Sermon Tone Analysis

The greatest need in any man's life is forgiveness.

God stands ready to freely offer it.

The great tragedy of the human condition is that too many are too proud or two stubborn or too unconcerned or too preoccupied to receive it.

This week’s article of faith from the Apostles’ Creed asserts, I believe in the forgiveness of sin.

When we confess this enormously important clause in The Apostles’ Creed, we affirming our belief in a grace that is unconditional—that our God is able and willing to forgive the sinner’s sin in Jesus Christ.

It’s a grace that is marvelous, and infinite, and matchless.

But we need to pause for a moment and realize just how radical an idea that is.

Pagans in the 1st century did not agree with that and attacked and mocked Christians as they taught the gospel of grace throughout the Roman and Greek world.

Pagans often jeered the Christian teaching that sins could be forgiven, even by God.

As far as a pagan was concerned, you either make up for your misdeeds yourself—in other words, you self-atone—or you’re forever guilty.

And pagans did not consider forgiveness a virtue.

The large-souled man in the pagan world, in which the gospel was first being preached, might disregard offenses in cases which he considered to be beneath his notice.

But to forgive was to considered to be weak spirited.

When Christians spoke about the forgiveness of sins, the pagans said, “How can you talk about a murderer becoming not a murderer through the forgiveness of God? How can you talk about an adulterer being forgiven of adultery through the forgiveness of God?

You can’t do this.

How can one person forgive another person of something that that person has done without that person’s making up for it?”

But what does the Bible say?

/"And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."/

(Matthew 26:27-28, ESV)

Orthodox Christian faith teaches that mankind has a spiritual dilemma called sin.

The only remedy to this dilemma is the forgiving grace of God that is found in the shed blood of Jesus.

!

I. MAN HAS A SPIRITUAL DILEMMA: HE HAS MADE HIMSELF THE ENEMY OF GOD

* /"You adulterous people!

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."/ (James 4:4, ESV)

#. every man outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ is a friend of the world

#. the word friend in this passage has an interesting meaning

#. it refers to the bridegroom's close friend who on the groom's behalf asked the hand of the bride and rendered the groom various services in closing the marriage and celebrating the nuptials

#. what's the point in this grammar lesson you ask?

#. when James talks about being a friend of the world he's referring to a relationship where we willing solicit the affections of another

!! A. SINNERS ARE THE ENEMIES OF GOD BY CHOICE

#. man is, by his very nature, rebellious and not seeking the true God

* /"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."/

(Isaiah 53:6, ESV)

* /"as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11no one understands; no one seeks for God."/ (Romans 3:10-11, ESV)

#. the Scriptures make it clear

#. without a saving relationship with Christ, a man is the enemy of God

#. the word enmity literally means hostility

#. it is the kind of hostility that leads to determined opposition

#. in effect, a state of war exists between the souls of lost men and God

#. but it is a one-sided warfare and a one-sided hostility

#.

God does not feel the same way about lost men as lost men feel about God

* ILLUS.

The great preacher and theologian H.A. Ironside, in referring to his journey toward Christ, wrote: /"The hatred was all on my side but I needed reconciliation, and I have found it in His death.”/

#. the sinner is a person who delights in and applauds evil

#. the Apostle Paul does not paint a flattering picture of the lost sinner in his letter to the Christians at Rome

* /"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

32Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."/

(Romans 1:28-32, ESV)

#. wow, did you catch some of that?

#. they’re unrighteous, evil, greed and wicked, full of envy and slander, they’re God- haters, arrogant, proud and boastful, foolish, faithless, heartless and ruthless

!! B. SINNERS ARE ENEMIES OF GOD BECAUSE OF SIN

* /"All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

13“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”

“The venom of asps is under their lips.”

14“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

15“Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16in their paths are ruin and misery, 17and the way of peace they have not known.”

18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”/

(Romans 3:12-18, ESV)

#. who is Paul talking about?

#. he's talking about himself

#. he's talking about my life

#.

he's talking about your life

#.

he's talking about what the lives of all men were like before they came to know Christ

#. sin sets up a barrier between man and God

#. it is a wall that man, try as he might, cannot scale, find a way around nor tunnel under

#. it is a wall that separates man and his exceedingly sinfulness from God and His awesome holiness

#. in Ephesians 2:14 the Apostle Paul refers to the dividing wall of hostility that exists between the lost man and God

* ILLUS.

No where is this better illustrated than in the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple.

That curtain represented the barrier that exists between sinful man and holy God.

#. because of his open hostility toward God, the lost man has no standing before a holy God

#. he is morally, ethically and spiritually bankrupt

* /"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth."/

(Romans 1:18, ESV)

#. what does the Apostle mean when he says that the sinners suppress the truth?

#. we live in a society that tells us to get rid of guilt by getting rid of the rules that make us feel guilty

#. so many do their best to ignore pesky things like the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount

#. all those Thou shalt nots and I say unto yous make men nervous

#.

so they suppress the truth by merely renaming the sin

* ILLUS.

We don’t lie, we just offer an alternative truth.

We don’t have gambling in Missouri, we have games of chance.

We don’t abort babies, we champion the right to choose.

#. until you understand the depth of your sin, you will never understand your need for a Savior

#. sin is trespass against the righteous standards of a holy God

#. but now, Western culture has a new avant-guard definition of sin–it is being out of alignment with one’s own values

#. doesn’t that sound innovative?

... even noble?

#. sin is not being out of alignment with your own values

#. sin is being out of alignment with God’s values

#. so you see the danger in such a statement?

#. if you do not value marital fidelity then serial adultery is not a sin to you

#. friends, it is absolutely amazing how men can rationalize the most heinous of behaviors when we are guided by our own values rather than God’s values

#.

Man Has a Spiritual Dilemma: He Has Made Himself the Enemy of God

!

GOD HAS AN ANSWER TO MAN'S SPIRITUAL DILEMMA: HE WILL MAKE HIMSELF YOUR FRIEND

* /"She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."/

(Matthew 1:21, ESV)