Sermon Tone Analysis

Review:

Next Sunday we will begin our Advent series that will take us through Christmas eve.

Please mark it on your calendar that December 24 and December 31 the Community Center is closed, so we will be meeting at the Blacktop Comedy Club in Rocklin.

Very close by the Johnson Springview Community Center.

It’s on Sunset Blvd between Pacific Street and S. Whitney Blvd.

It’s 4.5 miles from Maidu.

It was at one time a church meeting place, so it actually feels a lot like a church building with separate classrooms for the kids, as well as a place for refreshments.

We’ll be able to use their sound system, and they have chairs and clean restrooms, so it will be a great alternative for us for those couple of weeks.

Introduction: Praying through the Psalms this November

For our final Sunday in Psalms we’re going to be all the way in the back of the Psalms looking at .

This Psalm is an incredibly rich Psalm because it takes grand truths about God’s character and makes them accessible to pray and understand and relate to.

This Psalm helps us to know how to pray through the emotions of wonder and mystery and majesty.

What do you daydream about?

What fills your

What fills you with enough emotion, that you raise your hands and shout?

When was the last time you gave someone a high five or a hug of excitement?

And unless you think I’m baiting you in, I really just want you to think about this.

Was it because you got an award, a bonus, a promotion, a raise at work?

Did your kid do something special?

Sing a song, take part in a play, a sporting event?

Did a friend or family member recently have a child?

The olympics are coming in February, maybe you’re an avid fan?

Or maybe you’re not a very celebratory person.

Maybe what excites you is the thought of fishing, or taking a vacation, seeing family, biking a trail, hunting, but if I kept going, we would get to the place where we identify what fills us with awe and wonder.

And I’m certainly not making light of the fact that we all are moved differently.

We all daydream differently.

But when was the last time that you daydreamed about grace?

When was the last time that you were moved to celebration and outward gratitude because of grace?

What is Grace?

Grace is not an easy word to define and that’s mainly because we as preachers have used and have taught some unhelpful definitions of grace.

To the point where we could substitute the word chi with grace and because we see it as some sort of spiritual force, it works.

But that isn’t biblical grace.

Grace is sometimes defined as God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense

Or Grace is when God does the work

And grace is unmerited favor.

Grace is the free gift of salvation, sanctification, and glorification

These definitions all help us to understand what grace is, but we still struggle to make a real life connection to the definition and the way that we use it.

“Like a lighthouse, this holy song casts a clear light even to the uttermost parts of the sea, and warns us against that practical atheism which ignores the presence of God, and so makes shipwreck of the soul.”

-Charles Spurgeon

“Like a lighthouse, this holy song casts a clear light even to the uttermost parts of the sea, and warns us against that practical atheism which ignores the presence of God, and so makes shipwreck of the soul.”

-Charles Spurgeon

When was the last time you knew God’s presence?

How do we know when we’ve actually experienced grace?

We know we‘ve experienced grace when God makes Himself real to you

Grace is when heaven and earth intersect

The very first mention of the word grace is found in when Moses tells us that God was about to rain judgement on humanity for the wickedness (manifested in violence and corruption) of every man on earth.

But Moses writes that Noah found grace (favor) in the eyes of the Lord.

Did he find God’s riches at Christ’s expense?

Or God’s work?

Well, it would be a stretch to say anything other than at that moment, God made himself real to Noah.

God spoke to Noah and instructed Noah and then enabled Noah to do what He instructed him to do.

Grace.

Grace is understood in the name Emmanuel, God with us.

Think of Paul’s words to the Ephesians, “For by grace (God making Himself real to you by the life and death of Jesus, by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit) you have been saved, it’s not of yourself, it is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.”

The point of all of that is to prod us to give thought to the greatest truth and the greatest mystery in all of Scripture and that is that God made himself accessible to mankind so that mankind could know God in an intimate way.

Charles Spurgeon (pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London England in the late 1800’s) made this comment about Psalm 139 and I believe it applies:

“Like a lighthouse, this holy song casts a clear light even to the uttermost parts of the sea, and warns us against that practical atheism which ignores the presence of God, and so makes shipwreck of the soul.”

-Charles Spurgeon

Where do we see grace?

We see grace in God’s knowledge of us (1-6)

To get to know someone requires you to step in to that persons mundane ins and outs of life.

To get to know someone means that you study that person for the sheer pleasure of understanding that person.

This makes perfect sense in friendships.

Friendship often begins by a shared affinity.

Sports, TV show, politics, hobby, etc...

And then it blossoms as you discover more about that person.

You see what she likes and dislikes, you ask questions like, “What are you thinking about?”

Or “What do you think about sushi?”

You know what doesn’t make much sense?

The God of the Universe having the desire to get low enough to study me.

To search, to know, to discern my daily activities, my very thoughts, my words before I even speak them to the point where He is acquainted (familiar) with my lifestyle.

This doesn’t only show us that God is all-knowing (omniscient) it shows us that God cares enough to want to know not just everything, but everything about you and me.

And this is almost overwhelming to think about.

How can He know me that well and 7 billion people all at the same time?

It’s simply because God is not a better version of you, God is totally and utterly different than you and I.

When we ponder on the knowledge of God towards us, we intersect with Himself.

He is making us aware of the grace that He has given us.

Do you believe that?

Than you my friend have just experienced grace.

I didn’t ask if you understand it, because David said, I cannot attain the knowledge that you know me, but for an inconceivable reason, I believe and therefore I intersect with His grace.

Allow the mystery and the reality of His knowledge to guide your thoughts, your actions, your emotions.

What would change if you believed in the moment of your darkest hours that Jesus knows you, knows the details of your situation, David tells us elsewhere that he knows how many times you toss on your bed and he even collects your tears in a bottle and writes them in His book.

Jesus tells us that the Father even knows how many hairs are on your head.

And maybe you’re thinking, well, this is the Bible, of course it’s going to be filled with all kinds of this type of language.

But we’re here in the 21st century, how do I know he knows my routines, my needs, my fears, my depression, my sorrow, my joys?

How do I know this is true?

My wife shared a story that she read in a magazine with me, that helps us to begin to recognize God’s knowledge of us.

The story is about an author, a father of six children, a man who wanted to have his book published, but couldn’t quite make enough money to make copies of his manuscript to send to publishers.

This man spent his time writing on the train as he spend his days working three manual labor jobs cleaning toilets, a manufacturer’s warehouse, and a food processing hot line.

As Christmas day drew near the author shares his struggled with wanting to have at least something to give to his children (the book was the present to them) but having literally no way to even print it and put it in their hands.

But

But that wintery Christmas Eve life forever changed for this family.

That afternoon the man noticed a white envelope on his doormat, no name, no note, but tucked inside were five crisp twenty dollar bills.

The man looked outside to see if he could catch the giver, but no one was there.

The man instantly knew what to do, so he ran to the grocery store to pick up a few items for a special dinner, a small gift for each of his six children, and to the office supply store to print fifteen spiral bound copies of his novel.

Six to give to his children and nine to send to publishers.

That man received a phone call not too long after he sent his novel with the news that they loved his manuscript and wanted to publish his story.

Fast forward six years and the publishing company wanted to film a biographical sketch of the author of a now famous novel.

A date was set and the location was to be at the former house of the author, the 900 square foot home where that infamous envelope was slid under the door.

The first videographer cancelled, but knew of someone who could do the shoot, the second didn’t cancel but decided to sub-contract the job to an aspiring videographer.