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Romans

Sisters, Fellow Workers, Mothers of Us All

Passage: Romans 16:1-16

Some might be thinking, what is the point of a passage of Scripture like this, what can it possibly say to us two thousand years after it was written?  Isn’t this just the apostle Paul exercising a little personal privilege by saying hi to 27 friends he sees in the Rome church picture directory.  Is this just some cultural formality having no edification or benefit to us who are so far away from this in time and distance?

Let me take this opportunity to remind you of what Paul wrote elsewhere:

II Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Did you notice that little first word?  All.  This is the benefit of having the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit.  All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for our instruction, our edification, correction, teaching and training in righteousness.

When we come to a passage of Scripture that seems so far removed from our life with no possible benefit, the problem is not with God’s Word but with us.  If this was merely human, then we could dismiss this passage.

God is up to something here that is intended for all the church in all the ages and for all Christians in all ages, even us.  Or should I say especially us.

Paul ends many of his letters with lists of names of people to be greeted, but this is by far the longest list.  Let me draw your attention to four truths or lessons here for us.

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God Gave Them Up II

Passage: Romans 1:24-32

In the first chapter of this great book of Romans Paul is carefully leading us to understand the Gospel he is eager to preach in Rome, the Gospel he is not ashamed of because it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe in Jesus.

But why do we need salvation?  What are we in danger of that we need to be saved from?  What cliff are we on the edge of, what ocean are we drowning in, what deadly disease has taken hold of our souls?

Its our sin of ungodliness in turning the truth about God into a lie, and our sin of unrighteousness  exchanging the glory of God for idolatry, worshipping corruptible, immoral images in creation.

Against all of this the wrath of God has been and is being revealed from heaven.  When we think about God’s wrath we generally have several misconceptions about it.

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God Gave Them Up

Passage: Romans 1:24-32

As is our custom here at First Church we are preaching through a book of the Bible, Paul’s letter to the Christians in the church in Rome.

Paul wrote he is eager to come to Rome to preach the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He says this even knowing the kind of reception he has had and will have in Rome, but he is undaunted.  He is eager to preach.

Why is he eager to preach?  Two reasons, because of two revelations from God.  First, because God has revealed His righteousness in the Gospel which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who hears and believes. Second, because the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, and the Gospel is the only defense against the wrath of God.

Why has the wrath of God been revealed?  What has stirred up the just and righteous wrath of God?  Two things, ungodliness toward God and the unrighteousness of men.  The vertical response to God and the horizontal response among men.

Regarding ungodliness, Paul says everyone knows there is a God with invisible attributes, with eternal power and divine nature, but they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.  They did not honor God or give thanks to Him or worship Him as they all should.

Regarding unrighteousness, Paul says they also exchanged the glory of the immortal, incorruptible God for images of mortal, corruptible creatures, men, birds, and animals and the lowest of reptiles and worms.  Notice the downward spiral.

Remember the first three chapters of Romans show us our need for the Gospel, our need for the grace of forgiveness.  Chapter one forces on the Gentiles, chapter two focuses on the Jews, chapter three on everyone, all of us.

Verses 1:18-23 answer the question why does God pour out His just wrath on mankind, for their ungodliness and unrighteousness, for exchanging the truth for a lie, and worshiping creatures rather than the Creator in whose image we are made.

In the light of all of this we come to this big “therefore” or three “therefores.”  Paul now answers how God’s wrath is revealed.  He uses the same phrase three times, “God gave them up.”

Is there a more relevant passage in the Bible for our time and place in culture?  Can there be a passage of Scripture more clearly needed for today?

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A Resurrection Like His

Scripture Texts: Romans 6:1-11

Since we have been preaching through Paul’s letter to the Romans, I chose for our text this morning the only passage in Romans that speaks specifically to the resurrection.

There are four facts in our text about the resurrection, that if you really think about it, are stunning, staggering, astonishing, in a word breathtaking.

Here are four facts from our text about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Two absolute certainties followed by two conditional certainties.

“Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.” Verse 4

“Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” Verse 9

“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” Verse 8

“If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Verse 5

“Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.” Verse 4

A resurrection is a stunning fact, especially since it is so rare.  You would expect there would be a lot of attention given to it, especially since there has only been one true resurrection.  Paul relates it this way in I Corinthians.

I Corinthians 15:3-8 I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

The facts surrounding the resurrection are well documented.  First of all, they were told well in advance.  The prophets in the OT gave a heads-up as to what would happen.  Read Isaiah 53.  Then there is the testimony of the women, of the disciples, the eyewitnesses.  There are all the miraculous events, the stone rolled away, the empty tomb, the angels, the burial clothes left behind, something what wouldn’t have happened if His body had been stolen.

There is finally the Word of God, the four separate Gospel accounts, and of course the radically changed lives and willingness to die for this truth.  Especially such an anti-Christian hater like the Pharisee Paul who saw the resurrected Jesus.  People don’t give their lives for lies.

How do you explain the expansion of the Gospel and the church of Jesus Christ?

“Over 2000 years ago a middle eastern man claiming to be God was killed in a barbaric form of capital punishment leaving behind a handful of followers, most of whom had deserted him. Now over 2000 years later, there are little buildings in about every country on the earth where this same man is worshipped as King, little buildings like this one that are thousands of miles from the birthplace of this man and in some of the most remote regions.   They can be found in jungles, deserts, forests, valleys, hollers, cities, towns, villages, and on mountains, hills, cliffs, plains, mainlands and islands” (Joseph Spurgeon).

The prophets predicted this.  “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

How do you explain this transformation and expansion except by the fact of the resurrection, the most singular and significant event in human history.

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Without Excuse

Scripture Texts: Romans 1:18-23

I have a distinct memory from high school back in Wichita, KS.  I was a relative new Christian, at a gathering of high school friends, standing in a driveway.  A girl was pressing me with questions about Christianity.  “If Christianity is the only way then what about those innocent people in Africa who have never heard.”

Never mind that the great dark continent of Africa is one of the most Christian continents, it’s the favorite go to place for picking on Christians and suppressing the truth.  It’s one of most common objections, and usually not a sincere question, more of a smokescreen, a dodge to avoid thinking about their own soul’s relationship to God.

I fumbled along as best as my young faith could, trying to defend God and His honor and integrity.  I wish I had just known my Bible better and especially Romans 1.  I could have explained the revelation of God to our world and the rebellious rejection of God by the world.

That’s the outline of our text.  Revelation and rejection, proclamation and response.

Having talked about the revelation of God’s wrath last week the rest of our text this morning answers why God pours out His wrath in two parts, the revelation of Himself and the response to that revelation which is suppression and rejection.

Revelation.  What can be known about God?

Notice how clearly Paul states five things about God’s revelation.

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The Wrath of God

Passage: Romans 1:18-23

Think about hearing this letter read for the very first time.  Paul has told them how much he thanks God for their faith, he tells them how much he longs to come to them and how eager he is to preach the Gospel to them.  Then he tells them about this Gospel and how the righteousness of God has been revealed and the best news of all, the righteous shall live by faith.

What are we expecting to hear next?  More about this good news?  Maybe Paul will flatter us with more gracious words.  Maybe Paul will tell us how great we are doing in such a hard city to live in.  Maybe he will tell us more about this good news of the Gospel, how much God loves us, how much God has done for us and how the Gospel will make us and our lives better and how God has a wonderful plan for our lives.

That’s how we think evangelism should be, right.  Let me tell you all about Jesus and how wonderful He is and what He has done for us and how He can make our life better.  All we want to hear about is dessert.

With vs. 18 we come to the body of the letter, the meat of Paul’s teaching.  In order for the good news to be good news we have to know the bad news first, and not just the bad news, but how bad the bad news really is.  Until we understand this, our view of the Gospel and of Jesus and God is going to be, well, like it is in much of America and in much of the American Evangelical Church.  Weak, anemic, watered down, lukewarm, truth without power.

Paul will have none of that.  Paul hasn’t suffered beatings, flogging, imprisonment, torture, shipwrecks, hunger and thirst, hatred and animosity, mocking and humiliation for a sweet, nice, precious Gospel.  No one would suffer and be willing to die for that kind of Gospel.

Starting with verse 18 and for the next 64 verses Paul is going to humble us with our sin, our unrighteousness and ungodliness, our rebelliousness and the utter foolishness of our hearts and darkened minds.  He is going to show that all men are in sin and under the just wrath of God.  We have no righteousness of our own and if we are going to be saved it will have to be by a righteousness provided by God through faith in Jesus and His righteousness.

The world at the time of Romans was divided into two groups of people, Jews and Greeks, or Jews and Gentiles or pagans.

Paul starts with the Gentiles/Greeks.  The rest of chapter one will focus on the spiritual condition of the Gentile world, the pagans, and their relationship with God, without the Gospel and saving grace.

Then chapter 2 to 3:8 will focus on the Jewish world without the Gospel.  In a sense that is us Christians, the religious folks, the people who think we have Jesus, and we are all good, like the Jews having the Law.

Then 3:9-20 will give a summary universal application, the universal sinfulness and guilt and rebellion against God in every human heart.

He will destroy our pride, our independence, our autonomy all the way to Romans 3:21, until we cry “uncle,” until we submit and cry for mercy, until we see that we are all without excuse and hope except in Jesus.

Finally in 3:21 64 verses from here, Paul will return to the theme of the greatness of the gift of the Gospel in the righteousness of God freely given through faith in Jesus to all who believe.

Before we get there we have to face the reality of the seriousness of sin in our world and in our own hearts.  Some might wish we skip over this or go over it quickly.  Let me encourage us to persevere for three reasons.

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Righteous of God

Passage: Romans 1:16-17

Every single commentator on the book of Romans calls verses 16-17 the heart of the entire book. Here Paul announces his grand theme that will occupy his attention for the rest of Romans. Romans is Paul’s clearest exposition of the Gospel of God, and these two verses give the heart of Paul’s ministry as an apostle. This is Romans in a nutshell, and the summary of the Bible.

I am not ashamed of the Gospel.

Why does Paul start off saying he is not ashamed of the Gospel? Because there are plenty of reason to be ashamed of the Gospel. The Gospel is a scandal of weakness and folly.

The founder was killed as a criminal on a Roman cross, cursed.
God was so weak and powerless He couldn’t keep His Son from being killed.
The message of the Gospel is too simple, nothing especially intellectual.
It doesn’t rise to the level of the great philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.
Calling people sinners certainly isn’t popular, that gets downplayed in our day.
God’s method of salvation is crazy, insane. No one would ever dream up that plan.
A resurrection, are you kidding me, everyone knows no one comes back from the dead.
The followers of the Gospel were lowly, fishermen, shepherds, not the noble and elite.
The Gospel was regarded with contempt by the educated, the sophisticated.

Today the Gospel is unacceptable because it flies in the face of our independence, our self-reliance. The Gospel strips us of our pride, our boasting, our wisdom. No other religion stirs up the shame and guilt of our sinfulness. No other religion is as offensive to man’s pride.

For all these reasons the Gospel was ridiculed, mocked and spoken against everywhere it went.

Paul is coming to preach the Gospel and he wants to prepare the Romans for the reproach they will receive for believing the Gospel, for lifting up the cross of Jesus. A crucified Savior was a stumbling block to Jews and utter nonsense to the Greeks.

Paul knows all about the ridicule and mocking, all the ways the ungodly oppose the Gospel. Paul was willing to be shamed for the Gospel because he was not ashamed of the Gospel.

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Eager to Preach the Gospel in Rome II

Passage: Romans 1:8-15

Romans is the only letter Paul wrote to people he had never met, to a church he had not started, in a city he had never visited.  But he had certainly heard about them and their faith.

And that in its own right is remarkable.  Why would we say their faith is remarkable?  There are Christians in the capital of the Roman empire, right under the nose of Caesar.  Are you kidding?  Faith in Rome, the greatest city in the world, the proudest, most advanced city, the most educated, the most powerful, most decadent city in the world.

Think NYC, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Paris, London.  Cities are not humble places, they are hustling, bustling centers of commerce, skyscrapers, rich, famous, powerful people.

When I was at Wheaton College and friends would visit, I would take them into Chicago, up the world’s tallest building, Sears Tower, Chicago Art Museum.  If a girl was visiting, I would take her up Michigan Avenue to the Magnificent Mile, one of the most famous shopping areas in the world, Nordstroms, Saks Fifth Avenue, I Magnum, Marshalls, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus.

Cities are proud places, not humble places, cities are secular places, not known for faith.

This little church in Rome was letting their light shine, not for their glory, but for the glory of the Father.  The church in Rome was small, but not insignificant.  So how did their faith become spoken of all over the Roman Empire?

Under the Emperor Claudius there was a great persecution of the Jewish people and he exiled all Jews from Rome.  This included Jewish Christians, brothers and sisters from this church, who were scattered.  They shared their faith wherever they went.  Among them were Priscilla and Aquila, a Jewish couple who fled to Corinth, Greece (see Acts 18:1-4).  When Paul arrived there he stayed with them a year and a half.  It was then Paul wrote this letter and shared his heart’s desire to come to the Romans.

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Eager to Preach the Gospel in Rome

Passage: Romans 1:8-15

We are working our way through Paul’s introduction to his letter.  We will be another week on this passage which will lead us to verses 16-17 which are the grand theme or heart of the letter.

After an opening greeting almost all of Paul’s letter open with a personal expression of love, gratitude and prayer.

Whatever you might think about this great towering figure of an apostle, don’t leave out he was a shepherd with a heart of tender affection for God and tender compassion for the sheep.  He was no hireling, he was a true shepherd willing to lay down his life for the sheep and he did.  He suffered for those he didn’t know and in a way that includes us.

We have before us a personal glimpse into the spiritual life of the apostle Paul, and his prayer life, how he prays and what he prays for.

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What Paul Wants the Romans to Know

Scripture Texts: Romans 1:1-4

Introduction

“Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that He was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.” So said Martin Luther in the year 1545, recounting how he habitually sunk in terror and dread at the thought of the righteousness of God, knowing he was entirely unworthy, that all his works were but hay and straw before the blaze of God’s holiness. But when the Lord opened up the true meaning of salvation to him, that this righteousness was a free gift given to sinners who lay hold of Christ by faith, then all was made new for him and he could not stop speaking about the justifying love and grace of Almighty God. The Lord quite literally changed his tune. And we have something similar, though to a greater extreme, with the apostle Paul. He hated and opposed and persecuted Christ and His church. If you remember Jesus’ words to him at his conversion, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me.” To persecute Christ’s body was to persecute Christ Himself. But this was his life; this was his mission. But what happened? The scales fell from his eyes and he was never the same. Now Paul, with all of his spirit, until the very end of his life, would proclaim the name of this same Jesus to all nations, never tiring of living for and speaking about his blessed Savior. The Lord changed his tune as well. And we see the fruit of this in Paul’s return to Jesus over and over again in this Christ-saturated, gospel-filled introduction to the letter to the church in Rome.

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Paul, Slave of Jesus Christ

Passage: Romans 1:1-2

Last week I read from Philippians 3 where Paul tells us the credentials he used to introduce himself before his dramatic conversion/transformation.

I am a Hebrew of Hebrews, belonging to the people of Israel, to the tribe of Benjamin.  I am a Pharisee.  I am righteous under the law, blameless.  I am more zealous than my peers.

Paul could have introduced himself to the Romans saying, I am the greatest apostle, the first great missionary, who has suffered more than all the other apostles, planter of many churches, doing great works and miracles for God, author of more books in the NT than anyone else.

Paul begins this letter with three phrases that are his new set of credentials, the new letters after his name.  This is Paul’s view of himself.  Notice how different these credentials are to the ones he gave in Philippians 3.  What a transformation.

A slave of Christ Jesus.

Called to be an apostle.

Set apart for the Gospel of God.

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