Sermon Tone Analysis

Topic: Peace with God through Jesus

General Objective: Evangelistic

Specific Objective: That the hearers would realize their need to be saved, and come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Thesis: By grace through faith in Christ, man has peace with God and becomes a new creation.

Main Text: Romans 5:1-2, 6-9, Eph 2

INTRODUCTION:

I want to share a story with you all tonight of a boy who was born in 1889.

As with many of you, this boy was born to a small town and a set of parents who worked hard and attempted to raise him to become a successful adult one day.

His main passion was for art and he even had the opportunity to attend a school that specializes in classical art.

He loved his country and wished that he could help make things better than they were.

His opportunity came more abruptly than he could have imagined when World War I hit.

At the age of 25, in 1914 he dove into military service and did everything he could to please his superiors and help the war effort.

“...he was also eager for action and always ready to volunteer for dangerous assignments even after many narrow escapes from death.

[he] was a dispatch runner, taking messages back and forth from the command staff in the rear to the fighting units near the battlefield.

During lulls in the fighting he would take out his watercolors and paint the landscapes of war… unlike his fellow soldiers, never complained about bad food and the horrible conditions or talked about women, preferring to discuss art or history.

He received a few letters but no packages from home and never asked for leave.”

He served 4 years in the military and was awarded a total of 5 medals.

I don’t know about you all but this sounds like a worthy young man!

Interested in art and music, willing to do the hard and scary thing for the causes he believes in.

Reserved in personality, and sacrificial in service.

1. Deserving of Wrath

Explanation:

The young man that I just introduced you to was Adolf Hitler.

His actions would later lead to the murder of approximately 17.6 million people in total.

Ordering the death of Jews and others based on their race.

Attempting to completely exterminate people who have disabilities.

Brutally ending the lives of women and children if they weren’t strong enough to work in the labor camps.

What would you say of him now?

Your heart races to condemn him as the worst possible example of a human being that you can possibly imagine!

The judge inside you has slammed down the gavel and declared him guilty and deserving of the cruelest and worst punishment imaginable.

Illustration:

My question to you, since you have proven your eagerness to judge: Are you innocent and undeserving of God’s punishment?

Walk through the Decalogue and count charges of guilt against each of us.

Application:

Do not think that God has spent the full measure of His wrath on people like Adolf Hitler.

You.

Your actions are deserving of wrath yet today.

You, not just the person next to you, but you are deserving of the wrath of God.

And I am deserving of the wrath of God.

Every one of us in this room is deserving of the wrath of God.

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

23 For the wages of sin is death,

2. Peace with God comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ

Explanation:

So now what?

Does God intend for all of us to just remain in this condemnation?

Let us turn to our main text tonight on page ________ of the provided Bibles.

Romans chapter 5, specifically we’re looking at Romans 5:6-9

This is the Gospel.

God desired to bring His people back into fellowship with Him but the wage had to be paid!

If God allowed a blasphemous, idolatrous, desecrating, disrespectful, murderous, lustful, lying, covetous thief like ME to enter into the Kingdom without the debt being paid, He would be a very bad judge indeed!

Jesus paid the debt.

Jesus did that.

Jesus took my punishment.

Faith in Jesus has saved me from the wrath of God and has justified me in the eyes of the judge.

And Jesus can do it for you too.

Illustration:

You see, the Bible often compares people to clay, and God to the potter, the one who can shape the clay.

God created mankind with our first representatives Adam and Eve.

Each of them was made to be a beautiful clay vase, but in Genesis 3 we saw them fall into sin.

Do you know what happens to clay vases when they fall?

They Shatter!

As their descendant, we are born broken already.

Vases that don’t resemble the beautiful blueprint their creator designed them to be.

And with each sin it’s like we crush another piece of the pottery of our soul.

Notice that as a broken vase, we have no power or hope of fixing ourselves.

There is no glue on this Earth that will get rid of every crack.

God, the creator has to step in.

It’s like God looks at us, laying in a pile of brokenness and says “I will save this one” And masterfully, He reconstructs the whole design.

Only the potter can do this, because only the potter has the glue that can mend broken souls.

That glue is the blood of Jesus Christ.

Application:

Let’s take a look at the first verse in Romans chapter 5.

Allow me to share with you some thoughts from another pastor: Charles Spurgeon: I have changed some of the wording to apply to you tonight.

Notice, the way of claiming this promise to be justified is not by tears, not long prayers, not acting humble, not hard work, not daily Bible-reading, not showing up to Harvest Students every Wednesday, but by something as simple as faith, a simple and utter dependence and believing in the faithfulness of God.

It is a reliance with all our might upon what God has said.

This is faith, and every one of you who possesses this faith is perfectly justified tonight.

I know what the devil will say to you.

He will remind you, “You are a sinner!”

Tell him you know you are, but that for all that you are justified.

He will tell you that your sin is great.

Tell him Christ is greater!

He will tell you of all your offences and your wanderings.

Tell him, and yourself, that you know all that, but that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and that, although your sin is great, Christ is quite able to put it all away.

“Some of you, it seems to me, do not trust in Christ as sinners.

You get a mingle-mangle kind of faith.

You trust in Christ as though you thought Christ could do something for you, and you could do the rest.”

C. H. Spurgeon, “Justification by Faith,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol.

60 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1914), 67–68.

I am telling you as plainly as I can, your faith cannot be in yourself!

It must be in Jesus Christ alone!

3.

Those reconciled to God through Christ become new creations

Explanation:

Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2 on page ________ of the provided Bibles.

This is our natural state: children of wrath.

Let’s keep reading.

What a beautiful promise this is!

We are completely dead in our sin, BUT GOD, He created the path to salvation.

Not only did he create the path but he chooses who can take it, out of His grace!

If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that means that God has taken you from the path that leads to Hell and has guided you back to Him, even though you didn’t deserve it.