Sermon Central
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The Starting Point Of Salvation Series
Contributed by Jim Butcher on Nov 21, 2023 (message contributor)
Summary: Paul starts his gospel presentation at a surprising point: the wrath of God. Is it justified? If so, why?
- Last week’s sermon was Paul’s introduction, which gave a summary. Now we are starting to work through what Paul shares as an explanation of the gospel.
WHAT IS THE BIG QUESTION PAUL IS STARTING WITH? Is the wrath of God justified?
- Romans 1:18a.
- The first four words are “the wrath of God.”
- Are we guilty? Are we deserving of punishment?
- This is a crucial question and one that most modern people would answer “no” to. They would say some variety of “I’m a good person” or “I’m no worse than anyone else” or “My good and bad balance out pretty well” or similar things.
- At most, we might accept that there are some people who deserve punishment and judgment – your mass murderers, terrible people like Hitler, those that abuse children, etc. But not me.
- Paul, though, is arguing that wrath is justified. Where does he get that from?
PAUL'S ANSWER:
1. The existence of God and the truth of God are obvious.
- Romans 1:18b-20.
a. The existence of God is obvious.
- v. 19.
b. In nature, God’s existence and power are obvious.
- v. 20a.
c. This means every person can know this, whether or not they’ve ever read a Bible.
- v. 20b.
2. In rejecting God, man settled into futility and darkness.
a. Through nature, they could have known God.
- v. 21a.
b. Choosing that, their thinking became futile and their hearts dark.
- v. 21b.
c. They claimed wisdom but it didn’t work that way.
- vv. 22-23.
3. Since that’s what they wanted, God gave them over to it.
a. God gave them over to their heart desires.
- vv. 24-27.
b. God gave them over to a depraved mind.
- vv. 28-32.
4. All of this wipes out our excuses.
- Romans 2:1-27; Romans 3:1-8.
a. We are all guilty because we all do such things.
- vv. 1-4.
b. God’s judgment will be fair and that’s bad news.
- vv. 5-11.
- Bad news for the Gentiles (vv. 12-16).
- Bad news for the Jews (vv. 17-27).
- Avoid 3:1-8 for simplicity’s sake.
5. What God wants is “of the heart, by the Spirit.”
a. God is looking for a changed heart, not outward image.
- vv. 28-29.
6. That all leads to an important conclusion: we are all sinners.
a. We are all (Jews and Gentiles) are under sin.
- vv. 9-19.
b. The Jews were given the Law not to save them but to make us all more aware of our true situation.
- v. 20.
