Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

Why is it so hard to get the “witnessing” thing right?

You may have tried a few of those techniques before only to get the same result: embarrassment, rejection, failure.

NEED

We struggle so much, I believe, largely because of our misunderstanding.

We hold the gospel as a cultural story, kind of like George Washington cutting down the cherry tree.

It’s a story of history that we take to be true, and we have connected with it at some level, but we’ve never really grasped its importance and its real underlying meaning.

So we talk about the cross without much passion, just relaying dead truth that we say we believe but which we aren’t very passionate about.

No wonder we fail.

And, because we fail, we subtly begin to wonder if we’ve got it right after all.

Like some government program which promises a lot and delivers a little, our approach to the cross often seems disappointing and we can, despite what the preacher may tells us, begin to doubt it’s effectiveness.

We lipservice our commitment, but the truth is if someone asked us about our salvation and we were very honest, we’d have to reply: “I think I believe it, but I’m not very excited about it.”

BACKGROUND:

Contrast that sentiment with what the Apostle Paul tells us in our text.

He says in Romans 1:16:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

Paul didn’t have the “blahs” about the gospel.

He was excited about the good news!

He was enthralled with the cross.

He says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ . .

.”

Hey!

He knew the opinion of the Greeks.

He’s the one who wrote 1 Cor 1:22.

He knew they thought the gospel was foolish.

He knew the opinion of the Jew.

He knew they thought the gospel was embarrassing!

Why, then, was he so shameless?

Why was he not ashamed of the gospel?

How could he be so confident?

You see, we need to answer that question because it applies to you and me.

We understand that, ultimately, all of what we need is found in the cross of Christ.

We understand that if we ever get to heaven, it will be through the finished work of Christ, but so often we are so ambivalent about it.

How can we capture his excitement?

How can we be confident in the cross?

Well, in the first place, we can be confident in the cross when we understand:

DIV 1: WHAT IT PROVIDES

EXPLANATION

Paul tells us that he is not ashamed of the gospel in v 16, then in v 17, he gives us the reason.

He says, “For in it” (that is in the gospel) “the righteousness of God is reavealed.”

The term “righteousness” involves two concepts in this verse.

In the first place, the righteousness that is revealed is an imputed righteous.

The scene is one of a courtroom.

You were, or you currently are, a sinner.

You stand guilty before God Who is your all-powerful, all-knowing Judge.

All the sins you’ve ever committed are read before Him.

There was the time you cheated on that test; there was the time you cheated on your wife and she never found out about it; there was the time you lied to your parents about what you were doing the night before.

One by one, those sins are read and God, your righteous judge, with a look of Holy Wrath on His face is about to thunder out your judgement, when Jesus, with scar-stripped back and nail-pierced hands steps to the bench and says to God, the Judge.

“He belongs to me!

I paid His debt and I give Him my righteousness!”

And God the righteous judge brings down the gavel and says with joy, I declare you “Not guilty!”

You and I, when we come to the cross, receive a new position: Our debt is paid by Jesus, and we receive His righteousness.

APPLICATION:

In chapter 5 of this same book Paul tells us that “when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

The death of Crhsit came in the timing and the providence of God.

We did not deserve it.

We could not have hastened or retarded it.

We can’t even control it.

All we can do is receive it.

And, if you are here today apart from Christ, that is exactly what you need: You need to receive His righteousness.

You need to be declared righteous.

Have you been?

Have you ever been declared righteous by God.

You can try to work up goodness within you, and you might succeed in being better than me.

You might succeed in being better than most, or, as the world views it, you might even be the best person who ever lived.

But, apart from Christ, you will never be good enough.

Why not?

Because the Bible says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

ILLUSTRATION

I read of one person’s visit to Rwanda.

Rwanda is the country in which so many people have recently been killed over religion.

When this person went, they said they went looking for monsters.

Not the kind that devours New York City in some “b” movie.

They said that they had begun to imagine, after hearing of the torture, rape, and murder going on in this country, that somehow it would be easy to spot the people who had perpetuated the killing.

They naively assumed that they would be able to look in the faces of the people and tell if they had been involved.

What they found puzzled, confused, and ultimately, even frightened them.

Instead of finding, leering, menacing people, they met men and women who looked and behaved a lot like them.

They took care of their families, went to work, chatted with their neighbors, laughed, cried, prayed, and worshiped.

Where were the monsters?

Where were the evil doers?

Where were the ones who had committed the most despicable acts?

Slowly, with a deepening sense of dread, they understood the truth: There were no monsters in Rwanda, just people like you and me.

Before that trip, they said, “I can't tell you the number of times I reacted to evil I read about or witnessed by saying, ‘I would never do that!’

But thousands of years of bloody human history prove differently.

Fifty-four years of my own history prove differently.

We are all proficient in our ability to conceive, plan, and execute evil.

Of course, we don't call it evil when we're the ones involved.

But it is.

As French writer La Rochefoucauld observed, "There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does."

You might as well face the shameful truth: You and I, put in the right situation, will do absolutely anything.

Given the right circumstances, I am capable of any sin.

I've grown more afraid of the monster lurking in the dark corners of my soul than of any monster lurking in the dark corners of my house.

Listen, man at his best is potentially a genocidal murderer.

The only possible way for him to become righteous is for God, because Jesus paid His debt on the cross, to give to Him the righteousness of Christ.

And, if you’ve never received Christ this morning, it is this gift of righteousness that you need!

EXPLANATION

The cross of Christ provides a declaration, but that isn’t the only wonderful thing about this truth.

You see, not only does the cross provide for us an imputed righteousness, it also provides for us power.

The righteousness of God transforms the heart it enters and brings with it both the desire to obey and the power to obey.

And it is this power that so many of us need today.