Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Work of God*

*March 14, 2004*

* *

*Scripture Reading:*

 

*Introduction:*

 

/Video: “Ever Think About Dying?” by Worship Films.com./

Note: The great contradiction; either grave confusion or glorious confidence in these “man-on-the-street” interviews about dying.

For those of us who know the way, the truth and the life in Jesus, the darkness of soul in those without him is exceedingly dark.

“22  "The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.

23  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

(Matthew 6:22-23 NIVUS)

 

The difference is whether or not you possess the light of life from God – or whether you remain in the darkness of your deadness.

“16  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have *eternal life*.

17  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

18  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but *whoever does not believe* *stands condemned already* because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18 NIVUS)

 

If you do not have life from God you are already dead.

The apostle John puts it in even clearer terms in his first letter.

“11  And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

12  He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

(1 John 5:11-12 NIVUS)

 

To understand the concept of life more clearly, we must start at the beginning – which, of course, would be Genesis, the first book of the Bible.

There we find the account of creation.

We already read about it this morning in our opening Scripture in Exodus 20:8-11 about the 4th Commandment.

Like God, in whose image he has made us, we are to work for six days and rest on the seventh like he did in honor of his finished work.

It is good for us to know that we can reach a point of finishing our work each week.

It is not good for us to strive against impossible odds.

But what I want us to focus on this morning is the work of God that the 4th Commandment makes reference to.

Let us take a look at the account of creation in Genesis chapter one.

You will note here at the beginning, the first two verses, give a summary statement of the creation of the cosmos, as does the first verse of chapter two.

The difference between these two summary statements is that the first is before creation and the second is after.

In between are the six days of creation, and of course, we know that God rested from creation on the seventh.

With creation, God put a living process in motion that, at least for some, would never end.

The summary statement in the first two verses reveals the mind of God, the plan of God, about what he was to do.

He started with a blank piece of paper, so to speak, without any organization (“the earth was formless and empty [what was in God’s mind had not yet taken shape], darkness was over the surface of the deep”) and began to design life.

But like any artist, the design he implemented was first in his spirit~/Spirit (“the Spirit of God was hovering [planning] over the waters [what was in God’s mind to do]”).

At first there was nothing, a negative state, and he began to speak the process of life into existence that we see over the next six days.

Each day of creation typically follows a pattern of /announcement, commandment, separation, report, naming, evaluation, /and/ chronological framework./

Announcement: “and God said”

          Commandment: “let there be”

          Separation: boundaries are important in both created and social orders – when everything keeps to its allotted place and does not transgress its limits, there is order, not chaos

          Report: “and so God made”

          Naming: an indication of dominion, reveals God as the supreme ruler

          Evaluation: “God saw that it was good” – along with this is God’s blessing of each kind of creature with procreativity

          Chronological Framework: God does not create in time, but with time, attesting to his logical and timely shaping of creation

 

But you might be confused with what seems like repetition in the six days of creation.

God creates (1) Light, (2) Firmament – sky, seas, (3) Dry land, Vegetation, (4) Lights, (5) Inhabitants – birds, fish, (6) Land animals, Human beings.

Why didn’t God just create the lights when he made light?

Why didn’t he put in the birds and fish when he made the sky and seas?

Why didn’t he put in the land animals and humans when he made the land and vegetation?

 

/Show overhead transparency on “Parallelism in God’s Creative Acts”/

 

The reason is that God created the entire foundation for his plan of life before he created life itself.

The second set of three days corresponds with the first set of three days.

Days 4-5-6 fill what was created on days 1-2-3 with corresponding living bodies.

“The movement and development of each triad reveals a progression within creation.

The first triad separates the formless chaos into three static spheres.

In the second triad, the spheres that house and shelter life are filled with the moving forms of sun, moon, and living creatures.

The inhabitants of the second triad rule over the corresponding spheres: the sun and the moon rule the darkness, while humanity (head over everything) rules the earth.

[Joan told me the other day that watching me talk and play with my dog, Buster, reminded her of Adam naming and ruling over the animals.]

“Each triad progresses from heaven to earth (land) and ends with the earth bringing forth.

In the first triad, the land brings forth vegetation; in the second, the land brings forth animals.

The number of creative acts also increases within each triad: from a single creative act (days 1 and 4) to one creative act with two aspects (days 2 and 5) to two separate creative acts (days 3 and 6).

“Action in the creation account also escalates.

Within the first triad, there is simple movement from light to dark, from firmament and seas to growing vegetation.

Within the second triad, there is an eruption of kinetic energy.

Sun and moon arch across the sky; birds and fish swarm the air and sea; land animals rove across the ground.

The pattern of movement in the second triad occurs progressively.

The lights follow a predictable and structured pattern.

The animals travel with limited levels of freedom, bounded by their instinctual patterns of migration and habitation.

Human beings have the greatest freedom, limited only by the earth itself.

“The entire account is unified by a basic week time structure.

Structure affirms the consonance and symmetry, the harmony and balance in God’s world.”

(/Genesis/, Bruce K. Waltke)

 

What we need to glean from this is not only profound appreciation of the matchless intelligence of God, but also the work of God on our behalf.

“2  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

3  And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

(Genesis 2:2-3 NIVUS)

 

Now, my little dog, Buster, seems to have the innate habit of undoing everything I do.

I just got finished picking up all the paper he shredded last night by putting it on top of another larger piece of paper.

I no sooner got it all picked up than he jumped up and knocked it all down again.

I put clothes in the dirty clothes hamper and he plays snatch and grab to strew them all over the house.

It’s like this with kids too – and God had the same problem with his kids.

Adam and Eve did what they were not supposed to do, and sinned against God, and messed up his order, and God has been at (continuing) work picking up the pieces and putting the dirty clothes back in the hamper even since.

And until we learn some new tricks, our life on earth is a living death due to disobedience.

“16 ¶  To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." 17 ¶  To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

18  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

19  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."”

(Genesis 3:16-19 NIVUS)

 

We compromised God’s separation of light from darkness and began to live in diminishing twilight.

This reminds us again of Jesus’ words that I spoke earlier –

 

“22  "The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.

23  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

(Matthew 6:22-23 NIVUS)

 

But God was still at work.

God had a contingency plan.

“ And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."”

(Genesis 3:15 NIVUS)