Sermon Tone Analysis

The Worlds Joy - Tragedy

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All of the world is guilty before God, this passage leads us to understand it, in general, as a description of the depravity of human nature, the sinfulness of sin that we are conceived and born into.

C.S. Lewis - “Mere Christianity”

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“All that we call history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

The driving motive in history is the desire for happiness.

Look at the driving motive in the worlds history, everything from slavery, to prostitution to racism to terrorism to extortion to abortion to the ignition of world wars - it’s all driven by a desire for happiness apart from God.

*Sin is the disease of mankind, and it appears here to have become a malignant epidemic of magnified proportions.

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2 THINGS THAT SHOW HOW MALIGNANT IT HAS BECOME

The contempt it puts on the honor of God.

“The fool say’s in his heart, there is not God.”

The real problem is affectional atheism, finding God to be an obstruction in the path of person joy.

This is the fundamental problem that plagues the human heart.

The sinner here described - say’s in his heart

The character of the sinner - he is a fool; he is simple and unwise

Tony Reinke (author, senior writer for Desiring God)

“The problem is not that there are atheists in the world; the problem is that we all universally identify with this atheism at the core of our motives.”

WHAT IS AT THE CORE OF OUR CONTEMPT FOR GOD

twisted desire for happiness - this desire must come at the cost of others.

illustration: The single man who idolizes sex and is motivated to date to that end.

The single woman who idolizes the attention of men to fund her sense of self-worth is also motivated to date to that end.

When they meet, they will use each other for their own selfish ends.

It will cost a man his flattery, it will cost the woman her body, but in the moment both seem to be a small price to feed their own personal idols.

Idol feeding cannot be sustained.

Eventually the man’s eyes are drawn to other bodies of other women and un-drawn to the woman who sits across the table from him right now.

The flattery will eventually be exposed to be a sham, and the woman’s body will be shown to have been merely an object of a man’s lust.

If you look deeper than the surface, you find this relationship two isolated sinners, atheist whose affections are disconnected from God, and who are using one another to fill in the gap.

It will end in war.

mis - placed affections - Exploiting one another for personal happiness, however subtle it may seem eventually leads to personal conflict in all our lives.

“What causes fights and quarrels in our lives?”

GOD-lESS JOYS - We lust for pleasures that we think will bring us happiness.

We use, we get used.

We covet.

We become enemies of each other and enemies of God.

We reject the abundant supplies God offers us for personal satisfaction.

PURITAN RICHARD BAXTER - “Our last end is our pleasure, our treasure, our chief good, what we use everything else in our lives to obtain.

WE CANNOT SEE GOD’S BEAUTY OR ENJOY HIS PLEASURES, SO WE SEEK TO SUBSTITUTE IT WITH THE PLEASURES OF THE FLESH.

Our Problem: Our last end is whatever we perceive to be the best thing in the world for us, what we think would make us happiest to have, what would make us most miserable to miss.

(it could be sex, attention, power, fame, wealth.)

THIS EXPOSES THE PRACTICAL ATHEISM OF OUR HEARTS.

wrong good - wrong treasure - wrong security

2. The disgrace it puts on the nature of man.

Sinners are corrupt, quite degenerated from what man was in his innocent state: They have become filthy (v.3), putrid.

They have become abhorrent to their Maker and utterly incapable of answering the ends of their creation.

They do no good, they do God no service, and bring him dishonor.

They do no good, they do God no service, and bring him dishonor.

They do a great deal of hurt.

Sin is an abomination to God

There is no God; for those that profess they know God, but in works deny him.

“See how epidemic this disease is; it has infected the whole race of mankind.”

To prove this, God himself is brought in for a witness, and he is an eye-witness.

v.2,3.

OBSERVE, 1. “The Lord looked down from heaven, he took a view of the children of man, and the question was, whether there were any among them that did understood their duty and interest, and did seek after God. 2. The Result of the enquiry v. 3 Upon his search, it appeared, they have all turned away, the apostasy is universal.

There is none that is good enough until the free and mighty grace of God hase brought a change.

*Whatever good or happiness is brought to mankind is God’s work in us, not ourselves.

When God made the world he looked on His own work and said that it was very good.

AT THE ROOT OF SIN IS NOT WRONG DOING, IT’S WRONG ADORING.

TOTALY DEPRAVED

“Total depravity is not just badness, but blindness to beauty and deadness to joy.”

The scale of devastation differs, but our hearts are the same.”

It’s one thing to be bad; it’s wholly another thing to be blind to good.

We love what destroys and are blinded to what satisfies

“the affection of our hearts is royally screwed up.”

total depravity is not merely being an innocent victim of sin or merely forgetting God.

Depravity is a willing and intentional rebellious ignoring of God.

We enjoy the pleasures of the flesh over the pleasures of God - this is a sin of astonishing guilt and damning in it’s nature.

How do I turn the worlds greatest tragedy into the greatest Joy?

Sin is Joy poisoned.

Holiness is joy postponed and pursued.

If I am to escape my lostness, God must become my greatest treasure.

“The Lord doesn’t talk about your sin so you will think that you are trash, he talks about it because you are not.

He talks about it because he has made you in his own image, with an infinitely higher plan for you than the one that you have chosen for yourself.”