Sermon Tone Analysis

Romans Series #6

*Romans 3:25-4:17*

*Faith, Joy, Life*

 

A Faith Accepted

A Joy Understood

A Life Marked

 

Read 3:27-4:17

 

*1.

A Feeble Faith Accepted*

 

><What Does faith Do?

*  A.

Stops all Bragging*

    1.

the way of peace is only found through the way of faith

    2.

the way of trying to obey the law only leads to God's anger and judgment

    3.

what do you have to brag about?

    4.

you didn't do anything, but just believed what God said

    5.

4:2 - Abraham was made right because of whom he believed NOT because of what he did

*  B.

Enables ~/ Causes us to Be what the Law Wanted v 31*

    1.

Grace doesn't do away with the Law to the extent that it is no longer relevant and required

    2.

Faith empowers you to be what God intended all along and the law had spelled out

*  C.

Faith is your ONLY Hope*

    1.

If you can be right with God through the Law then Faith is worthless 4:14

    2.

Faith is the vehicle that brings the promise of God into your life - 4:16

    3.

Why?

So that it can be a GIFT

 

*2.

Blessing - A JOY Understood*

 

*  A.

You are NOT being PAID for your actions  vv4-5*

    1.

Pay is something you earn

    2.

you cannot do any work that will make you right with God

    3.

God calls for your faith - but even your faith is NOT enough except for the fact that God "Accepts your faith" to make you right with him

    4.

you can't earn it nor can you keep it -

      a.

when you become a Christian you are NOT on probation as long as you don't mess up again

      b.

that TOO would be EARNING your salvation.

~*~*~*~* - if I give you a car and tell you that you can keep the car but you have to serve me the rest of your life or you will LOSE the car, is it a gift or are you earning it?

~*~* that would be the same as me giving you a car but you making payments to me.

I just got a new car - I didn't give them a DIME at the dealership, I gave them my old car and they gave me $1500 credit and I walked out the door.

Did they GIVE me the car?

NOOO.

I'm going to be paying on that car for the next 5 years.

Not only that, but I'm going to pay MORE than they asked for in interest.

c.

If I have to KEEP my salvation through my righteousness after salvation, then God has just given me Salvation on my own credit and I'm making payments on my Salvation it is NOT GRACE

  

*  B.

Source of Happiness*

    1.

I don't need to have a perfect life to have happiness

    2.

understanding what I deserve and knowing what I've been given and will be given

    3.

"without paying attention to Good Deeds"  God wasn't looking at my "goodness" or "badness" but my "neediness" through the eyes of his love and through the sacrifice offered by Christ

    5.

focus on what God has done toward you - Ps 32:1-2

      a.

sins forgiven

      b.

wrongs pardoned

      c.

not guilty

 

 

*3.

Circumcision - A Life Marked*

 

What was the purpose of Circumcision -

    to distinguish God's people from all others.

To remind them on a personal level that they were marked by God

    Did the circumcision make them right?

NO it was evidence that they had been made right

 

God is calling us to Holiness ~/Being Set apart

 

On April 19, 1775, in a Proclamation of a Day of Fasting and Prayer for the Connecticut Colony, Governor Jonathan Trumbull beseeched that:

 

God would graciously pour out His Holy Spirit on us to bring us to a thorough Repentance and effectual Reformation that our iniquities may not be our

ruin; that He would restore, preserve and secure the Liberties of this and all the other British American colonies, and make the Land a mountain of Holiness,

and Habitation of Righteousness forever.

*  A.

Did the Mark Come Before or After faith for Abraham?*

    1.

it came after as a picture of what had happened inside

    2.

our righteous acts, holy~/godly living, come AFTER faith as a sign of what has happened on the inside

    3.

Because God accepted Abraham's Faith, he "marked" him or "set him apart" or made him "holy"

 

*  B.

Marked ON the Heart - Roman 2:29*

    1.

v11 Abraham was circumcised to SHOW that he was right with God through faith

    2.

You should live a MARKED, SET APART, HOLY life NOT to gain your salvation, or EVEN to KEEP your salvation But BECAUSE your faith has been accepted by God you MARK yourself.

Philo the Jew says, that circumcision taught "the cutting off of all pleasures and affections": and elsewhere he says it is a symbol of two things particularly; the one is the cutting off of pleasures, as before; and the other is the removal of arrogancy, that grievous disease of the soul

 

*Conclusion **- v17*

 

It's all about GOD - It's NOT about You

It's all about the CREATOR –

he created everything

he created me

he brought this world out of nothing "ex nilo"

he created me out of the dust

he took the nothingness of our spiritual state and created a people rightly related to God and then causes us to live a marked and distinctive life

 

*George Washington - “Daily Sacrifice” - 1752*

Direct my thoughts, words and work, wash away my sins in the immaculate Blood of the Lamb, and purge my heart by

Thy Holy Spirit, from the dross of my natural corruption, that I may with more freedom of mind and liberty of will serve thee, the

everlasting God, in righteousness and holiness this day, and all the days of my life.

Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the

Gospel; give me repentance from dead works; pardon my wanderings, & direct my thoughts unto Thyself, the God of my salvation;

teach me how to live in Thy fear, labor in Thy service, and ever to run in the ways of Thy commandments; make me always

watchful over my heart, that neither the terrors of conscience, the loathing of holy duties, the love of sin, nor the unwillingness to

depart this life, may cast me into a spiritual slumber, but daily frame me more and more into the likeness of Thy Son, Jesus Christ,

that living in Thy fear, and dying in Thy favor, I may in Thy appointed time attain the resurrection of the just unto eternal life.

“Watch over me this night, and give me comfortable and sweet sleep to fit me for the service of the day following.

Let my

soul watch for the coming of the Lord Jesus; let my bed put me in mind of my grave, and my rising from there of my last