Romans

Passage: Romans 5:6-11

Last week Paul spoke of the love of God that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (5:5).  Now he shows us the extravagance of this love, how over the top lavish it is.  There has never been a display of this kind of love, and this much love in the history of the universe.

Paul starts by creating a contrast by speaking in human terms.  Would you be willing to give your life for someone else?  Have you ever thought about whether you could lay down your life for someone else?

Maybe a husband might lay down his life for his wife or children.  Maybe a sibling might die for a sibling, a grandparent for a grandchild.  Maybe.

There are people who have died for the sake of others, firemen, policemen, rescue workers, soldiers, secret service agents.  But that’s their job, in the line of duty, they signed up for it.  The men on the Titanic who said women and children first, a sense of duty or moral obligation.  Maybe a soldier who throws himself on a grenade for the sake of his fellow soldiers.

What’s Paul’s point?  Maybe, perhaps, on a rare occasion you might find a person willing to die for a good person, but never will you find a person willing to die for an enemy.

Fathers, mothers, would you die for the sake of your child?  Yes.  But would you die for the person who kidnapped and murdered your child?  No.

We can find things, events, in human history to illustrate concepts in the Bible.  I can’t think of any example in human history of someone willingly laying down their life for someone who hated them.  No one dies for someone who hates them and does terrible things to them.  No one dies for an enemy.

What Paul is describing here is utterly outside of the range of human experience.  There is no historical, human analogy for this.  Nowhere in the history of mankind is there an example of love like this.

It is one kind of love when someone lays down their life for a good person.  It is a completely different kind of love when someone lays down their life for their enemies.  How would you measure the difference between those two kinds of love?  It is infinitely greater.  It is beyond comparison.

Why didn’t God strike Adam and Eve dead, wipe the slate clean and start over.  There was certainly nothing in them to convince God to keep them around.

God chose to use this to reveal His infinite love, grace and mercy.  God bound Himself to us in the most extravagant love.

This is a massive truth that needs to get our attention and change the way we live and act and worship and treat others.

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Passage: Romans 5:1-5

Rejoice in our sufferings.  Could Paul have said anything more unamerican?  Who wants to rejoice in our sufferings?  What could be more counter-intuitive?  Who would be so crazy as to put those two words together in the same sentence?  Rejoice and suffering.  Isn’t that an oxymoron?

You know, like act naturally, deafening silence, original copy, accurate estimate, virtual reality, crash landing, awfully good, seriously funny.  And now we can add joyful sufferings.

Rejoice in our suffering.

Paul knows this point is hard to understand, so he expands on it to help us know why and how we can rejoice in our sufferings.  He states three truths to show us why and how we can rejoice in our sufferings.

Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, which does not put us to shame.

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Passage: Romans 5:1-5

We all have significant others in our lives, people who matter to us, people whose opinions matter to us and especially whose opinions about us matter to us.  We all have experiences of when those opinions are very positive and encouraging, and when those opinions are negative and discouraging.  We can rise and fall on the opinions of significant others, whether they are parents, spouses, close friends, boyfriends or girlfriends, employers, co-workers, classmates, teachers, pastors.

Who is the most significant other in the world, in the universe?  God.  What does God think about you?  Does God even think about you at all?  Does He smile at you or frown at you?  Is God pleased with you or is He displeased with you?  What do you think He thinks?

In the first four chapters of Romans we learned three things about what God thinks about us.  First, He is very angry with us.  Second, He is completely right to be angry, His anger is completely justified.  And third, there is nothing we can do about it.

But when we arrive here at the beginning of chapter five, the tone is completely different.  God is all smiles.  The language is different, the Apostle Paul uses words like we, faith, peace, grace, joy, hope, love.  What happened, what changed?  How did the most significant other in our lives do such a 180 and turn from frowns to smiles?

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Passage: Romans 4:17-25

So far in chapter four of Romans Paul has used the life and faith of Abraham to prove to the Jews Abraham was not justified by works but by faith (4:1-8), Abraham was not justified by circumcision but by faith (4:9-12), and Abraham was not justified by the law but by faith (4:13-17).

The Jews thought because they were chosen by God they were superior to all other races and nations.  By their laws and rituals they had favor with God, they were saved by race not by faith.

This is why Abraham is such a big deal, the hero and founder of their faith believed God, he lived by faith and his faith was credited to him as righteousness by grace, before works, before circumcision, before the law.  Paul turns now to focus on this faith and the nature of it.

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Passage: Romans 4:13-17

Paul is continuing to build his case that we are justified and saved only by grace through faith and this is a gift from God.  Paul brought two expert witnesses to the stand, Abraham and David, and then he brought Abraham back and made clear circumcision and uncircumcision were nothing.  It had nothing to do with Abraham’s justification by faith.

Now having dealt with that one aspect of the law, Paul now takes on the whole law.  It was not through any of the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise he would be heir of the world.

Abraham received the promise 430 years before the law was given to Moses, so the promise is not conditioned on obedience to the law.

God made a promise.

Abraham believed the promise.

God fulfilled the promise based on Abraham’s faith, by grace, not by his law keeping.

We will consider this morning the content of the promise, how the promise is received, and who the recipients of the promise are.

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Passage: Romans 4:9-12

Is this blessing only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? Vs. 4.9.

Is this blessing?  What blessing?  Remember the blessings from last week.

Remember the blessings of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

Their lawless deeds are forgiven.  Their sins are covered.  Their sins are not counted against them.  All four of these are now combined into one singular blessing.

So to whom is this blessing given?  To the circumcised or the uncircumcised?  To those who have the mark of the covenant of God as God’s people or those who don’t?  To the Jews or to the Gentiles?

You know how the Jews answered this question, the blessings are for the children of Abraham.  Why?

In Genesis 12 God told Abraham to leave his own country and go to the land He was calling him to, and Abraham rose up and went, he obeyed God, believing in the promise.  In Genesis 15 God promised Abraham his descendants would be like the stars in the sky and Abraham believed God and God credited his faith to him as righteousness.  Then in Genesis 17 God confirmed His promise by establishing a covenant with Abraham, the sign and seal of which was circumcision.

This was the beginning of the people of God, the racial, ethnic group called Jews.  The Jews were the special, set apart people who had Abraham as their father.  For the Jews identity was everything, who their father was separated them from everyone else.

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Passage: Romans 4:6-8

We all say we have faith in Jesus, we profess it, we sing about it.  We all say Jesus is all we need, He is enough.  But the truth is, we don’t actually live that way.  We all mix our faith with works, with trying to win or earn or deserve God’s favor and approval by trying harder to be better and do better, with being moral and upright, having the appearance of godliness.

We still try to put some faith in being good, well sort of good, more good than bad, better than our parents or neighbors or co-workers.  We are sort of generous, we give some money to the church.  We are sort of loving when it doesn’t cost us too much.  We read the Bible, well not all the time but sometimes.  We don’t swear too much or drink too much usually.  God grades on the curve, right, so we are OK.

We are trying harder to be better and do better in hopes of winning favor with God and man.  We focus more on outward behavior than the inward heart.  We talk about being raised right, about keeping to the straight and narrow, about getting our act together.  Gaining approval by behavior

This is called moralism.  We all into this trap, even churches.  The church in Galatia abandoned the Gospel of God’s grace for moralism.

Moralism doesn’t work, it has never worked.  Churches that major in moralism are joyless, and are full of families, marriages, children, that are destroyed by the lack of grace.

Moralism leads to judgmentalism, disapproval, impossible expectations, critical spirit, constant pressure to measure up.  Husbands do it to wives, wives to husbands, parents to children.

Are we not called to live good and godly and upright lives?  Are we not called to obey the Ten Commandments?  Of course, but they are not the Gospel, we are not saved by keeping them.  We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus.  We are justified by God by faith.  Then we receive grace to live lives transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The best that moralism can do for us is make us better behaved sinners, but still sinners nonetheless.  Moralism is fake news, fake faith.  It imitates holiness, but it is only the form of godliness without the power.  It isn’t real. It might win us the applause and approval of those around us, but not of God.

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Passage: Romans 4:1-8

Justification by faith is absolutely one of the most fundamentally important truths of the Bible and our faith.  So it shouldn’t surprise us that Satan would cause this to be one of the most misunderstood truths, one that confuses Christians to this day.  Many Christians don’t get it, let alone love it as a most glorious truth that is cause for constant worship and praise.

One evidence of this is how many people think the Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves.  One survey of a thousand people revealed 75% believe that.

Modern man is hostile to the concept of justification by faith alone.  We want to get our salvation the old fashion way, by earning it.  That is the way every other religion on earth does it.  That is the clear work of Satan, robbing God of His glory.

Related to this, many think heaven is for good people, for those who seek to have good character, who seek to be moral and upright most of the time.  The implication is heaven is some of our doing.

This kind of thinking has been around for a very long time, going all the way back to the Jews who believed keeping the law was the path to their salvation.  It was deeply engrained in their ethnic identity as the people of God.  It is why they looked down their noses at Gentiles, pagans, as those with no hope of salvation because they didn’t have the law.

Paul has his work cut out for him.  He is fighting against thousands of years of deeply ingrained thinking and tradition.  He is fighting against an entire culture and race.  Everything Paul is teaching and arguing is in the OT, in the Law and the Prophets, but over time it was lost.

Paul is being a good Gospel lawyer, building his case; making a careful argument.  He is doing something our culture is averse to.  Our culture is averse to well-reasoned argument, we don’t have the patience for it.  We want sound bites, we want talking heads that boil things down to the least common denominator, and not take longer than 60 seconds.

Paul led by the Holy Spirit is using reason and logic to argue we are justified by faith.  How can guilty sinners escape the wrath and judgment of God?  How can the ungodly be justified and reconciled to God?  Paul reasons this out here in verses 1-8.  Watch the brilliance of his argument as he brings into the courtroom two expert witnesses, two of the greatest heroes of the Jewish faith, Abraham and David.

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Passage: Romans 3:27-31

I received a bit of criticism for last week’s sermon.  She told me I didn’t give a clear definition of the big word I used, propitiation.  I talked about it, talked around it, but didn’t actually say what it means.  Wives are great critics and we are wise when we listen to them.

So here is a definition of what propitiation means when we read God put Jesus forward as a propitiation by His blood.  Propitiation is the act of God by which He redirects His just wrath for our sin away from us and onto Jesus who bore the full cup of God’s wrath, died our death in our place, and bore the shame of all our guilt.

God has turned aside His wrath, appeased it, satisfied it by the atoning work of Christ on the cross.  It is there God makes Jesus to be a propitiatory sacrifice to satisfy God’s divine justice.

This is a huge deal.  When you see a bleeding and dying Savior that should get our attention there is something really serious is going on.  If that’s the remedy, the problem must be way beyond our ability to fix it.  If that’s the medicine then clearly the disease is life threatening.

Jesus so perfectly fulfills the demands of the law and justice, that God is satisfied, and He can remain just even while He freely justifies us by grace through faith.  Everything that stood between us and His grace and mercy is now removed.

So what?  What are the implications of this?

Let’s look at our text in the light of the three questions Paul asks and the answers he gives, what about boasting (27-28), what about the Jews (29-30), what about the law (31)?

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Passage: Romans 3:21-26

We all know the story of David and Bathsheba and her husband Uriah.  One afternoon lounging on the roof of his palace David sees Bathsheba bathing in her backyard.  His lust turns to desire which turns to sin and she becomes pregnant.  In an attempt to cover up his sin, he calls Uriah home from the battle for a weekend of R and R, but Uriah is a man of integrity and honor and he won’t go home.  So David assigns him to the frontlines where he is killed.  Then he marries Bathsheba.

God sends the prophet Nathan to confront David in his sin, David is convicted and repents, Nathan seemingly presumptuously, announces God’s forgiveness, “God has taken away your sin.”  End of story.

But put yourself in the sandals of Bathsheba’s father or Uriah’s father.  What are you thinking about this whole sordid affair?  What, the Lord has taken away his sin?  This terrible king has raped my daughter, he has murdered my son-in-law, and he just gets away with it, he gets a pass.  Where is the righteousness?  Where is the justice?  If this is the kind of judge God is, He should be impeached.

Justice matters.  God has hardwired our universe that justice matters.  Justice is part of the moral fabric of the universe.  God has put a sense of justice deep in all of us.  The reason we know about justice and think about justice and care about justice is because we are made in the image of a just God.

Justice is hardwired into all our consciences.  Think about how upset we get over a bad call by an umpire or referee.  Some of us have not forgotten the injustice of the blown call by replacement refs at the end of the Green Bay/Seahawks game in September of 2012 that cost us the game.

How about when an incompetent person gets promoted, or a bribe changes an outcome, or if an election is rigged, or a criminal gets off on a technicality, or a crime isn’t punished or a judge perverts justice.  How young is a child when they first say something isn’t fair?  Injustice is a part of our fallen world, but when we are the victim of it, we hate it, and justly so.

We need to know God is always just and fair and does what is right by the righteous standards of His own law, by which He judges us.  We need to know how the righteous judge of the universe can forgive guilty sinners.

That’s the point of verses 25-26.  Last week we considered the first three of Paul’s uses of the righteousness of God.

Passage: Romans 3:21-26

I have been praying over and over for you this year that God would fill you with a knowledge of His will and give you an increase in the knowledge of Him.  It just struck me yesterday how our study of Romans is a huge way that prayer can be answered.  This book is about God, it is saturated with God.  It reveals the glory of God and the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sink your teeth into this, work to get more out of it than just Sunday mornings.  Give yourself to the Word of God and God will bless you.  We will speak directly to that this evening.

If Romans is the most important book in the Bible, this paragraph may well be the most important verses in all the Bible.

Martin Luther called this text the center of the entire Bible, the epicenter, the most importance part of the most important book.  It is filled with the deepest and most profound truths, the most life-changing, the most life-saving.

Remember my offer at the beginning of this series to give $100 to anyone who memorizes the book of Romans.  A member has offered to match my offer, so now there are $200 to anyone who memorizes the entire book of Romans.  It’s a little over 7,000 words, about 15 pages.

If you don’t memorize Romans, memorize this paragraph and build your life on these 130 words.

Paul now turns his attention to what he said in 1:16-17.

Passage: Romans 3:19-20

It has been three weeks since I last preached from Romans.  You may recall we did some heavy lifting through two and a half chapters of Romans focused on the sins of the Gentiles and the Jews, in other words, all of humanity as it is divided up in the Bible.

We got through Romans 3:20 which ends with the words, “the knowledge of sin.”

Of all the things in the world you could spend time learning about, of the top ten things in the world you would like to know more about, does sin make your list?  Most people don’t want to know about sin or learn more about their sin.  We are resistant to knowing about sin and many churches today are happy to let you remain in your ignorance, to let you feel good about yourself.