Sermon Tone Analysis

“The war in Vietnam is going well and will succeed.”

Robert Mcnamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1963.

Race not to the swift . . .

We are a people that love predictions, political poll predictions, sports team predictions which start for the next season the moment the season ends (if not before), weather predictions, predictions about our future, predictions about our children, predictions about the church, predictions about the country.

In part, we love predictions because it helps us feel like we have some control.

We imagine we understand the world, we can see how it is going.

The problem is how bad we are at them.

1825 – Quarterly Review “What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches.”

1943 – Thomas Watson, Chairmen of IBM, said he predicted there would be a world market for about 5 computers.

1956 – Richard van der Riet Wooley, Renowned British Astronomer, said “Space travel is utter bilge.”

(rubbish)

It has been calculated that 2/3 or more of the predictions made by American social scientists have been incorrect.

Rich Strike wins the Kentucky Derby (was he just secretly the fastest and the experts didn’t know it . .

.)

Ukraine doesn’t go down in less than a week to Massive Russia as was supposedly inevitable

Georgia actually beats Alabama

Most importantly: The last place Braves lost their best player and then win the World Series

Shrug – We dunno “The race is not to the swift . . .

time and chance happen to them all”

We live in a world where cause and effect are often visibly in connection with each other.

I press a light switch and the light comes on.

The swift usually win the races.

Because of this, we start to get the idea that somehow the universe can eventually be mastered by us, and we say, yeah I know what’s about to happen.

Control is seductive.

2 Ways we Seek Control

2 False Gospels of Control (not gospels like Matthew Mark Luke John, but the gospel message, the good news of salvation)

2 Reasons to Yield Control

Qohelet says there’s basically 2 methods people use to try to gain control

Knowledge/Wisdom

We say, the problem is I just don’t understand enough, so I need to gain more knowledge, Qohelet says that wisdom is certainly better than folly, but it does not allow us a comprehensive account of reality and thus provide a means somehow to control it.

Its good to increase in knowledge, but that won’t solve the control problem.

In fact, it’ll probably make it worse, because you’ll be frustrated by more stuff.

1:16-18 – We know this to be the case – if ignorance is bliss, what is knowledge?

There is truth in the idea that knowledge makes life more difficult and stressful.

Or just think about it in terms of a job promotion that results from knowledge or competency, that’s nice, but almost always, your responsibilities and therefore stress increase.

7:23-24

Ends book with reminder of this – 12:12 – Beware of much reading (summer reading, religiously opposed to it)

Know more stress more, not know more have more control

Wealth

We all say, well if I just had more money, and yet, you have more than you did 10 years ago, and have your stresses greatly decreased?

Do you know feel like you have control?

5:10-11 - Fill in the Blank, Mo Money Mo __________ Control?

Lol - Problems

One cannot guarantee one will attain wealth, and even if he does, one cannot guarantee that one will be able to keep it, or use it, or pass it on, and then if you are able to pass it on, who is to say that that will be Good for your child or grandchild and not make them complacent and entitled?

One of the sociological facts that we now know most clearly and surely is that the possession of wealth does not inevitably lead to the possession of fulfillment and joy.

In fact, as one sociologist put it, suicide seems to be a privilege of the rich.

2:1-11, 17-23, 4:7-8.

5:10-17, 6:1-6

Don’t live a life of pursuing knowledge, don’t live a life pursuing wealth, live a life pursuing God, and if he intends, the others will come from this.

The promise of control lies at the heart of much of the advertising with which we are every day deluged.

To control our lives, it is suggested, we need only buy this product, eat this kind of food, and avoid that sort of drink.

No longer need we be the victims of our frailty and mortality.

This food will make you live longer, this product will make your hair grow back, this book will bring you happiness again.

The church often plays the same game, we advertise control, we just do it by way of religion.

The clearest example of this is the Prosperity Gospel.

If you are a Christian, you’re a prince and God wants you wealthy and healthy!

Biblical illiteracy required.

People don’t come for God, they come for control over God, they come for control over disease, control over financial problems, control over relational problems.

Control over loss…

And the apostles and historic church collectively roll their eyes at such reasons to come.

Come for prosperity?

Which Jesus are you following that experienced prosperity?

“Well I don’t believe that, I am good.”

Man-Centered Gospel (which we all fall prey to at times)

When we think of the gospel, we think primarily about ourselves, we see ourselves as the center.

Get God’s things rather than get God.

Prodigal – younger son was trying to get control by leaving and disobeying, older son tried to get control by staying and obeying.

If in your heart of hearts you say, “I try very hard.

I try to obey.

I go to church.

I pray.

Therefore God you owe it to me to give me a relatively good life, to answer my prayers, and to take me to heaven when I die,” then Jesus is your model, your example, your boss, but not your savior.

You’re seeking to be your own savior.

All your morality, all your religion is just your way to get God to give you what you really want, which is not God himself.

You don’t want God, you want God’s stuff – you think this whole thing is mainly about what God is going to give to You, you still think its all really about you in the end

This message (Bible) is not about you.

When the true gospel is preached, you know the only part that is directly about you, the ONLY part – You were dead in your sins

Imagine that all of existence is a play, and they are handing out roles/parts in the beginning – you get to be the dead guy.

This play isn’t about you.

The Gospel isn’t primarily about what you are to do, but about what He already Did.

Biblical faith, and the Biblical gospel is not about control.

It isn’t about manipulation of God so that God will do as we wish.

Biblical faith is the radical abandonment of our whole being in grateful trust and love to God.

It is bowing to God and saying THY WILL BE DONE, not, I’m going to follow these steps so that MY WILL BE DONE.

It is at bottom the admission that I AM NOT GOD!

I AM NOT IN CONTROL!

God is God and we are not, that God’s ways in the world are beyond us and beyond our control is the message.

1. Chaos will come, but will be used for God’s Glory and Your Good.

Sometimes we can see reasons for chaos.

Sometimes, God brings chaos to life to draw us back in, lift our eyes, discipline us, or simply to remind us that we are not in fact those gods who control the present or the future.

Every time a prediction fails, every time the swift do not win a race or the strong a battle, every time our health breaks down, or we find ourselves poorer rather than richer, or we discover we are miserable rather than happy, every such occasion is a moment of grace and an opportunity to look reality straight in the eye.

It is a moment in which we are helped to remember who controls the times.

2 Corinthians 1:8–9, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.

For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.

But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

2 Corinthians 4:17, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

God is angered by sin, and never approves of evil, but the perfectly good God does allow it.

Chaos may come to rid you of idolatries, and so that you may realize that God is Your ONLY lasting treasure, the only sure and stable thing in the universe.

Psalm 73:25–26, “Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Chaos is often a call for us to repent and bow, taking again our proper place in front of God.

– Luke 13:1-5