Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I am a CrossFit fanatic.

For those of you who don’t know what CF is, it’s a workout methodology.

It’s defined as, “constantly varied functional fitness performed at high intensity.”

I began my search for a new CF gym to join here in DC.

I was a DCF this week and we did one of the CF benchmark workouts, name Isabel.

Isabel is one of several benchmark workouts known simply as, “the girls.”

There’s Annie, Barbara, Cindy, Diane, Elizabeth, Fran, Grace, Helen, Jackie, Kelly, Linda, Mary, and Nancy.

Why female names for these benchmark workouts?

Well, it actually doesn’t have a whole heck of a lot to do with gender.

These workouts are named after hurricanes.

CF decided to follow the pattern of the National Weather Service, which started to assign female names to storms after 1953 because they wanted to use “short, distinctive given names that made for easier and quicker communication.”

The founder of CF wrote,

This convenience and logic inspired our granting a special group of workouts women’s names, but anything that leaves you flat on your back and incapacitated only to lure you back for more at a later date certainly deserves naming.

This convenience and logic inspired our granting a special group of workouts women’s names, but anything that leaves you flat on your back and incapacitated only to lure you back for more at a later date certainly deserves naming.

These workouts are just like hurricanes.

There’s a calm before the storm.

You’re feeling fine, talking with your fellow gym members, the coach has taken you through a nice warmup, getting you ready to workout.

Then she starts the timer, counting down to the start of the workout.

“Ten seconds!” she yells.

“3-2-1, Go!” are the next words out of her mouth, and all hell breaks loose.

At a certain point, you feel as though you might die.

If you can think at all, you’re thinking to yourself, “Why am I here, doing this voluntarily?”

(Christa’s comment…) The workout ends and you wonder, “Am I dead?”

The devastation in the gym is evident as people are lying on the floor all over the place, making what we call sweat angels.

This is what happens in a hurricane.

There’s calm.

Then there’s a realization that the storm has hit and you are no longer in control.

Then, after the storm passes, there’s chaos.

Devastation is all around.

I want to put before you from our text this morning that with Jesus it’s the opposite.

What we find out about following Jesus is a different pattern.

It’s the storm before the calm.

I want to talk to you this morning about Chaos, Control, and Calm.

Chaos

There is perhaps no other chapter in the Bible that hits us with the divinity of Jesus Christ stronger than this first chapter of Hebrews.

You can’t read this and say that the Bible declares Jesus to be a mere prophet.

No. He’s God.

We don’t know for sure who the author of the letter to the Hebrews is.

I simply refer to him as the Pastor because this letter is a long sermon.

At the end he says to them,

Not only that, but you read ch.

11 and you realize that this preacher is doing some whooping.

What I love about the Pastor is that he’s not setting forth the divine nature of Jesus, the Son of God, as an idea that’s disconnected from life.

He’s not just giving them head knowledge.

All of this rich theology about Jesus Christ is not given in a vacuum.

It is the epitome of theology applied to life.

Jesus’ being God is important because the world is full of chaos.

In vv.

10-12 he quotes from , telling us that God the Father says to God the Son

All of Christ is not given in a vacuum.

It is the epitome of theology applied to life.

Jesus’ being God is important because the world is full of chaos.

In vv.

10-12 he quotes from , telling us that God the Father says to God the Son

Why is he quoting ?

If you look at , the heading from the Hebrew text is,

Why ?

If you look at , the heading is,

‘A prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint to the Lord.’

The psalmist is in the midst of a storm.

He’s overwhelmed by the chaos of this world.

His world had been rocked.

What’s turned his world upside down is that Jerusalem has been destroyed.

The temple is in ruins.

The temple was supposed to be the place where God made his name dwell.

It was the evidence that the Lord was with his people.

Now, the thing that he thought was most secure and stable was gone.

The Babylonians have crushed them and taken them into exile.

This analogy falls short, but it helps to see the point.

When I was young, my father used to work at the World Trade Center.

He usually took the train home from work, but there were a few occasions when drove into Manhattan to pick him up.

I can remember being parked outside of the towers waiting for Dad to come out and looking out of the car window up at the Towers.

As hard as I strained my neck I couldn’t see the top.

I was amazed by those buildings, and they were, in my mind, permanent fixtures in NY.

The pictures that represented NYC always included the Twin Towers.

Obviously, they weren’t the permanent fixtures I thought that they were.

The City was thrown into distress when the Towers fell on 9/11.

The distress on the faces of New Yorkers when the Towers fell gets at the distress of the psalmist…

“For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace.

My heart is struck down like grass and has withered; I forget to eat my bread.

Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my flesh.”

( ESV)

But there’s a turning point in the psalm.

In v. 12 he says,

But there’s a turning point in the psalm.

In v. 12 he says,

“But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations.

You will arise and have pity on Zion” ( ESV)

In the midst of the chaos that’s around him what he realizes is that the only stable, unchanging reality is that Yahweh, the Lord is enthroned forever.

That’s the message that the Pastor is communicating in .

The distress you feel is real, but the One who walked the streets of Jerusalem and said, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” is none other that Yahweh, the Lord your God.

He’s telling them that Jesus is the very one who laid the earth’s foundations in the beginning; the very one who created the heavens.

Those created things will wear out and be rolled up like an old garment and be changed, but the Lord continues forever.

He is the same and his years have no end.

The chaos is having a particular impact on the recipients of this letter.

Their Pastor is writing to them because they are in danger.

They’re in danger of drifting away from the faith because of the persecution they’re under for following Jesus.

They want a release from the pressure.

Following Jesus is costing more than they anticipated.