Sermon Tone Analysis

You think you don’t need God

Romans 1:18-32

Passage Outline

 

 

 

The first sixteen verses of Paul's letter to the Romans are an introduction that concludes with a great statement by the apostle:

16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

17For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,[c] just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."[d]

(Romans 1:16-17).

With that declaration, Paul sets in focus for us the theme of this letter:

The power of God to heal the hurts of men and to give us liberty and freedom from the bondage of evil in our lives.

With the power of the gospel comes the righteousness of God, the sense of worth to give significance and meaning to our lives.

The power of God frees us from the control of sin; God frees us from the meaninglessness of despair and guilt.

This power and righteousness is available to us, the apostle says, "by faith."

That means the gospel can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Now that is the good news, that is the startling message that the church of Jesus Christ has for the world.

There is nothing like it anywhere in the world, there is no rival to it.

There is nothing that remotely approaches it in its possibilities in human affairs; therefore, we can say with Paul, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

However, even with this great message that the church has of Jesus Christ, a message given by God Himself to the world, there are people who act, believe and think that they don’t need God.

In the next verses of this letter Paul begins to describe who these people are and what the affects of their thoughts and actions are.

*Romans 1:18-19*

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

 

What do you think of when you hear that phrase, "the wrath of God"?

Most people think of the wrath of God as something that is yet to come, something that follows death -- the judgment of God.

It is true that hell and all that may follow are an expression of the wrath of God.

But that is not what it means at this point.

Most people think of the wrath of God as thunder and lightning and judgment, fire and brimstone and the sudden destruction and catastrophes that come upon obviously guilty sinners.

And these are all expression of the wrath of God.

But actually, the wrath of God is not something to come, it is present now.

As the text says, it is "being revealed from heaven" -- that is, it is going on right now.

When something is revealed from heaven, it doesn't pour down from the skies upon us.

No, it is everywhere present because it is coming from invisible forces at work in our lives.

Therefore, it is absolutely inescapable; everyone is confronted with, and suffers from, the wrath of God -- without exception.

His wrath is everywhere present, it is being manifested by the invisible resistance of God to the evil of men.

And that is what is meant here by "the wrath of God."

19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

*The first step for people who think they don’t need God is: they to ignore God*

First, he ignores God.

He does not glorify him or give thanks to him.

This is characteristic of our day in the way the media ignores God.

We act as though he does not exist and has nothing to do with our world.

Everything in life is telling man.

Everything about himself is yelling at him, screaming at him, that God has planned all these things.

The easiest thing in the universe to believe is that God is there.

You must work hard at convincing yourself that He is not there, and only the very intelligent are able to do it.

The rest of us, who simply see facts and believe them, will accept the fact that God is there.

Those who never hear the gospel first must believe God is.

UNBELIEF

C. S. LEWIS DEPICTS UNBELIEF

Creation; Denial; God, creator; Hardness of Heart; Holy Spirit; Science; Spiritual Perception; Unbelief

PSALM 104:24-34; MARK 4:11-12; JOHN 8:47; JOHN 9:35-41; ROMANS 1:18-22; COLOSSIANS 1:16

In his book /The Magician's Nephew,/ C. S. Lewis writes of the creation of fictitious Narnia through the song of Aslan (the lion who represents Jesus in the book).

The Creation Song is clearly intended to reveal the majesty and glory of Aslan.

As in Genesis 1, it is a grand call to worship.

But there was one (Uncle Andrew) who would not hear it.

The consequences were staggering:

When the great moment came and the Beasts spoke, he missed the whole point, for a rather interesting reason.

When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song.

And he had disliked the song very much.

It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel.

Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a Lion ("only a lion," as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn't singing and never had been singing--only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world.

/Of course it can't really have been singing,/ he thought.

/I must have imagined it.

I've been letting my nerves get out of order.

Who ever heard of a lion singing?/

And the longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring.

Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

Uncle Andrew did.

He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan's song.

Soon he couldn't have heard anything else even if he had wanted to.

And when at last the Lion spoke and said, "Narnia awake," he didn't hear any words: he heard only a snarl.

And when the beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings.

Citation: C. S. Lewis, /The Magician's Nephew /(Collier), pp.

125-126; submitted by Eugene A. Maddox; Interlachen, Florida

Continue reading the verses

 

20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

*The second step for people who think they don’t need God is: they claim to be wise;*

The second step in the process of suppressing truth is that men imitate God.

They claim to be wise; they claim that they are able to handle all the problems of life and that they understand all that has happened in human affairs.

ATHEISM

THE BEAR AND THE ATHEIST

Atheism; Creation; Crisis; Evolution; Gratitude; Ideologies and Belief Systems; Judgment; Prayer; Thankfulness; Thanksgiving; Unbelief

PSALM 27; ROMANS 1:18-22

An atheist was walking through the woods admiring all the "accidents" that evolution had created.

"What majestic trees!

What powerful rivers!

What beautiful animals!" he said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.

Turning to look, he saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran away as fast as he could up the path.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the grizzly was closing.

Somehow he ran even faster, so scared that tears came to his eyes.

He looked again, and the bear was even closer.

His heart was pounding, and he tried to run faster.

He tripped and fell to the ground.

He rolled over to pick himself up, but the bear was right over him, reaching for him with its left paw and raising its right paw to strike him.

At that instant the atheist cried, "Oh my God!"

Time stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was silent.