Romans 2 | Grace: The Transformative Power of the Gospel

The word gospel

translates to news that brings joy.

But this isn't just any news.

A gospel is news that changes a life forever.

After being invaded and enslaved by Persia,

Greece won two decisive battles at Marathon and Souls.

The Greeks sent out heralds, also called evangelists,

to proclaim the good news to the cities.

We have fought for you. We have won.

And now you're no longer slaves.

You're free.

The reality is that we are all slaves.

Slaves to sin and slaves to death.

We are slaves in need of good news.

Enter Jesus, God's son.

Fully God, fully man.

News that would change our lives forever.

His news was this.

I am the divine come to you to do.

You could not do for yourself.

I will take what you deserve so you can have what I deserve.

You have no idea how much it will cost me.

But you also cannot imagine the depths of my love for you.

It is a gift that I give freely.

So intent.

Repent from all the ways you run for me and follow me.

Follow me because I am the only way to eternal life.

Follow me because I'm the savior you've been looking for.

Follow me because I have authority over everything.

Yet I have humbled myself for you.

Follow me.

Because I died on a cross for you.

Because I'm your true love and your true life.

This is my good news for you.

This is my gospel.

That you have been saved by grace and that you are slave

no more for me.

That is the message of Romans.

That's the gospel.

And we're going to look at the book of Romans,

for the next few months as we go through it as best we can.

Chapter by chapter.

And you're going to see that video over and over, because I want to drive home

the point of what the gospel is.

Basically a synopsis of the book of Romans.

25 years after Paul's conversion to Jesus,

he was traveled on the road to Damascus to persecute

Jesus followers, and Jesus met him personally.

The resurrected Jesus met him personally on the road to Damascus,

and Paul

was transformed, absolutely transformed.

And from that point on, had the desire to go to Rome

to explain the gospel to Christians in Rome.

And year after year, though he desired to go for one reason

or another, the Holy Spirit prevented him from going.

And so he decided to write a letter to them

in the event he couldn't go.

And that letter explaining the gospel

very clearly and very concisely

and very precisely, is what we have in

our Bibles called the Book of Romans.

And I want to, as we go through this,

there was so much in this book that we will not get to.

And so I encourage your own reading of it,

your discussion of it.

It's so complete

a work and it's so thoughtful and logical

that way.

Back in the day, many years ago, Stanford Law required their students

to memorize the first eight verses of the Book of Romans

as an example of an irrefutable argument

for something that could not be disproven.

It's an amazing writing by Paul.

And so we're going to look at it in the first three chapters.

The book of Romans is divided into four sections

the Wrath of God, the grace of God,

the Plan of God, and the Will of God.

And the first three chapters of Romans

talks about the wrath of God.

And as we go through chapters one and two,

most people would say, it's kind of easy

to see the wrath of God understand it in terms of chapter one.

But chapter two is a little different.

Chapter two deals with a different group of people

and what it deals with.

Paul deals with the wrath of God on the humanist,

the wrath of God on the moralist,

and the wrath of God on the religionists.

The The humanist would be chapter one.

Those who think there is no God don't don't consider eternity.

As a reality.

Don't consider what sin is, who best basically as human.

It's just whatever is good for you is good for you.

You do. You all do me?

Don't judge me.

I won't judge you.

Everything is up to the individual.

Very humanistic.

The moralist says.

You know what? I'm not.

I'm not quite that like them.

You know, but I'm not really religious.

But I'm a good person.

The religionists would say, well, I'm certainly not like those guys, and

I am a good person, but I'm a good person because I'm a religious person.

There would be the ones in church.

They'd be the ones who have a Bible and read it.

And Paul sets out and says, whether you put yourself

in the camp of the humanist, the moralist, or the religion, ist.

Every one of us is in need of a savior,

and every one of us is guilty of breaking God's law.

Every one of us steeped in sin,

and even the more or less in the religious, don't escape

God's wrath saved by the blood of Jesus,

shed on the cross for the eons of our sin.

When we read chapter one, it's easy

to point the finger at those who get what they deserve,

especially in the moralist and the religionists.

That's how we think.

You know what?

You made your choices, major decisions.

You're reaping the results of your life.

I want us to understand something.

When we overly condemn someone's sin,

it's a sign that we haven't condemned severely enough

to sin in ourselves.

I want to be very clear about that

biblically.

Go back to the Old Testament and look at King David.

He's the king. He,

has a lust problem.

Sees a woman named Bathsheba

takes her. She's married to another man.

Uriah takes her, commits adultery with her.

She becomes pregnant, and he works out this evil scheme

to have her husband killed.

Goes on with his life.

The prophet Nathan

comes to David and says, David, let me tell you this story.

There was a poor man with one little sheep, and he loved the sheep.

And there was a rich man with a whole flock of sheep.

And the rich man had some friends coming over,

and he didn't want to use any of his own sheep for the barbecue.

So he stole the poor man's sheep and barbequed that one.

What should happen to that man?

And David flies off the handle

and says, that's horrible, that's evil.

That man deserved to die.

And Nathan says, David, you're the guy.

You took one.

See, what David did

there was there was consequence and ramifications for for stealing.

But it wasn't the death penalty.

And what was going on in David's life.

There was sin in his life that he hadn't judged severely enough.

So he severely judged someone else.

You follow.

So whenever we severely judge someone else's

sin, it's probably a sign

that we have injured severely enough

the sin of our own heart.

So we have to be very careful.

And in chapter one, Paul lays out

God's wrath on the humanist

who lives as though there is no God.

And and he puts it in

terms at the towards the, the middle end of that chapter,

in terms of sexual depravity and what that looks like in the world.

I pointed you

to unfiltered and unplugged, teaching that I've done on that.

Is homosexuality compatible with the Bible?

And so all of that's there, and I really dive into that whole issue.

But that's what Paul said.

Look, from the humanist who says there is no God.

This is where that leads.

In chapter two, he, he, he kind of shifts a little bit

and he deals with the moralist and the religionists

as good people.

Those of us who think,

I mean, I'm not a Jesus fanatic, but I'm like a fan

and I'm a good person.

And and by my goodness, God and I have

a good understanding and a good relationship.

That's the moralist.

The religionists would say, well, I, you know, I'm more than a good moral

person, like, like I know the Bible and I'm in church every week

and by my goodness and my serve and by my by my good religious life,

God and I are good.

And what Paul says

is that whatever camp you put yourself in,

the humanist, the moralist or the religionists,

if you reject the truth of your own personal sin.

If I were just the truth of my own personal sin, my need for repentance,

your need for personal repentance, and humbly accept the work Jesus did

on the cross, the shedding of his blood for the forgiveness of your sin.

Whether you're a humanist more or less, or religionists,

we're all equally lost

and deserving of the wrath of God.

And so let's jump into this

to the moralist as good folk.

Romans 1234.

They'll follow along with me on the screen.

Let me read it from my Bible.

You therefore have no excuse.

You who pass judgment on someone else for whatever point you judge the other.

You are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things.

Now we know that God's judgment

against those who do such things is based on truth.

So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them

and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience?

Not really realizing that God's kindness

leads you toward repentance.

When Paul

says, you who pass judgment and what he's saying is based on

what he's talked about in in chapter one, the degradation

of of of of culture, of humanity.

You who pass judgment on them.

He says, be very careful,

because when you pass judgment,

you do the same things.

Here's what he's saying.

What he was saying is, is,

well, you know, when you say, well, they got what they deserve,

that's on them.

They chose their life.

They made their decisions,

their lives fall apart, being destroyed because they're just getting

what they deserve.

I haven't chose those.

So my life didn't fall apart.

They're getting what they deserve.

He says be very careful.

This is so interesting to me

because I.

I want to caution you, us,

not to believe in or to say things that I've seen coming out

from moralistic and religious people

in light of the fires in LA.

And you picked up on what the more or less, religionists are saying,

some of them.

That there's it's no surprise that the Golden Globes mocked

God and two days later, the, you know, life is burning. The.

Please don't say that.

Please don't believe that.

All that happens when if you buy into that

illogic,

all you do is confirm that you are either

a moralist or a religionists

worthy of God's wrath.

The moralist will say

I might be bad, but I'm not like that.

The religionists will say, I got my issues,

but they're not like those issues.

That deserves God's wrath. Me?

When Paul says, don't judge.

Most people have heard what Jesus said

in Matthew chapter seven, verse one.

What do you say?

The fullness of the screen for me back there.

Do not judge or what?

If any of you heard that?

Have you heard that?

Yeah.

We like that verse, don't we?

The problem is most people, though, they know that verse.

They've not read enough of the Bible to read verses 15

and 16 of what Jesus also said.

Same chapter.

Couple verses later.

Watch out for false prophets.

They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ferocious wolves by their.

What fruit you will. What?

Recognize them?

How do you recognize bad fruit?

You judge that it's bad.

So on the one hand, Jesus says, don't judge us.

You'll be judge.

On the other hand he says, but you may judge their life,

the fruit of their life, because only by their judging

the fruit of life will you know if they're of me or not.

So here's how I want to unpack this.

When Paul says about judging, here's what he means.

We're not to judge for condemnation.

We are to judge for identification.

You understand that there's a difference

what Paul's talking about here.

Don't judge someone else's sin as if you have

the knowledge to condemn or not.

But we do judge for identification.

If someone claims to be a Christ follower or a Jesus follower,

it will show by the fruit of their life.

And Jesus says, judge that so you will know.

It's interesting that Paul says he doesn't.

He doesn't find fault with judging.

What he finds fault is that we haven't judged ourselves severely in the first.

It's exactly what Jesus said to.

He said, don't worry about the the speck in someone else's.

I take the log out of your own first.

He's it's not about not making judge because he says, judge

the fruit of each other.

Judge him not for condemnation,

but for identification.

But first, judge yourself most severely.

What David failed to do.

You follow?

You okay?

See, this is all pointed to the moralist

who would say, at least I'm not like them.

And when he says here you who pass judgment.

You're condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things.

And the moralist would say, I don't do that.

I mean,

there.

I don't do that.

And what the more or less forgets

is how Jesus interpreted the law.

He said, you've heard it say that.

Don't murder.

Well, I'm telling you, the interpretation of that when you've harbored

hatred in your heart and grudges,

you've already committed murder in your heart.

So though your sin doesn't look externally like

there's internally it's the same.

Jesus would say, you've heard it said, don't commit adultery.

You said, what I'm telling you is, when you have lusted

and harbored lust in your heart for someone,

you're guilty.

And this is what Paul saying, you who point the finger,

you gotta realize that there's something going on in your own life.

You haven't judged severely enough yet.

You do the same things, he says, you moralist.

And he asks the question,

do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience,

not realizing that God's kindness lead you toward repentance?

You see and look just because.

Just because the hammer hasn't fallen yet.

Don't mistake that

for God's inability to lower it the hammer,

nor mistake it as God's approval.

He's being kind to you.

And when Paul this these three things

kindness, tolerance and patience, what he's saying is

God is kind to you towards your past sin.

He's tolerant with you regarding your present sin,

and he will be patient with you about your future sin.

That's what he's saying.

So he's saying so.

So don't be fooled.

And the thinking he doesn't care about your past.

And don't be fooled and think in thinking that he's approving of your presence.

And don't be fooled in thinking he'll have a blind eye about your future sin.

He sees it all.

He knows it all.

But he is kind to you because he wants his kindness.

You want you to to recognize that his kindness is intended to what

lead you to repentance.

God doesn't want to force you to repent.

He don't want to break you.

So you will. He.

He shows his kindness over our past, present, and future sin.

So that will be led to repentance.

See, it's not a scary thing

to repent when you know that in repentance comes grace.

Grace is the undeserved, unmerited favor and blessing.

But we never get to the unmerited

and, favor blessing of God, the grace of God without first repentance.

And you can't.

We can't repeat until we acknowledge our sin,

even for the moralist.

You follow?

You okay, so far it's.

Enough to lead us to repentance.

God does not want to have to break us.

So we'll repent. It was not beyond that.

But please understand,

if you and I have not reaped all we've sowed

the full destruction of our life, behavior and sin.

It's only because of God's kindness.

It's only because of his tolerance and his patience.

And he intends us to recognize that,

to lead us to repent.

Please don't miss this.

Read five through 11 for a long section here.

Here's what I want you to.

I want to make sure you bring your Bibles with you,

because pretty soon I'm going to start start putting the verses up here.

It's just too much.

And so you're going to have to follow along with me at some point.

Okay.

So let me just I don't know when I'm going to do it.

I might pull the trigger on that next week.

I'm not sure. So just be ready.

If you don't have a Bible, let me know.

And Scott and Brenda McElroy will buy one for you.

And, download something on your phone or whatever, but let me just read verse five.

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart,

you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath.

When his righteous judgment will be revealed. God.

And then Paul quotes, from, Psalm and Proverbs.

God will give to each person according to what he has done.

End quote.

He goes on to those who, by persistence and doing good, seek glory,

honor, immortality. He'll give you eternal life.

But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil,

there will be rap.

And they verse nine, he says, there will be trouble and distress

for every human being who does evil, both for Jews and Gentiles, don't matter

but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good first for the Jew

and then for the Gentiles.

And then verse 11, For God does not show favoritism.

I'm going to come back to that in just a minute.

Let me wrap up with for I'm going to skip verse 12.

Come back to verse 13 says this, for it is not those who hear the law

who are righteous in God's sight,

but those, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

Let me unpack it. Here's what he's saying.

He's saying for all you peep, all you good moralists

and even new religionists, he's talking to us

because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant hearts.

Stubbornness means when you dig your heels in

and just get obstinate to the truth of sin,

when you just do his and look like, look, I'm a good person.

I'm not like that.

It just doesn't apply to me because they deserve it.

I don't, you're just stubborn.

You refuse to admit

that spirit.

You're just like those people.

And when it when when he says you have an unrepentant heart,

it's the heart that refuses to change its mind.

You just refuse to change your mind

about your own personal sin, your need of a Savior, he says.

For those of us who dicker hills in and obstinate

to the truth of sin, and the only way to forgiveness and salvation, who refuse

to change our mind, he says, we're storing up wrath for our self.

God's wrath.

Now let me.

How many of you have ever filled up a water balloon before

you fill the water balloon?

Okay, so Paul never did.

But what he's talking about is this idea.

You fill up a water balloon, and he keeps going to keep on, keep filling up.

If you keep it under the nozzle too long, what happens to that water balloon?

It bursts all over you.

And what he's saying is, is if you continue,

though, God is patient and kind,

you continue to dig your heels and you continue to refuse

to change your mind about your own personal sin and your need to repent.

That balloon will fill up so much of God's wrath.

It's being contained right now,

but at some point it will be so full

that wrath will burst all over you.

Oh moral one.

You said you continue to reject the truth,

the knowledge that his wrath is coming on.

Those who refuse to repent.

God is love,

but his righteousness

means wrath on the unrepentant.

And when he says in

the verses seven, ten, and 13, to those who by persistence in doing

good, see glory, honor, immortality, he'll give you eternal life.

Verse ten, but glory, honor, peace for everyone who does good.

And then verse 13, for it is not those who hear the law who are righteous

in God's sight, but those who obey the law will be declared righteous.

What he's saying is what we read in James 122

be doers of the word, not just hearers of it.

It's not enough to know when they hear.

It's not enough to give assent to their no.

I agree with everything in the Bible.

What he's saying is you can know it and be a good moral person.

You can know and be a good religious person,

but until you it become like you do, what's here,

your knowledge means nothing.

It's got to show up in your life.

And that's why Jesus can say in in Matthew 715 and 16,

you'll know them by their fruit, and you can judge the fruit of a life.

No problem.

Because if they believe in, they say they'll believe it'll show up.

You have the right to judge the fruit.

They don't judge for condemnation.

That's God's job.

But the moment we say I'm right with God.

We can judge the fruit.

And I love verse 11.

It says, For God does not show favoritism.

Just a little side note

it. God does not show favoritism. I.

Did you know

that?

What that means is that God listens to you as much as he listens to me.

So it's dangerous to sit up

here on this stool and to have the mic for many reasons.

But one of the reasons is dangerous is because sometimes people

who are listening to the one on the stool think that their prayers

and connection to God is a little bit more intense and connected than yours.

And that's why.

That's why. And this isn't a shame anybody.

But I just want one supplement in Scripture and and what

it means to be a child of God.

I've had people tell me this on Sunday morning,

pastor, I really need you to pray for me.

Why you think

I got some connection to him that you don't have?

The Bible says right here there's no favoritism.

He didn't pay attention to my prayers more than yours.

Does it make you understand?

I'm saying.

But some people feel as though.

Oh, you're the pastor.

If we can just get past heartbreak.

Let me say this with gentleness.

Although I don't think I can.

That's an insult to God.

Do you think my prayers are heard more than yours?

If you have a relationship with Jesus?

So please,

I don't mind praying for any of you,

but please don't insult God

and put me in that position

where you think you need to come to church and ask me to pray for you.

I'm almost to the point.

When people ask me, I tell them no.

Pastor, you pray for me? No.

Well.

We got so many good prayers in this church.

We have people in this church who would. If.

If you have a need.

Listen, if you ever need, you pray.

You've got direct access to God.

The Holy Spirit is your advocate and your intercessor.

But beyond that, we got people in this church

who would love to come to your home and pray with you.

I mean little people.

They would love to meet with you and pray.

People would love to visit.

When you go, someone in your family goes to the hospital.

Let us know. We got people who show up.

Every first year, every

month,

people after the service.

You make us a decision. You need to pray about something.

We got people like.

That God didn't show favoritism.

He listens.

Have I said enough about that?

All right.

Okay.

Then go back to verse 12 and then 14 and 15.

First 12 says it's

all who sent the Paul is so brilliant.

He writes like a lawyer, especially in Romans.

And so this is going to sound like lawyer ease.

Okay.

And sometimes here's the, here's the danger for all you brilliant people.

Sometimes you're too brilliant for simple people like me.

And Paul is one of those.

And so I'm going to read this

and you might get lost in it, will come back and explain.

But here's what it's all who stand apart from the law will also perish.

Apart from the law, and all who sinned under law will be judged by the law.

Verse 14 indeed, when Gentiles who do not have the law

do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves,

even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements

of the law are written on their hearts, their conscience is also bearing witness

and their thoughts now, accusing, now even defending them.

You got it.

Here's what he's saying.

This addresses the question.

If any of you have ever wondered,

well, what about people who don't have the law?

What about people who've never read the Bible?

What about people who've never heard the name of Jesus?

What about them?

If you ever wondered that.

No. You need to do a little bit more deep thinking in your life.

This addresses the question what about those who just don't know?

Are they going to be condemned?

Well, how can they ever be saved?

They've never been.

So here, here's what Paul saying.

For those who know the law,

who know the standard of God

and who disobey it,

they show themselves to be lawbreakers.

You follow me so far, so all of us fall in that group, that category.

We're without excuse. We've heard it.

We know it.

And we'll be judged by it.

And that judgment from God

will be just a law breaker and guilty.

Now, for those who have never heard this, who don't know this,

what Paul is saying is, though, they don't have the written law,

they have the law of God on their hearts.

In other words.

They know at some level

right and wrong, moral and immoral.

Every human does. We're born with it.

It's God's law that's embedded in our hearts.

Even without the written one.

There's enough within us put there by God.

Shadows of his law to know what's right and wrong.

Let me give you an example.

And it's very crass, but let me just give you this example.

It's called the moral law.

Every culture throughout history,

from the beginning of time, in no culture has it ever been

moral to kill

little children for pleasures sake.

Now there have been cultures who have killed kids,

but never simply for pleasure and joy.

Why? Because there's a moral law written into the heart of humanity.

And what Paul is saying is, if that's the only law you have,

you will break your own moral code at some point.

He's saying, for God's perfect law,

there's no way we can obey the perfect law 100% of time.

And if we can't obey the perfect 100% of time,

there's no way we can even obey our own personal law.

Are you saying God's law is written

on the hearts of those who have never heard of the law enough?

So when they violate their own conscience of right and wrong,

they are judged guilty.

You follow me.

You follow me.

So Paul would say we're all guilty.

You got the law. You're just by guilty.

You don't have the law.

You're just by the God's law written on your hearts, which is conscience.

You're still guilty.

None of us are without excuse.

And if you're still hung up on that whole idea about those

who don't have the Bible, if you're really that concerned about it,

the Bible also say, then you have to go tell them.

And if you haven't done that, you're broken.

God's law still guilty.

Ephesians three.

Verses 17 and following.

Now if you call yourself a Jew, now he's talking to the.

That was all directions to the moral person.

Now, I was talking to the religion. It

you call yourself a Jew

if you really if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God,

if you know his will

and approve of what a superior, because you're instructed by the law,

if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those

who are in the dark, an instructor for the foolish, a teacher for infants.

Because you have in the law the embodiment of the knowledge of truth.

You then who teach others, don't you teach yourself first.

What he's saying is, if your confidence

and your relationship with God is based on your religious behavior.

If you're good at doing the things

you think, your goodness is a guide for those who aren't good,

you think you are a light for people who are in darkness.

If they would just look at you, you think that you can instruct those

to do the religious things you do.

Said you really want to.

You really want to try to think

your relationship with the father on your own religiosity.

You think you're that religious.

He says you why don't you teach yourself first?

Do you see how he keeps turning the tables?

Look at the mirror. Look at the mirror.

Look at the mirror.

And I will tell you this

when he says, you who teach others, do you not teach yourself first?

I truly do endeavor that whatever

I preach to you, it's because I've preached it to me.

I truly do try to teach myself first.

And it says,

you who preach against stealing, do you steal?

You say that people should not commit adultery.

You commit adultery.

You abhor idols.

Do you rob temples? You who brag about the law?

Do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

As it is written, watch this.

God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles

because of you.

Again he he turns it internal.

It says, you know what the word says?

Says, don't steal.

But you live with so much envy.

Like like

if you could take what belongs to someone else, you would in your heart.

You don't. The law says don't murder.

But you know those grudges you're still holding.

You haven't forgiven.

And you says

because you claim to be this religious person, but it hasn't.

You haven't changed and you haven't become a new creation because of that,

society and culture makes fun of God.

Because of us.

Romans one and two is tough,

Who can escape it?

None of us.

And then he goes on in verses 25, 20, 27, I won't go into all of this,

but he he deals with for the for the religionists, the Jew.

They show their religion by circumcision.

And so he says, look, if you're jumping through the hoops,

but you haven't changed in here,

all the hoops you jump through religiously don't matter.

And actually, those who haven't jumped through the hoops,

but here, they've changed it as if they have jumped through the hoops.

So the hoops are good only as much as they show

that in here has changed, that.

Let me let me go through, verse 21 and I wrap the chapter on top of this.

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly.

Nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.

No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly, and circumcision

is circumcision of the heart by the spirit, not by the written code.

Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.

What he's saying is this

the external things are important

as they express an internal inward transformation.

So all the religious stuff is important

only as they reflect the change that's happened the inside.

And until the change has happened, the inside,

we stand condemned before God.

That's what he's saying.

And all the religious stuff in the world.

Won't get us away from the wrath of God.

That's why Paul was saying, Galatians 615.

Neither circumcision nonsense in all the religious hoops you could jump.

They don't mean anything.

What counts is the new creation.

Every one of us,

the humanists, the moralists, the religionists,

the new creation of saying, father, I agree,

I'm a sinner

and I've broken your law

and that means I deserve judgment and wrath,

and I cannot be right with you

except through faith in Jesus.

What he did on the cross,

dying and raising for my sin.

The new creation.

So here we all stand.

The humanist who is reaping

the destruction of their sin and repentance.

Here we all stand.

The moralist

who remains separated from God

because they think they're at least better than them.

The religionists

who believes that their religious behavior

equates to a relationship with the father

without repentance.

The humanist,

the moralist, and the religionists.

We stand condemned.

But thanks be to God.

Because of his grace

that he has made the only way possible

to escape the wrath of God and experience

a new life of freedom

and new life of salvation.

The fact is, every one of us, no matter

the camp, humanist, more or less religious, need a savior.

And it's only through faith

in Jesus repentance of our sin

and accepting him as the leader of our life.

Now that we can find salvation,

Romans one and two is bad news.

Grace is coming,

but grace is only amazing

because of the bad news that precedes it.

And grace is amazing

because by the grace of God that we can, through faith,

have a relationship with the father because of the son.

So all of this wrath.

Won't apply to us.

God has done everything he can

to keep us from hell and to keep us from his wrath.

He's done everything.

He can't do anything more than what he's already done.

And part of what he's done is

given us a free will to accept it or to reject it.

And that, my friends, is the beauty of love

and the power of faith.

The best thing you can I could do this morning

is to agree with God about His Word.

I admit I'm a sinner.

I confess my sin to you.

I accept your forgiveness

and the free gift of eternal life through Jesus.

And in the midst of all that bad news

that is the gospel,

the good news of Jesus Christ,

propelled by the grace of God.

But we cannot get to this

until we've dealt with that.

And so I want to invite you this morning.

Deal with that

and live in this.

I want you to pray with me.

God, you are a good God

who can mean your goodness.

You have been kind and patient and tolerant with us.

Given us time and

time and time and opportunity

to realize your love, to agree with your word,

and to come to you in faith.

You're so merciful and you're so gracious.

I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would open our hearts and our minds to understand

the love of the father.

Father, there are some this morning,

though we've tried to be good moral people,

though we try to be good, religious people are realizing that it's not enough

and that only faith in you, Jesus,

in your work on the cross and your resurrection is enough.

And father,

there are people turning to you right now.

Thank you that you are you sure?

No favoritism. And you hear their prayers.

So, friends, I would invite you in this moment

to agree with God.

To confess before him in your heart.

God, I admit it.

I'm a sinner.

I've tried to be good.

I've tried to be religious.

And I realized this morning

that that's not enough.

And in faith,

I accept you.

Jesus,

as the forgiver of my sin.

Through your death

and the guarantee your of eternal life

through your resurrection.

Thank you for your forgiveness.

I accept you, Jesus, as the leader of my life.

And then say, father, help me now

to grow as a Jesus follower,

to understand more fully what it means

to follow you all the days of my life.

Tell him.

Say thank you that you've rescued me from hell.

You've delivered me from wrath.

Let me walk

to the liberation of your mercy and your grace.

Father, I pray over

us that those of us who have made that decision have an experience.

Your mercy and grace would live as people who give mercy and grace

to those around us,

that the world wouldn't blaspheme

or make fun of you because of us.

That your reputation will be raised

in the eyes of this world,

the eyes of this community, the eyes of the ranchos,

because we've been so transformed

and the new creations.

Jesus, we love you.

Help us to love you more.

In your name I pray. Amen.

Listen, I love you.

You are doing a great job going through

some very difficult chapters.

Pardon for punch it

because what's at stake is too important.

So we're not pulling punches.

You've done a great job

being with us in chapters one and two.

We're going to come to the end of Paul's exponential God's

wrath and get into God's grace.

And it is glorious and fun and beautiful and everything.

But we got to deal with this stuff first. So good job.

Good on you.

Here's my homework for you.

Read chapter two again as if it is a mirror for you,

and read chapter three, because that's what will be next week.

Stay with us.

Stay in this.

You're going to be okay.

And it's going to get really fun real fast.

You understand?

Understand?

I love you, and I'm proud of you.

Let's keep going through this together.

And we're going to sing about God's amazing grace. Right?

That's what we need. Thank you. Brian.