Paul's Admonition Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: November 10, 2011

Date Preached: November 13, 2011

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Series from Romans

Sermon Title: An Admonition of Hypocrisy

Sermon Text: Romans 2:28-29 [ESV]

28For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Introduction:

Do the people you meet on the street see the Joy of Christ in your life? When you interact with the world around you… REGARDLESS of the situation or circumstance, does the Joy of Christ shine forth in your actions and words?

As believers, we preach, teach and believe that we DO have JOY in Christ! We even call others to come and ‘know’ this joy that we proclaim! But just what does our Joy in Christ look like? Just how are we to reveal this joy to the world around us?

Now last week we looked at what JOY was, and we saw it illustrated in the words and life of Paul. He writes in Rom 1 that regardless of his location, situation, or those around him… Regardless of any other outside factors that life could throw his way, we see that Paul was thankful that God was using him, was obedient in his service to God and fully trusted in the Lord at all times!

Now we can sit back and say, “Preacher! That is what joy should look like!” and that would be a true statement… But I believe we realize that there are not any Paul’s in our midst today, are there? He is not in our fellowship here at Oak Park, not in our Association here in New Orleans, not in our Louisiana state convention, not even in our national Southern Baptist Convention…

I believe the closest thing we could say was a Paul in modern day is the evangelist Billy Graham, who has served for over 60 yrs faithfully and obediently without scandal or downfall… and yet as wonderful as Billy Graham has been for many, many years…and still is… Billy would admit himself that he is no Paul.

So preacher what are you getting at? What are you trying to say? Shouldn’t we try to follow the example of Paul? Doesn’t Paul actually encourage us to use him as an example for living for Christ?

And to that question I say ABSOLUTELY! YES, we should seek to emulate Christ in our lives and we should always look to Paul’s example on how to live for God! Paul did encourage us to use him as an example for living… and that is exactly what I want to speak about this morning!

Like I said before, I don’t believe that we have any “Paul’s” in our world today, and it is because we [as believers] are not living like we should… we have sin in our lives… we have pride in our hearts…but understand that Paul had sin in his life as well! Paul even confessed to be the chief of sinners! So if sin in our lives is NOT the answer…

I believe it is the simple fact that we do NOT portray the Joy of Christ to the world around us! Paul was a sinner, he confessed his sin and was obedient to the call of Christ… and I believe this is where we fall short of what Paul set as an example of how to life FOR Christ!

I believe that today we don’t portray to the world the true picture of JOY that one can have when living for Christ! What we are showing the world is NOT what they should be seeing! At least that is the case with MOST believers today… I believe the main reason for this is that the sin of hypocrisy and pride are evident and rampant in the hearts of many believers within the church.

Now, before you get all mad at me and think that I am just here to pound on the believers, I want us to look at what Scripture has to say about these subjects…

When we read all of chapter 2 we find Paul really pounds on the Jews AND Jewish believers of his day. Paul takes them to task on several things, but the main thrust of Paul’s argument against the Jews of his day was the blatant hypocrisy of their attitude and the arrogant pride within their hearts…

Why would they have an arrogant attitude of the heart? Well, the Jews believed they were God’s chosen people and Scripture confirms that selection by God to be true! God DID choose the Hebrew nation, thru Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to become His people! God made several covenants with the Hebrew nation through their leaders, these covenants called on them to serve Him and He would be their God! God gave them a template on how to serve with His commandments and the Law…