Sermon Tone Analysis

*Welcome:*

*Singing – Brothers and sisters…let’ sing in worship to our Lord*

*May I ask you to stand please, congregation.

Let’s pray*

*Opening Prayer: *Father God, we come before you in humility and in thanks.

Thank you Lord that you have gathered us here this morning.

Thank you that you have given as the will to seek your presence in all that we do in our worship and in our day to day lives in this world.

Forgive us Lord when we believe we can deal with life without you.

As we now unite Lord to serve you, to worship you, let us reach out to you and to each other, and as we do, give us sincere hearts Father God.

And may the words that we speak, the thoughts that we think, and the deeds that we do, bring glory and honour to your name.

In Jesus name we pray,

Amen.

*Singing: *Let’s remain standing as we sing again – this time BoW 0407 (O For a thousand)

*Confession~/Assurance*

*Please turn with me to Romans 3: 9-20*

9 What shall we conclude then?

Are we any bettera?

Not at all!

We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.

10 As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

11 there is no one who understands,

no one who seeks God.

12 All have turned away,

they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good,

not even one.”b

13 “Their throats are open graves;

their tongues practice deceit.”c

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”d

14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and

bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16 ruin and misery mark their ways,

17 and the way of peace they do not know.”

18 “There is no fear of God before their

eyes.”

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

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*Let’s pray*

Father God, we stand before you knowing that we are so naturally inclined to sin against you in so many ways.

Please forgive us Lord.

Forgive us and give us continuing strength, father God, to live our lives in honour of your great mercy to us.

We do not understand why you love us Lord, for we do not deserve your love.

Thank you Lord that we may know that you made it possible for us to approach Your throne, through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

As we worship you now, Father God, make us wholly aware of all these things, and guide us in your love - In Jesus’ name we pray  - Amen

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*Brothers and sisters, lets return to God’s word as we seek assurance of His love.*

*Turn with me now to Romans 3:20-26*

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.

He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

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*Let us sing in response, BoW 103 (Praise my Soul)*

*Please be seated*

*Boys and girls, in a moment my cathchism class and I will present a little skit to you.*

*We are going to enact a very important story.

But before we do that, congregation, lets take a few moments for the offering this morning.

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*The offering is for the Reformed **Theological** **College** in **Geelong**.*

*Offering*

*Children*

*Announcements: **Just before we call on Retha Phillips to lead us in prayer, a few announcements please…..*

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*Prayer (                                                )*

*Bible reading:  Roman **11:33** – 12:2 (Wally Philips)*

*Sermon*

*Our text is the first two verses of Romans 12…* \\ Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

*Brothers and sisters* in our Lord Jesus, I want to start by saying something that may be considered controversial: I want to say that I find it difficult to be a good Christian.

And sometimes I look around me, and think, I must be missing something about what it means to be a Christian, because it seems to me, many people take Christianity in their stride.

They don’t seem to find it difficult at all

            – they certainly don’t display any conflict in their lives, as Christians living in a          secular world.

And they do it so well, that when you see them in the week, you won’t be able to tell they are Christians; and when you see them on Sundays at Church, you would not believe they are anything but Christians.

But, how can this be?

I think there is much that is and always will be in conflict here.

For example, some Christians will find it difficult to explain to their children that they don’t want them to participate in sport on Sundays, because Sundays has been put aside as a day of meeting with and encouraging and being encouraged by fellow Christians.

Some might find it difficult to admit that they have not been seeking the Lord’s will in their daily business, but have gone ahead and made deals that would enrich them, even though they had to be …shall we say in a rather tense relationship with honesty.

They might find it difficult … but if they are Christians, and the Holy Spirit is acting in their lives …they will surely rather face that difficulty than live a life of ignorant bliss or denial of what it is that the Lord asks of us!

 

Do you find it difficult at times to be a Christian?

I’m not saying it will be difficult all the time – on the contrary, for the largest part it remains the most wonderful life there is

            – but surely you agree that sometimes we are faced with choices

                        that turn into a clash between our worldliness…and our being believers

 – followers of our Lord Jesus, as we say!

And those are difficult choices.

The examples I used earlier are a case in point!

In fact, they are so difficult, that we are scarcely able to make the right choices under those circumstances without the grace of the Lord and the outworking of the Spirit

            …so please, do not mistake what I have said so far as sitting in judgment on anyone.

When we choose right under difficult situations, it is not that we are so good, but it is by the grace of God that we choose for Jesus then …and for that matter, it is by His grace alone every other time that we do, too.

But the truth is, we don’t always choose for Him.

And when we don’t …well, do you agree brothers and sisters, we have become really good at justifying our worldly choices.

We have indeed become good and are getting better and better at… living life in the secular world.

And it is not surprising, really, that we’re so good at it

                                     *– after all, we practice it every day…*

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But how much do we practice at being good Christians?

We who claim to be Christians, set apart by God for God’s glory?

And why is that?

Why don’t we practice at being good Christians even nearly as often as we practice being great at the worldly things?

Can it be that we have forgotten *the wonderful reason* why we should…

            This, really is where Paul is headed in this section of Romans…

In fact, Paul in our text, in the very first word of verse 1 of Chapter 12, reminds us why:

            *In gratefulness!* because of *everything that God has done for us!*