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Sermon Outline Prepared by Dr. Joseph P. Metoyer, Jr., Pastor/Teacher April 14, 2002 Romans 10:18-21 Subject:
“Can a fellow Christian be jealous of how God has
blessed you?” Introduction: There are religious people, some Christians even who are jealous about how God has blessed you. They feel that because of the sacrifices they have made in life they deserve God’s blessings more than you do. These people will say things like: “They can do what you do for God better and they deserve the recognition or glory that you are receiving.” I.
Ask them: Have
they not heard? … Heard what? The question Paul asked in (9:22)
What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured
with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that
He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which HE
had prepared before hand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews
only, but also of the Gentiles? A.
Consider God may have prepared you from the beginning to use you
in a way that He will not use your jealous friend.
Paul says concerning the jealous friend:
(10:2-3) That they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge.
For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the
righteousness of God. B.
Paul’s response is twofold:
(1). (V.18) The Word has reached everywhere!
What Word? (v.4) For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who
believes. (Isaiah 64:6-7) But
we are all like an unclean thing… (2). Paul says can I get a witness? (Romans 10:19) Paul calls on Moses to testify… And in (Deut. 32:20-21) God announces “This people has stirred me to jealousy with what is no-god, I will stir them to jealousy with a no-people.” Let’s take the cover off! This could be one of us. A faithful church going Christian who is jealous of how God has blessed another Christian. We need to examine ourselves; maybe we have worshipped some no-god and The God has turned His face from us and caused us to be jealous over a no-body that He has blessed. God wants us to know something; temporarily He can stop using you and can choose to use a no-body. He wants us to realize that the veil in the temple has been torn in two and that there is no more priesthood, no more altar sacrifices, and no more approach to God in the cold ritual way. HE wants us to know that the Messiah belongs, for this age, to a no-people. God wants the Jews, His chosen people, to look at us, a no-people, the foolish nation, and realize what blessings their fathers let slip so easily. In other words you had everything going for you but you took your eyes off God and put them on a no-god and let a no-people get in the way of your relationship with The God. Paul says (Romans 10:20) Isaiah is very bold… Don’t ever get like these Jews were; Their minds were so filled with the false idea that God could not work apart from them that they were simply blind and deaf to any suggestion that God was universal and that He would ever turn from them and work with a elements of another nation. II.
Tell them: All
day long His hands are stretched out! Have you ever tried to stretch out your hands for an hour, two, certainly not all day? God says to a people who have turned their back on me and sinned against me All day long I have stretched out My hands! Application:
The Word has been preached all over and God is standing with out
stretched hands to receive sinners of all and any kind. |
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