Sermon Tone Analysis

I am going to preach out of Romans 9 and 10 this morning under the banner of truth that our Holy and infinite and all powerful, all knowing wonderful, and awesome God is sovereign…He is sovereign over all things…Romans 9 clearly shows us.

He is sovereign over Jacob and Esau, and Pharoah and Moses.

From the sparrow flying in your yard…to the ants on the ground…from the hairs on your head…to the days and boundaries of your life…all things means all things…he knows the very words I will speak this morning…our God is an awesome God!

And He knew me and loved me and chose me while I was yet a sinner…before I could love Him with my heart of stone…before the foundation of the world for that matter.

The God of all creation…the one who put the rings around Saturn...formed me in my mothers womb.

And our foreordaining, foreknowing, predestining, sovereign God also ordains something else for us…His people…the Church...

That we would be the intruments of salvation for those who will become the children of God.

How?

By us caring deeply for lost souls…and therefore telling them the good news of Jesus Christ…the gospel.

So that some might be saved.

Therefore if you are saved…it is because...

God saved you…and it is also because someone told you the gospel.

It is because…

God gave you a new heart and a new mind and also because...you repented and believed .

It is because by His power…His very Spirit…God has caused you to be born again…and also because you died to self and now live to Christ by putting the sin in your life to death by the power of the bery Spirit He has put inside you.

And there are people in your family…in your home…in your school…in this town…in your future…and maybe for some of us at the ends of this earth…who will be in heaven someday…loving Jesus and enjoying him as their greatest treasure forever…because of you.

Because you at all costs…with great passion in your heart for their eternity...told them the gospel…the good news about Jesus.

I truly believe our Church has a few next steps…and one of them involves a deep, enduring, true passion for the lost…those whom we know are without Christ…and for the salvation of their souls.

And Paul in Romans 9 and the beginning of Romans 10 sandwiches the clearest and most powerful statements on the sovereignty of God over all things…including salvation…Paul sandwiches that with a passionate cry for His own role…and desire…for the salvation of others.

Paul clearly knows God is sovereign…and that truth does not cause Paul and should not cause anyone with the Holy Spirit to be flippant or lazy or careless about souls…it does the exact opposite…it drives us deeper into a love for and desire for people and for their salvation.

Even those…maybe especially for those… who Paul knows think that they are going to heaven…they think are saved...

Let’s read our verses for this morning.

Paul has just written the awesomeness of Romans 8…ending with this...

Then he says this...

Jump to...

Wow.

What a passion.

Paul was a passionate dude.

The one who was once all in in His persecution of Christians…now is giving His life to build up the church and save the people he had sought to destroy.

When Paul believed something…it was obvious in His life.

But isn’t that true of us?

What if we truly believed that we were enlisted into a spiritual battle…what if we could see what Elisha saw...a battle for the eternal destiny of the people in our neighborhood, workplace, home, school, church...

We are in a Spiritual battle…but for what?

What is the goal…what is the battle over?

What are the evil forces wrestling against us to obtain?

For people…for souls.

For people’s eternity.

The fight is over where people will spend forever…in heaven or hell.

That is what the rulers and authorities and cosmic powers over this present darkness and spiritual forces of evil are after…they don’t care so much about our earthly possessions or relationships or our earthly pain or loss…they are after souls.

They are looking for eternal companions in hell.

What if we believed that as a church?

With that let’s go back the the text.

I will read it one more time and jut imagine Paul’s emotion…His passion.

And...

Here is what we will look at in the rest of our time…I want to ask a few questions and then see how this applies to us…Revival Church…in America…in Wisconsin…in 2018.

First question...

I. Who are these people for whom Paul had great sadness and unceasing anguish in his heart?

To begin with.

They were once his friends (because He was once one of them and lived like them) but now his enemies.

These people resented the unsaved He encountered in all of His travels.

They knew who Paul once was and they did not like how he now lived…they did not like how he was changed...and they did not know the God who Paul now lived for…Jesus.

They could not believe his new passion and sincerity when he became a Christian and many now many hated him for it.

But Paul did not run from this…because he also knew...we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.

So his response response was to look upon them in their lostness…and with great sadness...to pray for them…or actually…cry out for them and their salvation.

So the first thing we can see for us...is that our response and heart for the lost…even when they hate us or no longer like us or even if they persecute us…or tease us…or lie about us...is to love them because they are lost...

Father forgive them…for they know not what they do.

Paul also tells us that these are his kinsmen according to the flesh.

These were his people…the ones he once rolled with…hung out with…partied with…lived life with.

For us…these are our former friends…our neighbors…or those we work with…live with…see at the library or basketball games or anyone whom God would put in our lives…or had been in our past lives when we too were not living for Jesus.

We will soon see in a few weeks that the church is part of a world wide mission…the mission to get the gospel until the end of the earth...

Christianity is expansive; we are part of something ginormous...

But, at the same time, our belief and passion is best seen and displayed when it turns its power towards those who are nearest to us.

Is your spouse unsaved?

Love him to Christ!

Is your child unconverted?

Pray for and love that child to Christ!

Are your neighbours or friends living for Jesus?

If not…lay them on your heart and pray to God on their behalf, and find any opportunity to tell them or even plead with them until they are saved.

By all means we need to support and pray for and hopefully even send someone to India or South America or China...

But on a daily basis for those of us who are not sent to the ends of the earth…our heart should be breaking for and our prayers should be lifted up for and our gopel should be spoken to…our invitations into fellowship should be often extended to...

Those we encounter day to day in....Fall Creek, Altoona, Augusta…Eau Claire...

Those you encounter at work, in your home, in the high school gym, at the football game, the park...and everywhere else you go.

The lost are among us…and like those Paul is praying for…many, if not most, do not think they are lost.

If we turly belive that…and begin more and mopre to see it with our eyes…and feel it with our hearts…it would change our interactions…it would change our words…in would change our prayers...

May we be a people who are passionate to draw others to Christ!

One other thing we should note...

Paul considers these people to be living in a great sin…the worst of sins.

And you may ask…how do I know?

What sin were they in?

Paul doesn’t tell us…or does he?

How do we know that these people Paul is praying for are not...exceedingly moral…good people.

How do we know that they are not very religions…go to church…listen to sermons…take communion...

These that he is praying for all would tell you to your face if asked that they are God’s people…that they are the saved.

Of many of them you could have said.

He is a good guy…or she is a nice person.

And most of them were even religious…they went to temple…they called themselves by a religious name.

Like many in our day....they were good people and went to church…attended a building on most Holy days…did the religious traditions of their day....and yet they were living in the worst of sin.

Do you know what is the greatest of sins?

To reject Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.

To not truly love and know and live for Jesus.

These people Paul is praying for had rejected Jesus for who He is our Savior and our God...

And instead they had set up their traditions, their paying of tithes, their fasting and weekly attendance at temple.

The checked the religious boxes of the day and to everyone else…many of them even seemed to be zealous for God.

Is this much different in our day?

In our culture?

How many in our lives feel that they are saved because they check all the boxes?

They are pretty good people…go to church…got confirmed…call themselves Christian…they do the traditions of some denomination…they have been baptised.

Yet do not know, love, and live for Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

They have not received Jesus as the greatest treasure in the universe…the have not been born again to a living hope, by the Spirit.

They have not truly repented of their sinfulness and put the faith of their entire lives into the hands of our wonderful savior…Jesus.