Sermon Tone Analysis

Theory of Everything

SLIDE #1 Opening

Isaiah 45:12 “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it.

I stretched out the heavens with My hands And I ordained all their host.

As I was thinking about today’s what I wanted to talk about, I realized that it really comes in four pieces.

So after today I’ll be back again the next two weeks.

Some of you are counting . . .

The answer is that you have already heard one of them.

The message I gave about salvation a few weeks ago was piece #3.

I just didn’t know it at the time.

Now you get the rest of the story.

Like all believers, I have been on a journey in which I have been getting to know God and His word better.

Several times along the way I’ve had to change my mind about things.

God’s word corrected some things I had been taught, and sometimes told me some things I didn’t want to hear.

But as time went on, I trust that in general, the picture of God’s plan has become clearer.

I have begun to see at least in a small way how some things fit together.

So today I’m going to be talking about a TOE.

I don’t mean the kind that most of us have ten of, or what they do to your car when the meter runs out; it’s an acronym – T. O. E. Are there any of you who read about science, or watch science documentaries on TV, that know what T. O. E. stands for?

It’s a Theory of Everything.

SLIDE #2 – Theory

Of

Everything

If you have seen these shows, you know that scientists try to unite the laws of nature under some elemental, basic principle from which everything else can be derived.

I’m not going to pretend to understand all that, but in a similar way I’d like to get to the most basic and fundamental things about our faith so we can see how everything else comes out of it.

You’re not going to hear anything today that you’ve never heard before.

You heard some of it a month ago when Andrew Claussen spoke.

In fact, we should hear it in every worship service.

But perhaps putting it all together might give you a little bit of a different perspective.

Like a Hostess cupcake, there may be a surprise inside.

Let me give you another illustration.

My job is a computer programmer.

A lot of my work is at a very detailed level.

I may have to pour over thousands of lines of code in dozens of programs to find where a particular value is calculated.

I can get so engrossed in the detail that I lose track of the big picture.

Sometimes I need to step back and remember how the people who use the system see it and how my small piece fits into that.

So I make charts that show relationships among different pieces of the system.

The charts take a top-down approach.

There is some overarching, simple purpose at the very top, and as you move down you show increasing detail and complexity.

The point is, you start at the top, with a simple purpose or goal, and that gives you a context for the greater and greater detail that you show underneath.

You approach Bible study in the same way.

The first rule of interpretation is context.

You always want to establish a context by starting with the highest level overview.

This is a simple statement of the author’s purpose for the whole book or letter.

The detail you fill in underneath is just an elaboration of that theme.

So today’s question is, What did the Author of creation say was the purpose of His work?

Then when we read the Bible, it helps to know that the way we understand it must be consistent with that purpose.

You could call this “top-down theology.”

It might look something like this:

SLIDE #3 – “Org Chart”

Frankly, that sounds like a pretty big objective.

Whenever we talk about God, and why He does what He does, we’re treading on lofty ground.

I once heard it said that it is like a lump of clay trying to explain the potter to another lump of clay.

God’s thoughts are as far above our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth.

We can’t put God in a box of our own making.

We have to let Him speak for Himself.

If God Himself hadn’t told us about Himself, we couldn’t say anything at all.

So, I’m approaching today’s message with fear and trembling.

If I had any sense I’d sit down right now . . .

On the other hand, there is a reason why we can approach this with some confidence.

God’s word does give us some information about this.

If we can find the purpose statements of Scripture, we can begin to see a glimmer of what God hath wrought, and why.

There is a word that is sometimes used to describe God.

It is aseity.

It means self-existence, or self-sufficiency.

God does not need anything because He is complete in himself.

As a trinity there is perfect fellowship in the Godhead.

He was free to make the world or not make the world.

He didn’t have to make a physical creation and populate it with beings that would rebel and reject their Creator.

He didn’t have to plan to send His Son among those wicked people and allow them to kill him.

That was painful to Him.

What was behind His decision to do that?

What could possibly cause God, who is completely self-sufficient, to make the plan that He did?

Or as you hear it from both scientists and philosophers, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

If we can answer that question, it will be our “Theory of Everything.”

By the way, it was really difficult to limit the number of Scripture references for today’s message.

I cut mercilessly.

Even so, I’m going to be snowing you with Scripture, practically an avalanche.

Maybe still too much.

I know that isn’t recommended, but a big story requires lots of Scripture, and I think you can handle it.

And it’s good to see how everything fits together to build a complete story.

So, how do we learn why God created?

We look for purpose statements in the Bible.

Of course, the Bible is filled with purpose statements, some big and some small.

We’re looking for the big ones, the most general ones.

They should also be simple ones.

Maybe the Bible just flat out tells us why God created everything.

Let’s look at some candidates.

By His will / for His pleasure

SLIDE #4

Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”

ASK:What is the purpose statement in this verse?

[“because of your will”]

So here is a pretty obvious answer.

God created because it was his will to do so.

At this point we could acknowledge that God’s ways are past finding out, and despair of ever understanding such deep things as God’s will, and leave it at that.

But this would be a pretty short message, about two pages.

The King James renders that same verse a little differently.

Revelation 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

The same word can mean either “will” or “pleasure.”

That’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?