Sermon Theme

It was a thought provoking discussion on the channel 7 news program Mel and Koshi and the team were throwing round their ideas about it and airing some viewer emails

  • What do you reckon?
  • Someone was appointed to a top beaurcratic position in an education department in one of our States
  • In his past he had been a drug user which led to a question about what signal this was sending to students
  • The man concerned offered that it was a distant past from which he was totally reformed and he should be allowed to get on with his life and so be left alone.

So… what do you reckon?

The question has everything to do with ourselves as to our standing with God

  • We too have a past as well as the present struggle with sin, and a future.
  • What does our text say about this?

Sermon outline

  • FROM OUT OF THE DEPTHS
  • GOD’S ANGER UNLEASHED ON CHRIST FOR OUR SAKE
  • RECREATED IN CHRIST FOR A NEW LIFE

Readings reproduced on this page:
The Holy Bible: New International Version. 1996, 1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan

Readings

2 Corinthians 5:16–21 (NIV84)

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Text

Romans 4:1–8 (NIV84)

1What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter?

2If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God.

3What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

4Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.

5However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

6David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

7“Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

8Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”