Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Have you ever done anything you regret doing?

I mean something silly, that you thought at the moment was a great idea, but soon realized that your decision was a big mistake?

When we lived in southern Ontario, we would often go and visit Niagara Falls.

After-all, it is a wonder of the world.

What you don’t realize is that man,

has taken that wonder and made it into a destination for tourist to be entertained.

One such place is a place called Ripley’s Believe it or not.

As you walk through this maze of different objects,

to consider if they are true or not, you come upon a mirror.

I don’t quite remember what the caption above the mirror states, but you are asked to do something in the mirror.

Most people are quick follow instruction, because afterall, it’s a mirror and what is the harm.

As you move on through the museum, In a few short steps you come quickly to regret your decision.

As you venture through the building and into another room you are now led to the opposite side of the wall of the mirror, you haven’t realized that it is the opposite side of the wall and all you see is a large glass with people making funny faces, or following a sign above it.

You stand and watch the many people making faces and following the sign above the mirror and you for a short moment begin to laugh, but then your memory kicks in and in your horror, you realize that the image you are looking at and laughing at the people on the other side of the glass was also the same mirror, moments earlier, you were that person.

Things you regret doing.

Wouldn’t it be great in life if we could walk backwards to look in the other direction.

To be looking at the glass, to see the responses of people, before we too fall into the same trap, and miss standing in front of the mirror.

You see this morning’s passage is somewhat similar to the one way mirror and glass.

Paul had just finished his discussion on sinfulness and lifestyles of sinfulness and now changes the focus upon someone else.

Who is on the other side of the mirror?

Turn with me as we continue in on our series through Romans and discover a truth about the Gospel or God News of God.

Let’s Pray

God Shows no partiality

As we learned last Sunday, that Paul is pointing out that sin that can so easily entangle us is there for everyone.

But for the Jew listening to this message, they thought differently.

They began to hear Paul’s words and it rang true in their lives.

Pause

Sometimes his words in the last part of Chapter 1 rings true in our lives.

Have you ever been in a situation and you begin to tell stories of people in your life that seem to be off on the wrong foot.

They seemed to make choices in their lives that you know would not help them.

You seem to have warned them and yet in their futility they seem to choose the way of destruction.

It is in that moment, we have to pause our thinking and how we look at them or these verses apply directly to us.

Paul begins by saying

Who is this man?

I like how one author put it and let me summarize by saying this.

Paul has just written words about the gentiles, the sinner, the lost.

The ones that have been turned over to their own ways and

The person is Cheering Paul on.

Yes,

Those people

You know the ones.

I am so glad we, the Jews, know God.

The Covenant God that has chosen us.

He has called us out.

Fights for us, Protects us.

We have this God on our side.

Oh those poor people,

It’s a good thing we are not like them.

There they are cheering in the background and then Paul’s words ring out clearly.

pause

You have no excuse,

you yourselves are being judged in the very same way.

I can image the reader saying what, me?

I also find that so many people miss understand the direction Paul is stating in these verses and shy away from talking to anyone about something they see in their fellow believers lives.

I don’t want to judge others.

One commentary stated it this way

The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 29: Romans (The Inconsistency of Human Judgment)

This approach Paul disdained.

It appears that he introduced a broad generality first of all with which most people would agree; that is, there are a lot of people who sit in judgment of others who are far from perfect themselves.

Then, when this had been established and agreed upon, he more clearly identified those who were adopting such an attitude.

Before going on with the details of Paul’s exposure of the Jewish situation we need to look at the broad generalities on human judgment that he made.

His fundamental concern was that man often has the capacity to evaluate and criticize the behavior of his fellow without recognizing that his evaluation is tainted because of his own inconsistency.

In other words, human judgment, which is often necessary, sometimes helpful, and occasionally correct, is fundamentally inconsistent.

There is a moment when we as fellow believers are to come along our fellow brothers and sisters and help them not to stray away, That is not judging like it is spelled out in these passages.

You see for the Jewish audience, they sought out to live the outward actions of their faith while in the inside, the heart of the matter they lived contrary to the heart of God.

Folks we can so quickly fall into this trap as well.

RC Sproul writes,

Before we get to the gospel, the good news of justification by faith alone, we must be brought kicking and screaming, if necessary, before the holy standard of God’s law so that we might be duly persuaded of our need for the gospel.

Are you in need of the Gospel today?

Have you heard it over and over and yet fight every word because for some reason or another you are not turning to God.

For some of us, We can be faithful in attending church, doing things that seem spiritual, but be truly far from God’s Heart.

Paul will be walking us through this letter to the Romans and applying it directly to our lives.

Where are you today in your walk with God?

Are you closer than you were a month ago, or are you farther away.

Are you spending time in God’s Word, with God’s people being challenged to live a life God has called us to live?

Are we living in the futility of our thinking, rather than God’s Word, His standard, not man’s, His calling on our lives?

At our church here we encourage people to connect with other people for this very reason.

You can connect in several ways.

The first and easiest is to be a part of a group.

There are several groups, some are small, as in three people, some are larger up to 12-15.

Some groups can also create a community.

Some groups come together for a specific task or purpose.

In all the groups you rub with one another, you get a chance to see each other and to make sure that the faith you live is congruent with the Gospel that we are talking about in Romans.

Another way is coming to larger groups.

Sunday morning, Sunday Evening, each have a component of meeting with people who are followers of God who are in need of the very thing you need.

God’s grace in our lives.

You see Paul is pointing out not the accountability part of our walk, but those who claim to be in the books with God, but are living a lie.

They are often referred to as hypocrites.

They say what they know is to be true but are not living the thing they state.

Paul calls them out for passing judgement on others and the result is that they are condemning themselves for in the eyes of God, they practice the very same thing that the Gentiles were accused of in the previous verses.

Are you starting to see that in God’s eyes there is either a lost or saved person.

God is a God of all peoples and individuals, and that God shows no partiality.

Ben Witherington III

Partiality translates a Greek word that means, literally, ‘receiving the face’

Douglas J. Moo

Paul move on,

Setting the stage of Judgement

Paul moves onto the realization that with sin there will be judgement as a Holy God cannot let thing slip by him.

In verse two, Paul quickly brings out the point that with every action, there will be coming a time when the Judgement of God will be rendered.