Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Get Attention:

Carpe Deim! Seize the Day!

The clock ticks.

Second by second, hour by hour, day by day, the clock ticks away.

Each breath breathed and each moment spent passes and cannot be regained.

For all of us, time moves forward and quite quickly it seems.

We look back five or ten years ago and it seems like just yesterday.

We are locked in time knowing it will one day run out, just like a prisoner on death row who sits in his cell awaiting his execution.

Thinking of the fleeting of time can be depressing and quite sobering, and yet it can spur us on to use our time well, especially in the light of Jesus’ Second Coming.

[Greg Wilburn, Wake up Church: How to Be Ready for the Return of Christ (Greenville, SC; Belfast, Northern Ireland: Ambassador, 2010), 91.]

Seize the Day, novella by American author Saul Bellow, published in 1956.

This short novel examines one day in the unhappy life of Tommy Wilhelm, who has fallen from marginal middle-management respectability to unemployment, divorce, and despair.

Like many of Bellow’s other novels, Seize the Day exhibits an ambivalent attitude toward worldly success, and it follows its sensitive, gullible protagonist’s quest for meaning in a chaotic and hostile world.[Encyclopædia

Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016).]

carpe diem (Latin).

kar-pay dee-um.

“Seize the day.”

Expression used to encourage taking advantage of every opportunity.

[Standard Bible Dictionary (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 2006).]

carpe diem Latin (ˈkɑːpɪ ˈdiːɛm) enjoy the pleasures of the moment, without concern for the future [literally: seize the day!] [Collins English Dictionary.

(Glasgow: HarperCollins, 2006).]

Illustration -

COMPLACENCY - WHAT PROVOKES CHANGE - Proverbs 1:32; Amos 6:1

Apathy; Bondage, spiritual; Change; Complacency; Control; Courage; Faith; Fear; Growth; Motivation; Risk

Danny Cox, a former jet pilot turned business leader, tells his readers in Seize the Day that when jet fighters were first invented, they “flew much faster than their propeller predecessors.

So pilot ejection became a more sophisticated process.

Theoretically of course, all a pilot needed to do was push a button, clear the plane, then roll forward out of the seat so the parachute would open.”

But there was a problem that popped up during testing.

Some pilots, instead of letting go, would keep a grip on the seat.

The parachute would remain trapped between the seat and the pilot’s back.

The engineers went back to the drawing board and came up with a solution.

Cox writes:

The new design called for a two-inch webbed strap.

One end attached to the front edge of the seat, under the pilot.

The other end attached to an electronic take-up reel behind the headrest.

Two seconds after ejection, the electronic take-up reel would immediately take up the slack, and force the pilot forward out of his seat, thus freeing the parachute.

Bottom line?

Jet fighter pilots needed that device to launch them out of their chairs.

Question is, what will it take to launch us out of ours?

[Citation: Jim Davis, pastor, Silverdale, Washington; source: Danny Cox, Seize the Day: Seven Steps to Achieving the Extraordinary in an Ordinary World (Career Press, 1994).

[PreachingToday.com,

Perfect Illustrations: For Every Topic and Occasion (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2002), 46–47.]]

Raise Need:

While change can be good, it not always is.

One of the reasons we may get ahead of God is because we may fear getting left behind of His promises.

Orient Theme:

"A sign of maturity is delayed gratification" - Dave Ramsey

The question looms though, "How long is too long to wait?"

The danger lies in putting words in God's mouth when we assume that He will bless our plans to achieve now what He ultimately wants for us then.

Abraham was now eighty-five years old.

He had been walking with the Lord for ten years and had learned some valuable lessons about faith.

God had promised Abraham and Sarah a child but had not told them when the child would be born.

It was a period of waiting, and most people don’t like to wait.

But it is through “faith and patience [that we] inherit the promises” (Heb.

6:12).

God has a perfect timetable for all that He wants to do.

After all, this event was not the birth of just another baby: It was part of God’s great plan of salvation for the whole world.

However, as Sarah waited for something to happen, she became impatient.

Why did God wait so long?

He wanted Abraham and Sarah to be physically “as good as dead” (Heb.

11:12) so that God alone would get the glory.

At age eighty-five, Abraham was still virile enough to father a child by Hagar; so the time for the miracle baby had not yet arrived.

Whatever is truly done by faith is done for the glory of God (Rom.

4:20) and not for the praise of man.

A willingness to wait on the Lord is another evidence that you are walking by faith.

“He that believeth shall not make haste” (Isa.

28:16).

Paul quoted this verse in Romans 10:11 and amplified its meaning: “Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.”

(The same Holy Spirit inspired both Isaiah and Paul, and He has the right to make these changes.)

Whenever we stop trusting God, we start to “make haste” in the wrong direction and we end up being ashamed.

A third evidence of faith is that you are acting on the authority of God’s Word.

“So, then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom.

10:17).

You can act by faith, and know that God will bless, if you are obeying what He says in His Word.

Hebrews 11 records the mighty acts of ordinary men and women who dared to believe God’s promises and obey His commandments.

Finally, whenever you act by faith, God will give joy and peace in your life.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing” (Rom.

15:13).

Conflict may surround you, but you will have God’s peace and joy within you.

These, then, are the evidences of true biblical faith: (1) you are willing to wait; (2) you are concerned only for the glory of God; (3) you are obeying God’s Word; and (4) you have God’s joy and peace within.

While Abraham and Sarah were waiting, God was increasing their faith and patience and building character (James 1:1–4).

Then something happened that put Abraham and Sarah on a painful detour.

[Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Obedient, “Be” Commentary Series (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1991), 54–55.]

State Purpose:

I want to speak with you about exercising your faith to wait on God, and building your trust that He's never going to deliberately leave you behind.

For those who only have death to look forward to and then the grave and hell, "Seize the Day" may seem like the only thing to live for; but for those who are looking for the Kingdom and Promises of God, we long to lay hold on a brighter day, and Seize the Eternal Day, by redeeming the time here and now.

Main Thought

Whenever we run ahead of God's perfect timing, we can expect the consequences of sinful and worldly compromise; Let us redeem the time, and seize the eternal day!

Sub-Introduction

Connecting Context:

Yet, how easy it is even for those who know God and walk by faith to geive ear to the world's reasoning to watch the sand in the proverbial hour-glass falling away, and desire to Carpe Deim.

Abram's problem with patience is here seen in more detail.

Abraham suggests Eliezer for his heir (Gen.

15:1-4); God says, "No!"

Abraham suggests Ishmael for his heir (cf.

Gen. 17:18); God says, "No!"

Background/Intro Material:

This chapter marks another stage in eliminating every means but miracle towards the promised birth.

It is ironical that after the heights attained in the last two chapters, Abram should capitulate to domestic pressure, pliant under his wife’s planning and scolding, and quick to wash his hands of the outcome.

Meanwhile the Lord, ‘with whom is no variableness’, watches over the disregarded person and pattern, and ‘works His sovereign will’.

[Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 1, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1967), 137.]

I. Compromised Ethics in Contemporary Cultures (Gen.

16:1-6).

A. Abram & Sarai Falter (Gen.