Sermon Tone Analysis

Romans 2:1-16

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I.                    Intro

!! C.           Immanuel- watch out for that gossip!

·        God knows we all have that tendency

·        He addresses it in the passage we’ll look at today.

!! D.           Context & Flow

·        God is judging in wrath, because…

·        God’s power & divinity could be known from creation

·        It was willfully dismissed, leading to …

·        Folks becoming more and more sinful and spiritually foolish

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II.

Ro 2:1-3  Better behaved should not feel safe to judge

·        Do we judge others, and yet do the same things?

Are we in the clear because we are a little better and a little humble?

God-fearing?

Religious?

·        their denial of their own accountability to God is simply their form of a knowledge of God that fails to “honor God or give thanks to him” (1:21), for which God was judging’i.

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III.

Ro 2:4-5  God’s benevolence is for repentance not merit

·        What if God judged immediately each sin?  She’s so hot!

If I… zap, dead!

·        I hate it when he does that!

I could just… zap, dead!

My parents are so stupid… zap, dead!

·        An expectation that this will not happen, releasing us to sin, is to  show contempt for his grace and patience, while He is waiting for us to repent!

·        We must repent of sin to be saved:  Acts 3:19 - Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord

·        How long will you wait?

How long will you show contempt.

Get right, get serious!

·        God has rained down the blood of Christ’s sacrifice, sufficient to cleanse the whole world, but some hold up umbrellas of unrepentance and disbelief.

·        Those umbrella holders are thus treasuring up for themselves wrath

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IV.            Ro 2:6-11  Role of Works in Judgment; God judges all fairly, not with favoritism

·        Isn’t this what should God do?

We know we have sinned.

Should he wink at it?

A federal judge who did the same would be impeached.

Should God himself be less just?

Then what?

He must apply the penalty for sin, separation from His utter holiness, thus eternal death!

·        Are any really persistent in doing good?

What  about sermon on the mount?

Interior adultery~/lust and murder~/anger-insult.  What about “all our good works are as filthy rags?”

·        Is 64:5-7 You welcome those who cheerfully do good, who follow godly ways.

But we are not godly.

We are constant sinners, so your anger is heavy on us.

How can people like us be saved?

We are all infected and impure with sin.

When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags.

Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall.

And our sins, like the wind, sweep us away.

Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy.

Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins.

(NLT)

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V.               Ro 2:12-15  We fail under whatever standard we have

·        Not having the law is not that which condemns, but the failure to keep the law of which their own hearts convince them.

·        Declared righteous – given perfectly blameless standing

·        What was the original sin, not trusting God’s guidance.

To remain under our own is to fail to repent.

It is the same sin.

·        Rev.20:12-15

All judged by deeds, and all thrown into hell, if not in book of life

·        Even those w~/o law perish w~/o it.

·        A man of my acquaintance is an excellent illustration of God’s honoring a genuine quest to find Him.

This man grew up in one of the most primitive tribes in Africa.

Because he was ill-behaved and incorrigible as a child, he was frequently made to stay outside when the family had guests.

Although he was severely punished by the tribe as well as by his mother, he persisted in acts of pointless mischief and even cruelty.

He reports that he felt guilty and heartsick even while doing the mischief but could not seem to help himself.

He knew something was very wrong with his life and would often go into the forest and pound his head against a tree, crying, “What’s wrong with me?

Why do I do such things?”

More than once he considered suicide.

·        One day one of his friends returned from a visit to the coast.

Among the many fascinating stories he told was that of some people who met together every Sunday to sing and talk.

When the boy asked his friend why those people met together, he was told they were singing about and praying to the God who had created the whole world.

They called their God Father and believed He heard and answered their prayers.

·        With that small bit of knowledge about the Lord, the boy over whom the tribe had despaired decided to pray to this God himself.

“I had never heard anyone pray,” he recounts, “but I decided I would just talk to this God like He was my father.

I can’t explain what happened but it was an exciting experience.

I wanted to know more about this God but there was no one in our village who knew anything about Him.

So for two years I kept praying by myself on Sundays, hoping that some day someone would come along who could tell me about Him.”

·        While working on a government road project, he visited his cousin in the village where he had been born and discovered to his great surprise and delight that a group of people met there on Sundays to sing and pray to the God he had heard about.

“How excited I was,” he says.

“I could hardly wait for Sunday.

That morning I sat in the back.

I listened to a man tell about God for the first time in my life.

I found He was far more wonderful than I had ever imagined.

The preacher said that God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son named Jesus to take away my sins.

I wondered if He knew how terrible I was.

I wondered if He knew the awful things I had done back in my village.

But the preacher said no matter what I had done, God would forgive me and make my heart clean.

I knew it was all true.”

·        Because that young man had been genuinely seeking God, when he finally heard the gospel the Holy Spirit confirmed its truth to his yearning heart.

He knew that God had heard his prayers and had sent him to a place where he could hear the message of salvation.

“I gave my heart to God that morning,” he testifies, “and it was nice to know He had a Son, too.

He was really a Father, just like I had been praying to.”

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VI.            Ro 2:16  Because of this no one should trust in their goodness, or improvement, but in their repentance and faith in Jesus and his payment of our sin price.

·        I can’t tell you it’s going to be alright in the end.

Kids, friends, it’s alright only if Jesus has forgiven us and become our source of confidence.

·        God does not deal with us as we pretend to be, but as we are in hidden places.

·        It has been told that nomadic tribes roamed ancient Russia much as American Indians once roamed North America.

The tribe that controlled the choicest hunting grounds and natural resources was led by an exceptionally strong and wise chief.