Sermon Tone Analysis

We will now bring chapter 2 to a close, please open your bibles to Romans Chapter 2: 17-29

Pray

Like I said, we now bring this chapter to a close.

There is a debate that I want to discuss with you all.

And this debate may shed light on Pauls writings in general, but it will help with todays text with out a doubt.

We have these words in theology to discuss what salvation is and how it is done.

The question is, does God save us or do we help God save us?

The two words used in this debate is synergism and monergism.

Monergism means to work alone while synergism means to work together, we use the word synergy for that.

I was on Facebook this week and a seen a guy that I used to work with post something that made me cringe.

These are two seperate teachings that cut to the core of salvation.

The Monergistic view is that God brings about salvation without help.

He is the author and finisher of salvation.

Synergism teaches that God and man work together to bring about salvation.

In our culture, it snot hard to make me do that.

This man was, I dont even know where to begin to describe him, he was wild and careless.

He was married, back when I worked with but his marriage was struggling because they both had a drinking problem.

He came to me for advice and I told him that they needed to surrender all to God.

The man, at the time, really wanted to save his marriage.

But he was not willing to do what it takes.

This debate has been going on since Jesus ascended into heaven.

They split up, he begins to run around with a bunch of other women and got himself fired due to his destructive behavior.

And I have not heard from the guy in years.

And then we get in contact through facebook and he told me;

That he did not appricate the words I had for him then, but he does now.

I was so happy to see this guy I worked with sharing scripture and watching a faith grow, or at least, that is how it seemed.

His first problem is that he never got himself with a good church, see if you do not get yourself in a good church, you fall for so many lies and you tend to look up to the wrong person.

In this guys case, that person was his own father.

Who is a hippy.

I notice that this person was now combining marijana and his faith, then foul language and his faith, and he is on this slide backwords.

He fashoned and made a Jesus that best suits him and he cannot seem to understand why every church he has walked into is wrong.

There has to be a point where we stop and go, okey, everyone is wrong and i am the only one who is right, or I am wrong and to stubborn to see it.

Well the man posted on facebook this week telling people to believe in Jesus, however, in his little “evangelical rant” he was cussing up a storm and actually was teaching easy believism.

Easy believism is what we talked about a few weeks ago, it is the movement that claims if you accept one time, you can live your life in utter sin including never believing, and still be saved.

And only one person commenet on that post, his dad, agreeing with him, what a shock.

But this is what happens, and it is happening more often.

I do not think he generates any feed back because even the unbelieving world is going, ok, I know enough to know that is not right.

Here is a man who wants to be a light to a fallen world but fails in his own falleness.

While many within the church are not like this man, many in the church do fail at being a light to a fallen world.

Isreal was guilty of the same.

Todays sermon can be broken into two parts.

Verses 17-24 on being condemned by the law, and the last half the mark of the covenant.

so lets look to our text for today and see what we should take away from having an attitude like that.

Not set on this intro

This is how we know that Paul has been trying to appeal to the Jewish people in this church in Rome.

It is hear he calls them out directly.

Paul says but if you bear the name Jew.

The word jew comes from the people of Judah, but over time described all of Isreal and not just those with Judah.

The sentence is better translated as if you call yourself a jew.

Some make it passive and say, if you are called a jew but the langauge is not passive so cannot be translated that way.

It is the claim to be jew not what others say about you.

What comes next?

and rely upon the law, rely is an interesting word, it means to rest.

In the case to rest upon the law, and Boast in God.

There was comfort for the jewish man, because he had the law, he rested in the fact that he had the law. he never seen the law as his accuser, he never seen the law as something against him.

This is the way many of us still talk about our jewish friends.

We think the same thing about the jewish people and Paul is coming in and tearing that down.

And he is setting it up here, as you are seeing and will see.

After mentioning their rest upon the law, paul adds and Boast in God.

Some translations say something along the lines about boasting about their relationship with God.

That is not what is being communicated here.

It literlally means proud of your God.

It is God where this pride is in not the relatiionship.

And its fitting that this is what Paul is saying based on the set up he is about to do.

You can see that Paul is asking questions to get the readers mind going, get their mind turing, its rehtorical in a sense because the writing style is that of a mocked debate.

We talked about this a few weeks back, that Paul was not directly calling anyone out but was being rhetorical because he knows some are guitly of what he is talking about.

And you see that in the languge here, But if you bear the name jew, and rely upon the law, and boast in God.

Which is soemthing they, its a good thing to do.

Paul is not trying to cut that down.

He is trying to get their attention because Paul is saying, you thing you know God, You have this Pride in God and you think you know God.

Paul is man who also though he knew God.

Thought he knew God and thought he was doing Gods work, by killing Gods people.

Paul is man who is peaking fro experiance.

Paul continues with the set up, he describes this person in more detail, he adds and knows His will.

This is very interesting, Paul is not saying and claims to know His will, but knows it.

And they do, and it is a high privilage to have the knowledge.

just as it is for us today, it is a great privalidge to know Gods redemptive purposes and his will, that is his will that he revealed to us.

They know his will, and approve the things that are essential, that word approves means to put to the test and that was something Jewish people were known for doing, they tested and questioned before they would be willing to affirm of something was right or not.

And they are able to do that because they were intruscted in the law, they had a standard to determine if something was right or not.

It has always been the role of the Hebrew people to bring the good news of God to others, something that they failed to do.

By the time Jesus came on to the scene in flesh, they had this wall up against anyone who was not jewish.

When we read about Jonah, we are reading an example of where God wanted someone with Isreal to take the message of repentence to a group who were not Isreal.

It was something that Jonah did not want.

Wit one historical narritive we see that this message and offer has always been there and Isreals protest has always been there.

That does not change the fact that they were chosen to give this message, which is why Paul uses thos phrase, a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness.

They had a role to play, and they failed at it, we talked about Adam and Isreals failure and bit last week.

Paul calls the a corrector of the foolish a teacher of the immature.

You cannot get a better Greek to english translation than what I just said there.

I only know of three english translations that say immature and not children, babes, or ignorant.

But this was why the jewish people were chosen for a task, because the rest of us were in a spot of foolishness and if it was not foolishness it was immature in the faith.

They had the law, which the ten commandments alone allow us to see who God is, and through that law was the knowledge of truth.

They had the truth that we so desperatly crave, and they kept it for themselves.

And Paul is now going to show their error.

Romans 2:21

The Jewish people had this revelation from God and they were obligated to share that with others, and now Paul goes through a series of biting questions.

Because their attitudes were not leading people to God but were actually causing people to blaspheme God.

You that teaches another, do you not teach yourself?

These sermons impact me before they impact you.

Because Its not just my job and its just soemthing I got to do, but because I am called to this, and God looks after me too.

And does so by preaching and teaching to my heart, impact me onthe subject, so i can be usefull in sharing that with others.