it is we need.

If we see we are worthless bundles of stubble destined to be burned and blown away in the wind, then we would ask in humility if there is a way we can be saved from the fire.

We have to get the right perspective.

F. It is our pride that keeps us from getting the right perspective today.

It is the reason we cannot operate in true humility.

And it seems that getting a true perspective these days is getting harder and harder.

Mankind from the very beginning desired its independence and its autonomy this is what led to the fall.

And from the time of the fall there are pattens after patterns of methods to make ourselves appear better than we really are.

Philosophers call out the weakness and dangers of humility and humbleness seen as detrimental to human progress.

Even though modern psychologists do outline the dangers of pride, it is done carefully and broadly not wanting to stop any human desire to progress in independence and autonomy… its ability to decide right and wrong for ourselves.

We have to get the right perspective.

G. Just like those mirrors in the department store when you go clothes shopping… it slims you just right and you look awesome.

So much in our culture is skewing our perspective.

We just can’t see reality anymore.

Its like the world is nothing but skewed mirror all around us.

All of our faults and transgressions are minimized or prettied up.

A person is not lazy, he is merely “motivationally dispossessed”; a shoplifter is not a thief, he is “a cost of living adjustment specialist”; a prostitute is not a prostitute, she is a “sex care provider.”

Homosexuality is now called sexual deviancy, Lying is called true statements that are contradictory, Lust is called admiration, Rebellion is called the exercise of freedom, Pride is called confidence, Envy is called economic stability, Destruction of property, burning down buildings, and vandalism is called peaceful protest, Abortion is called population control, and the dishonoring Father and Mother is called adolescence.