Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.49UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.12UNLIKELY
Fear
0.16UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.6LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.4UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.89LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.77LIKELY
Extraversion
0.06UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.74LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.75LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
MBC – 2~/27~/2005 – Pastor Doug Thompson
*“Just--and the Justifier”*
/Sub-title: “The Meaning of the Cross to God”/
/Sub-sub-title: “It’s Not Just About You”/
Romans 3:25,26
Ø ROM 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
Ø ROM 3:22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;
Ø ROM 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Ø ROM 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
Ø ROM 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;
Ø ROM 3:26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
I want you to listen to what C. Spurgeon wrote about his struggle with sin before he became a Christian:
Ø “When I was under the hand of the Holy Spirit, under conviction of sin, I had a clear and sharp sense of the justice of God.
Sin, whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable burden.
It was not so much that I feared hell, but that I feared sin.
I knew myself to be so horribly guilty that I remember feeling that if God did not punish me for sin He ought to do so.
I felt that the Judge of all the earth ought to condemn such sin as mine.
I sat on the judgment seat, and I condemned myself to perish; for I confessed that had I been God I could have done no other than send such a guilty creature as I was down to the lowest hell.
All the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for the honour of God's name, and the integrity of His moral government.
I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if I could be forgiven unjustly.
The sin I had committed must be punished.
But then there was the question how God could be just, and yet justify me who had been so guilty.
I asked my heart: "How can He be just and yet the justifier?"
I was worried and wearied with this question; neither could I see any answer to it.
Certainly, I could never have invented an answer which would have satisfied my conscience.”
Spurgeon found the answer to his question in this passage: God /is/ just in forgiving guilty sinners who trust in Him because their sins /are/ fully punished in Jesus Christ as their Substitute.
The cross vindicates the righteousness of God: He is a Just-Justifier.
Ø But let me ask you: “How many people do you know—include yourself—who /ever/ struggle with sin the way Spurgeon did?”
You say, “This guy must have lived in a different time than we do.”
He must have live on a different /planet/ is more like it!
People outside the church today have no concept of the glory of God, no concept of His Lordship, His majesty, and no concept that their sins are a crime against Him.
But the truth is, many people inside churches today aren’t too much different.
We are consumed with our own needs, our own feelings, our own possessions, our own fun.
Give me an extra hour, and my first thought is hour can I spend it on me?
Give me an extra dollar, and my first thought is how can I spend it on me?
We are concerned about sin only as it affects us.
We don’t like what it does to our reputations, or our bodies.
If we hate sin at all it’s only because we don’t like the nasty consequences.
It makes us feel bad.
We give little thought—even as God’s blessed children—to the glory of our heavenly Father.
Listen to this account of Henry Martyn:
Although a mathematics expert at Cambridge University, and then a Fellow of St. John’s College, he turned his back on an academic career and entered the ministry.
On July 16th, 1805, he sailed for India.
“Let me burn out for God,” he cried in Calcutta, as he lived in an abandoned Hindu temple.
And as he watched the people prostrating themselves before their images, he wrote: “this excited more horror in me than I can well express.”
Later he moved to Shiraz, and busied himself with the translation of the New Testament into Persian.
Many Muslim visitors came to see him and to engage him in religious conversation.
His customary serenity was only disturbed when anyone insulted his Lord.
On one occasion the sentiment was expressed that “Prince Abbas Mirza had killed so many Christians that Christ from the fourth heaven took hold of Muhammad’s skirt to entreat him to desist.”
It was a dramatic fantasy.
Here was Christ kneeling before Muhommad.
How would Martyn react?
“I was cut to the soul at this blasphemy.”
Seeing his discomfort, his visitor asked what it was that was so offensive.
Martyn replied: “I could not endure existence if Jesus was not glorified; it would be hell to me, if He were to be always thus dishonored.
It is because I am one with Christ that I am thus dreadfully wounded.”
It almost killed Henry Martyn to see God dishonored.
He was that concerned with the glory of God and how sin is an affront to that glory.
Are you?
What does this have to do with the passage we are looking at this morning?
This passage is about the glory of God in salvation.
Jesus died to vindicate His Father and uphold His Name—that’s what vv.25,26 tell us.
It shows us that the cross is first and foremost about Jesus dying for God, /then /it’s about Jesus dying for sinners.
Let me say it again: salvation is first and foremost a way of bringing God glory.
Spurgeon saw this, Henry Martyn knew it.
The fact that it saves men from hell and gives them eternal life, as marvelous as that is, is secondary to the glory of God.
The greatest theme in the universe is the glory of God—that who He is would be put on display and made known to men and angels.
The reason for creation itself was to display the glory of God.
And the sole reason for God’s plan to allow man to fall that He might redeem him through the death of His Son—was that His glory might be displayed.
In Eph.1 Paul tells us that the election of God’s people was—
Ø EPH 1:6 to the praise of the glory of His grace,
Ø EPH 1:12 . . . to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
Ø EPH 1:14 . . .
with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.
The glory of God is the reason He created you, and if you are a Christian, it’s why He saved you—that His glory might be put on display in you!
And if your heart beats with His, then you long for His glory the way Henry Martyn did, and you have a craving to know what this passage means if it’s about His glory in the cross.
Ø But I’ll be blunt: If you’re stuck in your self-centeredness, you couldn’t care less about God’s glory.
What’s in that for you?
You want something practical.
You want some inspiration, like a spiritual “Red Bull” to give you a lift.
You don’t care about theology proper—the doctrine of God--because you don’t see how that intersects with you and your life.
If you aren’t a Christian this morning--and don’t become one by the time we leave—it doesn’t intersect with your life, but I need to tell you that it will intersect with your life when it’s over and you stand before God.
So please re-consider.
But if you are a Christian, you need to hear a sermon about God’s glory in salvation because the more you know about your heavenly Father the more deeply you will love Him.
The more you know about your heavenly Father, the more intensely you will worship Him and long to proclaim His glory.
First we are going to see how the cross solved our problem, then we are going to see how the cross solved God’s problem.
Then we are going to see why that is so important to you and I.
*I.
How the cross solved our problem.*
Let’s review what we have seen so far: Mankind is in an impossible condition: We are all saturated with the guilt of our sins, we deserve God’s wrath, and we are unable and unwilling to do anything about it.
We aren’t sick people who need a doctor, we are dead people who need a resurrection!
But in the Gospel, God comes to the rescue of sinners and provides a salvation that we could never earn or achieve on our own.
He does it “apart from the law” i.e., It has nothing to do with you or I living up to any moral code.
It’s all about what /Jesus Christ/ has done /for/ us—completely apart from us.
The Cross involves a double imputation—something that belonged to us was put on Christ, and something that belonged to Christ was put on us:
Ø 1.)
We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but God sent His Son to be the Substitute for all who believe, and take the punishment their sins deserved.
“All we like sheep have gone astray each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him.”
Ø 2.)
We all lacked rtnss.
but for all who trust in Christ, God takes His Son’s perfect rtnss.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9