Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Please find Romans 6:1-14 in your Bibles this morning...

The nineteenth-century preacher Roland Hill once told a story of how a drunken man came up to him and said, “I am one of your converts, Mr. Hill.”

“I daresay you are,” replied the preacher; “but you are none of the Lord’s, or you would not be drunk.”

When a church misunderstands the Bible’s teaching on conversion, it may well become filled with people who made sincere pronouncements at one point in their lives but who have not experienced the radical change the Bible presents as conversion.

It’s not reciting a creed.

It’s not saying a prayer.

It’s not a conversation.

It’s not becoming a Westerner.

It’s not reaching a certain age, attending a class, or passing through some other rite of adulthood.

DO WE NEED A CHANGE? - Yes!

Many people get offended when you criticize them or suggest they make a change myself included, how about you?

As we have already seen in Romans, scripture says all people desperately need to change because by nature we are alienated from God, rebellious toward God, and subject to the wrath of God.

IS CHANGE POSSIBLE?

- Yes!

Many people today believe that people can’t really change.

We may be able to make some minor adjustments here and there, but we can’t fundamentally change who we are.

However, by God’s grace, through the gospel, we can change.

Through faith in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can change!

WHAT IS THE CHANGE WE NEED? - Born again, new nature, new heart!

Many people might agree that there are some changes they need to make to be a better person.

Nicer to family, and friends, more patient and giving.

However, few is the number of people that believe that they are not “good enough” to go to heaven.

Jesus teaches that in order to enter God’s kingdom, we must be born again [Jhn 3.3].

God himself must give us a new nature in order that we would believe in Christ and do God’s will.

HOW DOES THIS CHANGE HAPPEN? - Gy grace through faith!

Therefore conversion is the radical change that comes about when a person turns from their sin and trusts in Christ.

How does this conversion happen?

Through the gospel, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God gives new life to spiritually dead sinners.

Conversion happens when God grants us a new nature and supernaturally enables us to repent of our sins and believe the gospel.

WHAT IS THE FRUIT OF THIS CHANGE?

= Romans 6:1-14; 15-23

From 9Marks Healthy Church Study Guides [Real Change: Conversion] - Bobby Jamieson & Mark Dever - Crossway Publishers

PRAY

O eternal, almighty, and most gracious God: heaven is your throne, and earth is your footstool; holy and reverend is your name.

You are praised by all the heavenly hosts, and in the congregation of your saints on earth, who will be sanctified as they come near to you.

We are sinful and unworthy dust; but being invited by you, we are bold, through our blessed Mediator, to present ourselves and our supplications before you.

Receive us graciously; help us by thy Spirit: let your fear be upon us; let your word come to us in power, and be received in love, with attentive, reverent, and obedient minds.

Make it to us a savour of life unto life.

Cause us to be fervent in prayer, and joyful in your praises, and to serve you this day without distraction; that we may find that a day in your courts is better than a thousand eleswhere, and that it is good for us to draw near to God; through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

Amen.

Hughes, R. Kent.

The Pastor's Book: A Comprehensive and Practical Guide to Pastoral Ministry (pp.

267-268).

Crossway.

Kindle Edition.

$0.50 Christian Words

Antinomianism = Living without law

Mortification = Putting off the Old man

Vivification = Putting on the New man / living to righteousness

Antinomianism (from the Greek: ἀντί, "against" + νόμος, "law") In Christianity, an antinomian is one who takes the principle of salvation by faith and divine grace to the point of asserting that the saved are not bound to follow the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments.

Rom 6.15

What then?

Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?

Early church heresy

Continued today…

“By no means!”

Why not?

We died to sin.

This is the foundation fact of Paul’s thesis.

How can we live in what we have died to (2)?

Antinomianism is the very thing Paul says is utterly unthinkable for a true believer

The Greek verb is PAST TENSE

The sentence could be translated: ‘We died to sin [in the past]; how then shall we live in it [in the future]?

When we die, our five senses will cease to operate.

We will no longer be able to touch, taste, see, smell or hear.

We will lose all ability to feel or to respond to external stimuli.

Just so, it is argued, to die to sin means to become insensitive to it.

Perfectionism - Sinlessness

This view is incompatible with Paul’s view and exhortations...

This view is incompatible with our Christian experience…

Disillusion = doubt God’s Wrod

Self-denial = dishonesty with sin or our experience

Becoming a Christian is a decisive step; it is the beginning of faith and it means the end of sin.

The end of the reign of Sin and the beginning of the reign of Grace! - Rom 5.21

Dead to the guilt of sin = Justified !!

How did we die to sin?

The way in which we have died to sin is illustrated in our baptism, which illustrates our being united us with Christ in his death (3).

Baptism = immersion = evoked violence

people being drowned / ships being sunk

Paul Is Not Saying… = Baptism is what saves you!

Paul would not contradict himself…

by grace / through faith / because of Christ

Baptism does not save you it illustrates that you are saved…

What else does Baptism illustrate?

Having shared in Christ’s death, God wants us also to share in his resurrection life (4–5).

the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are not only historical facts and significant doctrines, but also personal experiences, since through faith-baptism we have come to share in them ourselves.

Just As… So Also

death - new life

When we embrace Christ in justifying faith, we put to death the old man, the old life, the old corrupt human nature.

It is dead and buried.

Just as Christ came out of the tomb with a new power of life, a resurrected life, so the Christian, once he is reborn and justified by faith, is to show evidence of new life, because a new power for life has been imparted to him by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Not only now but future

for certain!!

Our former self was crucified with Christ in order that we might be freed from sin’s slavery (6–7).

Verse 6 contains three closely related clauses.

We are told that something happened, in order that something else might happen, in order that a third thing might happen.

Heresy = the human body itself is bad [sinful]

Asceticism = severs self discipline avoiding all indulgences

A somewhat barbaric form of this punishment was for the convicted murderer to be sentenced to have the rotting corpse of his victim tied to his own back, so wherever he went he was reminded of the loathsome act that he had committed.

He walked around with a dead human body attached to his own back reminding him of his criminal transgression.