Sermon Tone Analysis

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ENGAGE

Hugh Hewitt in his book “The Embarassed Believer” contends that most Christian are embarrassed believers.

They do not talk about their faith or church.

They don’t have Bibles on the corner of their desks.

They never engage others in spiritual conversations.

And the result has been the dramatic increase of pornography and violence over the last five decades.

The values of the world today pale in comparison to the values of mid last century.

He writes, “From Paul’s imprisonment and martyrdom to this year’s murders of Christians around the globe, there is an ennobling and inspiring thread of courage uniting saint after saint.

It is an inheritance of every believer.

And it is to this that we are called.”

Paul writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes...” Romans 1:16 And Jesus said, “ If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Too many of us are embarrassed, silent, secret agents for God.

Yet we are called to be bold witnesses of Jesus Christ.

He closes with these words, “Christians in America trying to save the lost, comfort the suffering, cure the ill, clothe the naked and bring joy to the despairing will not make a significant and lasting impact unless they do so openly and without apology as Christians.

The witness must accompany the work or the work will not endure and the world is hungry for our witness.’

Bold witness!

ENCOUNTER

Main Idea - You Can Live Boldly Because the All-Powerful God is For You!

Walk through the CHUNKS of the passage (use good transitions)

1. Live Boldly For a God Who Gives Everything To You (vs.

31-32)

Explain -

What shall we say to what things?

How about the previous verses?

Paul has labored hard to make something clear to his readers and to you - The salvation you enjoy was not invented by you, designed by you, thought up by you, nor given by you.

Your salvation was thought up, invented, designed and accomplished by GOD Himself.

And because of this reality, you are SECURE in your SALVATION!

If Romans 8 teaches us anything, it teaches us that God’s children are secure in Him!

From the very first verse...

to verse 30 that calls followers already GLORIFIED (past tense) as if it is already true!

You and I, as followers of Christ, can rest in the fact that the God of the universe, the one who called all things into existence, the one who created you and recreated you is not against you, but for you.

So how can this be true?

Especially in light of what Paul has said of Jews and Gentiles through chapters 1 though 4 - In other words, the fact that we are sinners?

Well, Paul answers this powerful rhetorical question in verse 32 and gives definitive proof that God is on your side!

(vs.

32)

Okay, so do you see what Paul is saying in this verse?

God demonstrates that He is for you in that God the Father offered up His Son, Jesus as the propitiatory (wrath satisfying) sacrifice for humanity.

And for those who have repented of their sin and trusted Christ as their only hope for a right relationship with God - there is the hope of eternal life.

God the Father sent God the Son to the Cross to rescue you from eternal condemnation.

Please notice Paul’s use of the greater to lesser argument here.

If God would rescue His ENEMIES, by sacrificing the Christ on the cross, won’t He do amazing things for His children?

And the answer to the rhetorical question is a resounding YES!!

You, because of Christ, are no longer and enemy of God.

You because of Christ are now a child of God.

And because God did spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, He will also give us ALL THINGS!

God gave you Jesus - with Jesus comes everything else.

This truth reminds me of the warning and comforting truth of what C.S. Lewis said so many years ago...

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in.

Aim at earth and you get neither.”

- C.S. Lewis

Illustrate - How much freedom and boldness would you have if you were an heir of Bill Gates or Elon Musk?

Without the restrictions of financial dependance, one can become quite confident.

Apply - Okay, so let’s think about this for a minute.

Paul says, Christ died and rose again for you and therefore you are God’s child.

And as His child you own everything that Christ owns which is everything.

This is your reality child of God!

This is who you are.

Yet we continue to live in an impoverished way.

Not financially, but emotionally and spiritually.

We so easily cower in the corner instead of standing in the great confidence that we are Children of the KING!

IF GOD IS FOR US, WHO CAN BE AGAINST US?

No one (successfully)!

Nothing, nothing, nothing happens to you that doesn’t first pass through the hand of God - your loving heavenly Papa!

IF GOD THE FATHER WILLINGLY HAD HIS SON PUT TO DEATH TO SAVE YOU, DOESN’T IT STAND TO REASON THAT HE WILL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING?

Yet we live such timid lives.

“Many of us appear to be completely overwhelmed by the reality that we (christians) are no longer a majority and our views are no longer considered acceptable or even expressible.”

“The prevailing wing is no longer at the back of the sails of professing Bible-believing Christians.

Indeed, the wind appears to be blowing hard behind the forces of secularism.

I’m no an analyst of culture, and I do not want to overstate this; but I don’t want to understate it, either.

I travel a fair bit around the US, and regularly back to the UK too.

And I’ve seen that the old days of the ‘Moral majority’ in the US and bravado over all that would be achieved by those endeavors, and the idea of either the UK or the US being a ‘Christian country,’ have gone.”

As Tim Keller describes it:

“We are entering a new era in which there is not only no social benefit to being Christian, but and actual social cost.

In many places, culture is becoming increasingly hostile toward faith, and beliefs in God, truth, sin, and the afterlife are disappearing in more and more people.

Now culture is producing people for who Christianity is not only offensive, but incomprehensible.”

(Brave by Faith, 12)

“Secularism pushes back again and again against what the Bible says about sexual ethics, about salvation, about education, about the role and reach of the state, or about matters of public welfare.

Public opinion has turned against Christians.”

(14)

“Superstitious bigotry.

Suddenly, as a minority group within an increasingly secularized nation, we are finding out how it feels to be outsiders.

And we don’t like it.

We’re not used to it.

And it is easy to become bewildered, angry, defensive, or defeated.”

(14)

Is this how the Lord would have those whom he rescued with the blood of His Son act?

“Bewildered, angry, defensive, or defeated.”

Then why do these adjectives seem to describe the church of Jesus Christ so well.

I’m shocked at the public attitude Christians portray online.

Folks, we are to speak the truth in love.

We are not to be venomous, angry, and holier than thou!

Do you remember what you have been rescued from?

This fact alone should humble every Christian to their core and change their approach to a world who is desperately lost.

We are to BOLDLY engage our culture with LOVE.

Not RETREAT from the culture for SELF-PRESERVATION in ANGER and HATE!

The later is rooted in fear.

The former is founded on the love of God.

And we, my friends are to be known by our love.

So what does boldness as a believer look like?

It looks like Jesus!