Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In 1995 at the tender age of fifteen, I hit a milestone moment in my life.

I hit the moment in a young man’s life when everything about him changes and everything that was would never be again.

It was the moment that signaled the transition from childhood into adolescence.

It was first date night.

Now of course, by the age of fifteen I had already been apart of the occasional group movie night, or attending the best friend’s party where everyone played spin the bottle but this was something completely different.

This was the culmination of a long and tedious process.

This process began with a twinkle in an eye.

Everyone knows that twinkle.

The first time you see someone and it affects you to your soul.

Now understand I was only fifteen but I was in love and I was sure and it was deep.

So deep that it took a week to build up the courage and the nerve to go up to this young woman, risking the utter destruction and desolation of my soul, if she rejected me while at the same time risking utter cluelessness if she said yes.

So through many dangers toils and snares I marched up to her and asked her if she would like to go out and to my amazement she replied the words that have rang through my head for almost fifteen years since, “Ok”.

With that “ok” I became a man.

I hit my grove, I got my strut, I was large and in charge and ready to go.

I planned out the most incredible evening, of ice skating, dinner, and hanging out.

I had even secured the coolest transportation imaginable for a fifteen year-old, I was going to drive my mother’s car unlicensed.

As I left our apartment that night I was prepared for a transformation, I was leaving as a boy but coming home as Hugh Hefner.

I got into the car and began my journey to my date’s house but I never made it.

I only made it two blocks from home.

Two blocks from my house my cool became too much and with the stereo blaring, I stopped focusing on my surroundings, ran a stop sign, caused an accident, floored the accelerator, ran from the scene, and retreated home.

About a half hour later, the police spotted the car and came to our apartment.

They charged me with several crimes including driving with no license and not being insured.

I was found guilty and I was responsible for making restitution to the victim, I was responsible for court costs, and I was sentenced to Juvenile Detention.

I was treated as a common criminal because I was a criminal.

In the courts eyes,  because I had not upheld the law, I was judged and sentenced.

Well just as I broke the law then we all break the law now.

We are all criminals, preparing to stand before the righteous judge, and our actions have professed our guilt.

Sermon Outline

I.                    God Identified the Predicament (Romans 3:9-20)

a.

We were guilty of breaking the law

                                                               i.

God sent his law in order to illuminate the sin in our lives

1.

The law consisted of 613 commandments which had to be followed to the letter in order for a person to be considered righteous or in right standing with God.

a.

Most of us have even upheld the first “ten commandments”.

i.

The Bible says “Thou shalt not steal” but look how often we have stolen from God.

1.

Most of are already guilty because Malachi says, “How have we robbed You?

In tithes and offerings.”

ii.

There is no person who is righteous or in right standing with God

                                                            iii.

All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God

                                                           iv.

Because we were in sin’s inescapable grasp, we became slaves to sin.

b.

By our births we were doomed and by our lifestyles we continually condemn ourselves.

i.

We were born with sin imputed or passed down to us.

ii.

We live lifestyles in which we sin daily.

c.

Because our nature was flawed our worth was diminished causing us to be destined for damnation.

i.

God is a just God who must Judge sin.

ii.

Because our nature was flawed, we were in the inescapable path of God destroying us by pouring out his wrath.

1.

We were in danger of having God turn his back on us

II.

He Partook In the Peculiar (Romans 3:21; Hebrews 9:11-14)

a.       Seeing our predicament, God began a unique, unparalleled, and unorthodox process of bringing us back into fellowship with Him.

b.      God in His Nature is Merciful and loved us so much that he wanted to show mercy.

c.

The problem lay with the fact that God cannot lie and was therefore bound by His Word.

i.

In His Word, God had promised to judge all sin.

1.

This is where the peculiar comes in.

2.       If he did not judge sin, he would be made a liar.

3.

So God was placed in the peculiar position of having the unprecedented tasks of trying to reconcile humanity and all the wrongs it had done, back to him, while not reneging on his own Word to judge us for the sins we’ve committed.

a.

This may be the most untheologically correct statement you ever hear me make, but it’s not easy being God.

b.

It was a peculiar situation because had set up a judicial system in which restitution must be paid for crimes committed against the heavenly throne.

i.

All of us were guilty yet none of could pay the price.

ii.

It was type of situation that all of us have been in and all of us dread; there was a problem for which there was no solution in sight.

1.

In reality, there was no solution in existence.

iii.

But God!!!

4.       It at that point where God begins to do the impossible by not only providing but provisioning the provision.

III.

Positioned the Provision

a.       God real

b.

God wrapped himself into flesh and became the perfect sacrifice.

i.

God saw that there was no who was in the position to present or provide an offering on the behalf of humanity so he became the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice at the same time.

1.

The law said that in order for a person to receive a pardon for their sins, there had to be a sin offering with the blood of an animal being shed.

a.       What God’s wrath really wanted your blood and your life, shed for your defiance to his law, but when the blood of bulls and goats wasn’t enough, and when the sprinkling on of ashes wasn’t enough, God in his love, made sure that the provision was there, just when we needed it, to atone for our sins.

ii.

God sent Jesus Christ to live a sinless and blameless not so that he could circumvent the law and go around it but so that he could fulfill the law, be the sacrifice, and atone for our sins.

a.

If you look at Romans 3:24-25, Paul helps us understand the depth of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross when he says that God publicly displayed Jesus as a propitiation or atonement for our sins allowing God to pardon our sins.

i.

Jesus Christ became the sacrifice fit for us and God poured out his wrath on Christ who took our place and received the judgment we should have received.

1.       God did so much through the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross at Calvary but there was one step in his plan that we so often forget; Step 4 is the right now, He is patiently waiting for His people.

IV.