Sermon Tone Analysis

WHAT DOES THIS PASSAGE TEACH ME ABOUT WHO GOD IS?

GOD IS RELATIONAL

He is not a troglodyte (lonely) but Triune.

The Trinity did not create out of requisite (need) but reflection.

HE PURSUES US

HE IS PATIENT WITH US

Genesis 3

An article on NPR claims that we have become "the Impatient Nation."

We want quick answers to complex problems.

The article puts it this way:

We: Speed date.

Eat fast food.

Use the self-checkout lines in grocery stores.

Try the "one weekend" diet.

Pay extra for overnight shipping.

Honk when the light turns green.

Thrive or dive on quarterly earnings reports.

Speak in half sentences.

Start things but don't fin ...We tweet stories in 140 characters or less, yet some tweets are too long.

We cut corners, take shortcuts.

We txt.

We: Send new faces to Washington every two years, then vote the rascals out two years later.

Clamor for more safety in the skies, then complain when security takes too long—and is inconvenient.

Can't take the time to drive to the video store or to wait for a DVD to arrive in the mail, so we order them on demand or stream them on the Web—well, clips of movies at least.

God is not capricious (given to sudden behavior change).

The genealogy of demonstrates His longsuffering.

We can calculate a timeline for human history from creation to the flood of 1,500 years.

Within this genealogy is contained a hidden prophecy that further demonstrates God’s patience.

How is that passage prophetic?

Methuselah comes from muth, a root that means “death”; and from shalach, which means “to bring”, or “to send forth”.

The name Methuselah means, “his death shall bring”.

Methuselah’s father was given a prophecy of the coming Great Flood, and was apparently told that as long as his son was alive, the judgment of the flood would be withheld; but as soon as he died, the flood would be brought or sent forth.

(Can you imagine raising a kid like that?

Every time the boy caught a cold, the entire neighborhood must have panicked!)

And, indeed, the year that Methuselah died, the flood came.

It is interesting that Methuselah’s life, in effect, was a symbol of God’s mercy in forestalling the coming judgment of the flood.

Therefore, it is fitting that his lifetime is the oldest in the Bible, speaking of the extensiveness of God’s mercy.

GOD IS RIGHTEOUS

HE IS THE JUDGE

He passes judgement on Adam and Eve in , Cain in , the world in , and the world again in .

If God were to not judge sin He would fail to be righteous.

When the Scripture says that God regretted it does not mean that He had second thoughts about creation.

This is anthropomorphic language (ascribing human form or attributes to a deity) which is used in Hebrew language to describe God using human language.

This Hebrew expression simply means that God grieved over man’s condition.

Did God not know that man was going to sin?

Of course he did.

Knowing something is going to happen does not remove its effect.

The Judge of the Universe patience is at the point of exhaustion.

However, he further demonstrates how long suffering He is by waiting 120 before executing His judgment.

During this 120 years God gracious provided a preacher in Noah and a prophecy in Methuselah.

The judge stayed man’s punishment in order to provide him salvation.

GOD IS REDEMPTIVE

THE ONE WHO JUDGES IS ALSO THE ONE WHO JUSTIFIES.

Adam and Eve sinned but God sacrifice an innocent animal to satisfy His judgement against their sin.

Noah was a sinner who

Verse 9 goes on to tell us

This declaration was not due to something inherit within Noah but it was something that had been imputed to him.

WHAT DOES THIS PASSAGE TEACH ME ABOUT WHO I AM?

I AM A SINNER.

BY DECEDENT/DNA

This means I don’t become a sinner through sinful actions but I am born a sinner.

BY DEFINITION

Sin can be defined as “not your will but mine be done”.

I AM DEPRAVED.

Total depravity does not mean that man is as wicked or sinful as he could be, nor does it mean that man is without a conscience or any sense of right or wrong.

Neither does it mean that man does not or cannot do things that seem to be good when viewed from a human perspective or measured against a human standard.

It does not even mean that man cannot do things that seem to conform outwardly to the law of God.

What the Bible does teach and what total depravity does recognize is that even the “good” things man does are tainted by sin because they are not done for the glory of God and out of faith in Him (; ).

While man looks upon the outward acts and judges them to be good, God looks upon not only the outward acts but also the inward motives that lie behind them, and because they proceed from a heart that is in rebellion against Him and they are not done for His glory, even these good deeds are like “filthy rags” in His sight.

In other words, fallen man’s good deeds are motivated not by a desire to please God but by our own self-interest and are thus corrupted to the point where God declares that there is “no one who does good, no not one!”

WHAT DOES THIS PASSAGE TEACH ME ABOUT WHAT GOD DOES?

GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES.

GOD SAVES PEOPLE.

By grace through faith.

There was once a young man from Chicago who went down to the bluegrass regions of Kentucky where he met and wooed a young woman who ultimately came back to Chicago as his bride.

They enjoyed three lovely years of marriage, and then one day in the midst of a sickness in a seizure of pain the young woman lost her mind.

When she was at her best, she was a bit demented.

At her worst, she would scream, and neighbors complained because the screams cut the air and it was hard to live with.

And so the young businessman left his home in the middle of Chicago, went out to one of the western suburbs, built a house, determined that there he would try to nurse his wife back to health and sanity again.

One day the family physician suggested that perhaps if he were to take his wife back to her Kentucky home that something in those familiar surroundings would help her restore her sanity, and so they went back to the old homestead.

Hand in hand they walked through the old house where memories hung on every corner.

They went down to the garden and walked down by the riverside where the first cowslips and violets were in bloom.

But after several days nothing seemed to happen.

So, defeated and discouraged, the young man put his wife back in the car, and they headed back to Chicago.

When they got close to the house, he looked over and discovered that his wife was asleep.

It was the first deep, restful sleep she had had in many weeks.

When he got to the house, he lifted her from the car, took her inside, placed her on the bed, and realized she wanted to sleep some more.

So he placed a cover over her and then just sat by her side and watched her through the midnight hour, watched her until the first rays of the sun reached through the curtain and touched her face.

The young woman awoke, and she saw her husband seated by her side.

She said, "I seem to have been on a long journey.

Where have you been?"

And that man, speaking out of days and weeks and months of patient waiting and watching said, "My sweetheart, I've been right here waiting for you all this time."

And if you ask me, "Where is God?" the answer is very much the same.

He's right here, right here waiting for you to respond with love to love, waiting for you to respond with trust to promise, waiting for you to cast yourself with a reckless abandon upon the grace of God, and waiting for you to discover what it means to be loved by God.

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Choose star rating:12345Name: Jason Grissom