Introduction To The Book Of Romans

But I want to talk about the discipline of study for one minute, and I've said this before at Trinity over the years, but it has helped me.

Mark has taught for years I know at course and TCOM on the disciplines, and I've been a man who has studied the disciplines, and one of the disciplines God uses to change us is the discipline, the study for the renewing of the mind.

And George Barna, in one of his works not long ago, made this statement about Americans.

It may be an exaggeration, but not greatly.

He said one half of Americans are functionally illiterate, unable to read the Scripture with understanding and unable to comprehend the sermons we are preaching Now.

If that is true, is it because we are less capable than our ancestors?

I don't think so.

The most critical issue facing Westerners at the beginning of the 21st century is we have allowed our brains to become flabby.

So here's some questions to think through, and this is not our teaching.

This is preliminary.

It's free for a love offering of $29.95.

Here's some questions that challenge me and I hope they challenge you.

Number one is your mind able to sort ideas?

Do I think critically and analytically before accepting information that comes my way as truth?

Here's a good one, and this one has challenged me over the years.

As a disciple, am I settings life's agenda according to an order of priorities that flow from my understanding of truth, or do I allow myself to drift along with the flow of culture?

One of the disciplines that God uses to change us is the place of the mind in the discipline of study And in Romans 12,.

Now my experience.

When I got saved, i joined a church and I thought for four years that Romans 12, 2 said be transformed by the removing of your mind.

I really did.

It was a shock to me when, after four or five years in the faith that Romans 12, 2 was not the removing of the mind but the renewing of the mind, and that challenged me to recognize that I had to do something about my mind.

Listen to this quote.

People who are out of shape mentally usually fall victim to ideas that are destructive to the human spirit and to human relationships.

They are victimized because they have not taught themselves to think, nor have they set themselves to the long pursuit of the growth of the mind.

Not having a strong mind, they grow dependent upon the thoughts and opinions of others.

Now just ignore that.

We don't have that problem in the church.

Rather than deal with ideas and issues, they reduce themselves to lives full of rules and programs designed by others.

Now, if this is true in mental flabbiness as a national epidemic, what is the cause of it?

At the top of the list has to be and believers need to take note of this laziness.

How many know it takes sharp work And we have different capacities in this room of mental ability.

I'm aware of that, but at the top of the list, i think, is laziness, because how many know it takes work to keep sharp mentally.

It means staying open to new ideas as well as taking the time and effort.

And how many have discovered, as the older you get, the more settled you feel like you are in certain crystallized capacities of thinking.

It takes work to stay mentally alert, but one of the reasons this is an issue for our culture in this day and those of you who are older who aren't on the web I think you have an advantage here.

The web is wonderful, but it also contributes to that.

Mental flabbiness is also created by excessive consumption of junk information, because the truth is, our brain craves stimulation the same way the body craves food.

In fact, did you know that recent studies show that babies who are stimulated with music at infancy and words and touch develop brains that are much more active than babies who are left to themselves.

Other studies have shown that one of the ways that people can ward off the effects of Alzheimer's disease and senility is to continue to work the brain with challenges, understanding that these things are certainly genetic as well.

And we have to make decisions in our culture, because never has there been a culture that has access to information, junk and otherwise, like the men and women sitting in this room At our fingertips.

The web scares me.

I get on it and I love it and I hate it Because it's overwhelming.

Yesterday I was on it to pursue a path of study and got sidetracked for 10 minutes because it was, you know, it's just there.

We have to make a decision.

We can feed our minds on the junk food of TV sitcoms, unnecessary web surfing, dime store novels, trashy magazines.

We can do that.

Or we can choose to nourish our minds with, of course, scripture and Christian books that are worth reading, but great literature and music and information.

Obviously, the ultimate discipline of the mind, of discipline of study, is that we would regularly engage in the study of the Word of God.

Richard Foster, who wrote what many would say in the 20th century the most prominent work on the spiritual disciplines, called the celebration of discipline.

Talking to his congregation he was a pastor made this statement ecstatic experiences alone will not free us.

Getting high on Jesus will not free us.

An awful lot of hot tears have spilled in the sanctuary over the years as men and women were touched by the Spirit of God and stirred in the emotions.

Thousands of joyous songs have rung from the rafters of this place.

The release of these emotions is great and healthy, but neither tears nor joy can replace the Word.

Without the guidance of the truth of Scripture, our worship experience will gradually degenerate into nothing more than an exercise in sentiment, a ritual practice that warms our emotions without changing our lives.

Of course, emotions in worship are important, but they cannot replace the Word of God in our lives, amen.

So with that, i like to.

I do.

I talk about that every time I start a series, almost in any church.

I've been in because you came tonight, because you're hungry and I believe you want to engage in the discipline of study Now.

I also tell people and I got this from Oswald Chambers, remember the brain is a muscle.

It hurts when you first use it.

I got that no offense.

Chambers gave that to me.

People used to say we can't conceive of what you're saying.

And he'd say push your mind, because it's a muscle and it hurts like it does when you go in the gym and use muscles.

So this evening let's pray and let's dive into our subject, which is introductory tonight.

And then I have one aim tonight and that is to hook you on why you and I need to make the investment to study the wonderful book of Romans, and the corollary is the book of Galatians.

I want to hook you on why it's worth your bother and hard work to study this book.

This book has changed my life, father, tonight thank you for every man and woman here and thank you, jesus, for the hunger you've put in people to learn and grow.

And we thank you, lord, that both word and spirit are our tools by which you change us.

And we invite you tonight, lord Jesus, to take the power of the truth of the Word of God and transform our minds, our emotions and hearts.

But more than anything, we would see Jesus.

We want to see Him in Romans.

We want to see Him come alive in Scripture.

Lord, we realize these words are dead words on a page unless the Spirit operates through them to quicken these words and reveal to us your lovely Son.

So, lord, show us Jesus in these words tonight, and that will change us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Romans 15 is an introductory text tonight and I'll read a few verses and then I'll explode Romans 15, 14.

Let's start in 18, for I will not venture.

And, by the way, when I'm done tonight, i'm gonna take you on the internet, on these screens, and show you where all the material for this class is.

It's on the web.

You can download it from our site.

And before I read the text, tyler, are you in here?

Do we have the pages?

I totally forgot, i'm sorry Those of you who want the focus sheet.

The focus sheet lets you take notes.

If you didn't go on the web and print it off and I sent out an email then we have printed them for you tonight.

So why don't we pass those out?

and that way everybody can take notes.

If you want to, you don't have to.

After tonight I'll show you how to get on the web and print these off for yourself.

So please those of you.

By the way, if you don't have web access and you want these notes, there's a form we're gonna give it to you tonight.

If those of you who aren't on the web, you're blessed, you're free And you can fill out the form telling us you want the notes, and there's a couple dollar charge I think it's five to cover for all the 13 weeks.

I should have done that first and I was negligent.

So, okay, we're gonna read while the notes are being passed out, in Romans 15, 18.

For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that, from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum, i have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ.

And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written.

Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.

This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you, but now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, i hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there by you once I have enjoyed your company for a while.

At present, however, i'm going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints, for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem, for they were pleased to do it and indeed they owe it to them, for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought to be of service to them in material blessings.

When, therefore, i have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, i will leave for Spain by way of you.

I know that when I come, i will come to you in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

I've often been asked this question if I could teach one book of Scripture, and one only, what would it be?

And I'm in a struggle.

It's a toss up between two books, romans or Hebrews.

I don't know why I like Hebrews, but I can't decide.

But actually believe it or not, i think Romans would win out, because you will discover as you take time in this book, that it is arguably the most important book in Scripture, because no other book attempts to so completely and systematically set forth the doctrinal structure of the Christian faith.

There is no book that comes close to it.

It is in fact the closest thing the apostle ever wrote to a book himself.

Martin Luther, in his preface to Romans said quote this epistle is the chief book of the New Testament, the purest gospel.

It deserves not only to be read or known word for word by every Christian but to be the subject of his meditation, day by day, the daily bread of his soul.

The more time one spends in Romans, the more precious it becomes and the better it appears.

Coleridge pronounced Romans.

Quote the most profound work ever written.

Godot, the great French theologian, referred to it as the cathedral of the Christian faith.

And Godot said the Reformation was undoubtedly the work of this epistle to the Romans, as well as that of the Galatians, and the probability is that every spiritual revival in the church will be connected as effect and cause with a deeper understanding of the book of Romans.

And JI Packer states, quote there is one book in the New Testament which links up everything else in the Bible.

That is the epistle of Romans.

In Romans, paul brings together and sets forth, in systematic relation to all the great themes of the Bible sin, law, judgment, faith works, grace, justification, sanctification, election, the plan of salvation, the work of Christ, the work of the Spirit, the Christian hope, the nature and life of the church, the place of Jew and Gentile in the purpose of God, the philosophy of the church and of world history, the meaning and message of the Old Testament, the duties of Christian citizenship, the principles of personal holiness and ethics.

From the vantage point given by Romans, the whole landscape of the Bible is open to view and the broad relation of the parts to the whole becomes plain.

The study of Romans is the fittest starting point for biblical interpretation and theology.

Those of you who will be in Mark's class the tech class this Sunday about getting to know your Bible, you imply the things that he's gonna teach to Romans and it will take you to another level of biblical understanding.

Now I wanna talk about three reasons that are practical, that I'm taking you through many weeks in the first four chapters of Romans and some of Galatians.

There are three reasons.

There are many, but there are three that are pastoral and primary Number one.

Romans is an unfolding of redemption.

Romans attempts to tell you what happened to you when you get saved.

How many of you discover that when you first partake of the grace of God, you don't really understand fully what's happened to you?

You're walking around.

It was true for me, i mean.

You know you've entered a new sphere of life, you know things are different, you've dropped off old habits.

Remember the night I was converted?

four of my friends were waiting for me at my apartment in Miami in their car with marijuana and alcohol and all this stuff, and I was saved about two hours.

But I knew one thing I knew nothing.

I was zapped and I stuck my head in the car and they offered me this stuff and I said no.

And I knew that no came from, not from my head only, but something that had changed in my heart.

But I didn't understand Christianity.

I knew something had happened, but I had no understanding yet.

Well, romans is an attempt to explain what happened to us when we entered the domain of the grace of God.

And, by the way, it's great to have your heart changed, but at some point you want to update your head to what your heart's experienced.

I'm not suggesting you'll ever know at all you won't.

But Romans is an attempt to update your brain as to what actually happened when you were dynamited by God into the realm of the grace of God.

And I would say that really, we have some knowledge when we're saved, but we don't yet have full understanding.

That's where Romans is so vital to us grasping what has really happened to us when we entered the domain of the grace of God.

Number two reason to study Romans Romans has caused more than one revolution in human history.

Are you aware of that?

Romans has caused more than one revolution in human history.

Take arguably the greatest church father as far as the Latin world is concerned Augustine of Hippo, 4th century AD.

Destined to become the greatest Latin father of the church, but he lived his life as a youth in sexual promiscuity.

He had a mistress, but he had a praying mother.

Monica was Augustine's mother and she was praying for her.

And how many know, when you have a praying mother, you're condemned to salvation.

That's why Timothy in the Bible his mother was a Christian, his grandmother, he didn't have a chance.

Well, monica was praying for her son, augustine, who lived his young years in sexual promiscuity and partying, no interest in the things of God.

But when he moved to the city of Milan, somewhere around the year 386, he came under the preaching of the bishop Ambrose, who was an incredible preacher, and he began to have a crisis in his soul.

He began to find that his soul was engaged in a deep struggle.

And one day, in the midst of the struggle of his soul, as he was being drawn by God to Jesus yet he was not ready yet to give up his promiscuity He went into a garden to pray and he threw himself under a tree.

You can find this in Augustine's Confessions, and he says this happened, quote suddenly I heard a voice from a nearby house, chanting, as if it might say, as if it might be a boy or girl, saying and repeating over and over again pick up and read, pick up and read.

I interpreted it solely as a divine command to me to open the book and read the first chapter I might find.

So I hurried back to the place where I had put the book down of the apostle.

When I had gotten up, i seized the book, opened it and, in silence, read the first passage on which my eyes lit.

Here was the passage not in riots and drunken parties, nor in eroticism and in decencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord, jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh and its lusts.

Romans 13, verses 13 to 14.

Romans 13:13–14

And here's what Augustine says when he read that passage, i neither wished nor needed to read further at once.

With the last words of the sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all my anxiety flooded in my heart.

All the shadows of doubt were dispelled.

I was saved.

A passage in Romans was used by the Spirit to convert arguably the greatest church father, who influenced not only the Latin world but was a precursor to the Reformation.

Well, fast forward a thousand years and come with me in Germany, where another professor was overtaken with a similar experience.

Martin Luther was not headed to the monastery, he was headed for a legal career when an lightning bolt almost struck him And, being a good Catholic boy, he devoted his life to the monastery, took it as a sign from God and went into an Augustinian monastery.

That was the way that he knew that, if you want to be right with God, that's the way you did it.

You became a monk and you devoted your life to the cloister serving God.

And when he arrived in the monastery, they told Martin what he must do to be right with God.

But Martin thought that was for wimps.

He went way beyond that And he put himself under requirements.

In fact, he kept going to his confessor and finally the confessor got sick of him and said would you please come when you have real sins to confess?

Because Martin was making things up.

I'm not making this up, this is true.

But regardless of what Luther did, nothing he found ever pacified his tormented conscience.

So they decided, not knowing what to do with him, let's appoint him to a professorship of the Bible.

And they sent him to Wittenberg, a university town.

They said you work in the university, study the Bible and preach it.

We'll get rid of Martin that way.

And he did.

He went to university, became a Bible professor And while he was studying Psalms and Romans, he began to make an incredible study.

The first thing he did is realize that the word righteousness, both in the Psalms and what he was finding in Romans, terrified him.

Now some of you will dismiss what I'm about to say and say well, luther just needed to know the love of God and he was hung up.

And all this stuff about being terrified by righteousness was really unfortunate.

But the truth is, luther properly understood that righteousness the word should terrify sinners.

See, luther was a lawyer and he came to the conclusion that if God is righteous, i am not and I am worthy of condemnation.

And he didn't take it lightly The word righteousness, he said in fact in his writings.

He said before I was converted, i hated God because he was righteous and I knew I wasn't.

And no matter what I did, i couldn't become righteous And therefore God justifiably could condemn me to hell.

And he didn't find relief.

He didn't know what to do.

But then then it happened.

One faithful day, as he was studying Romans one, luther discovered that the righteousness of God that Paul is talking about is not merely a quality in God that he possesses whereby he can condemn everyone else, but that righteousness was in fact something that God had to give freely to sinners or they never could change their standing before God.

And Luther.

Suddenly a window opened up that the medieval church for centuries had been promoting this idea that righteousness was earned by men and women who work hard at trying to be right with God.

And Luther saw that righteousness could only be a human possession if it was received totally freely as a gift.

And not only was Luther liberated from his own bondage to Catholicism and religious ideas, but it opened up a vista of understanding of the Scriptures.

In fact he had 95 thoughts about the Scriptures that he very innocently nailed to Wittenberg Castle as a point of dialogue for their small group.

And the rest was history.

Luther didn't know that when his own soul was liberated from bondage, seeking righteousness by works, it would spawn one of the greatest moves of God in human history the Protestant Reformation.

Funny thing is, when I tell this story about Luther I suddenly discover there are people in churches who should be free, who are still trying to earn righteousness like Luther did.

But I won't go there tonight because I love you too much.

Fast forward three centuries.

John Wesley, an Anglican priest, just sitting in a chapel listening to Luther's introduction to his commentary on Romans being read in Aldersgate, when he testified that his heart was strangely warm.

It was listening to Luther's introduction to Romans in his commentary.

That was the means of regenerating John Wesley.

And of course the rest is history.

He and George Whitfield changed the face of England and this continent and arguably America would not have been born as a free nation if it had not been for the great awakening in the work of Wesley and Whitfield on this soil.

So you could argue that we became a nation due in part to the liberation that Romans brought to men who understood the gospel.

But there's a third reason.

I want you to journey with me through this study of Romans, and this is the more important one.

We have the argument of history and we have the fact that we need to know what has exactly happened to us when we've been dynamited into the kingdom.

But the third reason is more pastoral and burdens my heart, and I call it the unsettled state of God's people today.

The unsettled state of God's people today.

What do I mean by that?

As I look at the church, i see that the norm in the church seems to be that people are constantly tossed about with condemnation, failure, sin, bondage, and the remedy that is given to them is often nothing but legalism, religious ideas having nothing to do with the gospel.

If you were like me, i grew up in a church that we had a service on Tuesday night.

we affectionately referred to it as condemnation night.

That's the night we found out how miserably we failed at the Christian life that week And we came to the altar every week and rededicated our dedication This week.

We'll do it good.

We'll pray more, we'll read more, we'll fast more, we'll do more, and there's nothing wrong with those aspirations.

And we committed ourselves all over again Tuesday and by Friday we were looking ahead to the next Tuesday because we were finding it slipping through our fingers.

Does anybody live this way, or am I speaking to the wind?

Occasionally we might feel a sense of breakthrough, but then we go right back to the doldrums of a guilt-plagued life, making new resolutions, getting on the legalism bandwagon, rather And I want you to know that aspirations to be different and be holy are from God, but this is not normative Christian experience.

This is not God's heritage for His people.

You know a survey was done.

This is shocking and I never knew this, but a survey was done a few years ago of Americans And you know what the greatest problem Americans cited as the most pressing issue they're dealing with Unresolved guilt.

I would have thought it was financial or we need a new political system.

Most people in this survey, this particular survey, said their greatest problem is unresolved guilt, which is why Americans consume more barbiturates and sleeping pills than any culture.

Unresolved guilt.

And it's even harder if you're a Christian, because the church world suffers the most.

I mean because in the world I had guilt but I didn't have too many absolutes so I wasn't bothered too much.

But when you get saved, you come into the church.

You have the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount and a thousand church rules that I still can't find in the Bible.

Well, I got good news for you.

Romans supplies us with an answer By the Holy Spirit.

Romans says that the only answer to this dilemma is we must find a full and sufficient Christ who is able to answer every need that human beings have.

And that's what Paul will do for 16 glorious chapters.

We're not going to study all 16, but you will later.

He shows that God has one provision for the human race.

It's the only provision he's ever had and it's the Lord Jesus.

And in showing us this provision, he's going to start by showing us this provision against the backdrop of the problem.

We can't appreciate the provision until we really understand the problem, and Paul will take time in these first three chapters to paint the blackness of the situation.

The problem with legalism is not that we don't know the love of God.

First and foremost, we don't understand the depths of sin and how black the situation was before Jesus of Nazareth remedied it.

And the problem was severe with the human race.

It wasn't.

Human beings are a little off course.

They smoke and drink, tell dirty jokes.

That wasn't it.

It wasn't a need for a little adjustment.

The human race, according to Romans, one.

The blackness of it was dire.

In fact, the problem, paul will tell us, is not what we do, though that becomes a problem.

It is who we are.

We are part of a race called Adam and that race is in rebellion to God.

Now we're in Christ, now Everything's changed, but we have been part of a race called Adam and Paul will not deal, in Romans, with peripheral problems loneliness, sorrow, grief, rejection, fear.

They are symptomatic for Paul of a greater problem, and he will take a lot of time to show us the blackness of the problem, because the blacker we can see it to be, the whiter and the grander and the more clear is the remedy.

Like you and I were so bad, we didn't need a moral guide, we needed a savior.

Did you realize that?

It's not like you had most things right, but you just you know Jesus needed to come and give you a shot in the arm and say you know you can do it.

Try harder, pray more, read more, do more, come on, you can do it.

Jesus didn't come to give us a shot in the arm and be a second Moses.

Well, listen to some people.

I think they think that Jesus is sort of a second Moses who gives us the power to be a little different.

He's not.

He's a savior, and that's strong language.

You have to be really in trouble to need a savior And, by the way, you weren't just saved from hell.

That's the end product.

You need a savior from sin, you and I need a savior from self.

Well, romans is Paul's attempt to say whatever human beings will ever need ever is found in one place, in a full and sufficient Christ who, by the Holy Spirit, is revealed to us, who alone takes care of every human need, and he alone can deal with the central issue.

That's wrong with believers.

By the way, romans will not only instruct you and I on what it means to live in the grace of God.

It's so instructive in terms of how we teach and preach the gospel to people.

People are saying things about the gospel that aren't true, and this unsettled state is a burden on my heart because when I see the unsettled state of people, it is a result of the fact that they don't know the gospel.

When I tell you that everything is in the gospel, i don't mean most things are and then you need other things.

I mean it's true, it's all there.

Now, the question tonight I just want to prepare you for for a moment is why did Paul write this letter of Romans?

Fortunately, we don't have to wonder.

He tells us himself in the book of Acts.

Tells us How many remember that three times the apostle Paul sailed off from the city of Antioch on three apostolic journeys in which he planted the body of Christ with other team members throughout the Roman world.

And at the end of the third apostolic trip, in Acts 20, we find Paul in the city of Corinth.

Once again, this is after he has established the Corinthian church.

He's visiting the church and he is in the port city of Centuria staying in the home of a brother named Gaius.

Gaius is his host and he's pondering his future.

He's in a very contemplative mood.

He's pondering his future.

He has successfully planted churches, as I said, throughout the entire extent of the eastern portion of the Roman world.

And now his mind is thinking about the future.

What do I do beyond that?

He is immediately concerned with one thing, and you'll remember this from the Corinthian letters, that his concern now, and the reason he's at Corinth, is to take up an offering from all the Gentile churches which he is going to personally deliver to the Jerusalem saints.

And this was important for Paul, not only because Jerusalem needed money, but because Paul was wanting to ensure solidarity between the Gentile churches that he had founded and the Jewish church in Jerusalem.

And so this was not only an important measure in terms of helping poor saints, but of increasing unity between Jews and Gentiles in Christ.

And there had been tension.

But he realizes that, beyond this offering, his work in the east is done.

There's not anything else to do, because he is operating on one principle that he tells us himself in Corinthians Not to build on another man's foundation.

Paul's not about going to churches he didn't find and teaching them and ministering.

He's about establishing churches wherever he can where the name of Christ was not mentioned.

So he's done in the east.

So naturally he begins to turn his mind to the western portion of the Roman Empire And ultimately he wants to go to the extent of the west, which was Spain in his day.

That was the western boundary of the Roman Empire.

But he has a problem.

He needs a base of operations.

He's never been in the west, as far as we know.

And of course, if you're going to go to the west in the Roman Empire, there's one city you have to go to.

What is it?

Rome?

And Paul has never visited Rome.

So his hope is, if I establish myself with the Roman church, they can help me and send me to Spain, because at this point we know that Spain had not yet been reached with the Gospel.

But he's got a problem with the Roman church.

He didn't start it.

All the other churches he wrote letters to, except for a couple he started, but he didn't start the Roman church.

By the way, history seems to suggest that the Roman church started on the day of Pentecost, when Roman Jews went back to Rome after they received the Holy Spirit and preached the Gospel in Rome.

So Paul's thinking how can I introduce myself to the Roman church?

Now he's thinking of writing a letter, but of course it can't be like any other letter, because when Paul writes letters, almost inevitably he's dealing with problems in churches that he was the spiritual father of.

But he was not the father in the Roman church and, as far as he knew, there were no problems to address per se.

So what is he going to do?

Just as he's thinking about this, there's a sister in the church at Centauria named Phoebe who announces she's going on a business trip to Rome.

So Paul says in his mind this is a great time, i will write a letter to the Roman church.

So he calls his secretary in.

Paul dictated most of his letters and he begins to pour out words.

If you read the Roman letter in the Greek original text, you would find that it's grammatically nuts.

It gives the impression of a man who, when he gets one sentence out, is so full of matter he can't even wait and he pours out another sentence.

Grammatically it's terrible.

It's just sentence upon sentence of theology that he can't shut up about.

That's Romans.

When you read it in English it sounds nice, that's so you and I can read it.

It wasn't in the Greek text.

But what's he going to say to them?

Again, he can't address a problem.

He's not the apostle of the church.

He probably didn't even know of personal problems, although there was one problem he will address and that is the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the church at Rome, which, specifically, was important.

But other than that, what can he say?

Well, as he thinks about it, he decides.

The most important thing he can do is introduce the Roman church to the gospel that he preaches throughout the Roman world.

And as he's thinking about it, he wants to focus on one matter, that is, the heart of the gospel, which is where I want to take you in the last few minutes tonight, because that's where we're going to be parked for the next several weeks.

When Paul thinks about it.

Rome in his day was.

You know what hate Ashbury was in the 60s.

I'm dating myself Some of you are looking at me Hate what.

It wasn't a neighborhood in California, i think it was San Francisco And hate Ashbury where was known any weird religion?

you could go to hate Ashbury.

You'll find a hearing.

There's some fruitcake in hate Ashbury that will follow you.

There was a guy remember when I was a hippie Well, i was a weekend hippie, you know, i was straight till Friday night And there was a guy that he grew his hair out about 25 feet on each way and went to hate Ashbury and he started a cult.

They followed him around because his hair just flapped in the wind.

I remember that back when I was a kid in the 60s.

Of all the things to remember, and Paul knows that, that's Rome.

Rome was the seedbed of all religions.

You could go to Rome and find any philosophy, any religion, any idea, any, anybody who put forth an argument.

It was there at Rome.

In fact, rome said it had a God for every possible contingency of life.

But Paul knows that behind all these religions and all these weird ideas, there was one overall cry coming from the human heart, and it is how can a man or a woman know that he or she is right with a holy God?

The people who are positing these may not even know the God of Scripture yet, although Romans 1 will tell us, everybody has some idea of what he's like.

But they're all crying out, even though they come up with weird ideas.

Is there a God?

And if there is, how can I know him?

And then how can I be right with him, not just know him intellectually, but how can I have a relationship?

And there's one word Paul will use in this letter.

That is the word that summarizes what it means to be in right relationship.

It is this word righteousness.

But Paul will teach that the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, the God of the Old Testament, has introduced this dynamic of righteousness by which men and women are brought into right relationship with God, and he did it apart from any idea anyone ever had or that religion ever can concocted One of the reasons I believe the gospel is divine.

No man or woman could ever come up with this idea.

In fact, paul himself was the ultimate person who had tried to achieve righteousness apart from the gospel.

I am convinced that Paul was the greatest specimen religion ever could produce.

If any man was ever going to achieve righteousness through human works of law, there was nobody who would ever attempt it like the apostle Paul.

In fact, he says that much in Philippians.

He says, as touching the law, it was blameless, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a descendant of the tribe of Benjamin.

To say he was a Hebrew of Hebrews means that even in his home growing up, he spoke Hebrew, which was really really rare in the Roman world.

As touching the law, he says I was blameless.

The law could not indict me.

I stood blameless among my compatriots in my day.

As the law is concerned, no one could charge me.

But then he made this statement but what things were gained to me?

those I counted loss for Christ.

From that word gain in English, we get our Greek word, our English word miser.

From that word in Greek we get our English word miser.

Paul says whatever things were gained to me, and you get the picture in your mind of a man sitting on a table and you ever see a miser where he's got his gold on the table and it's piled up and he's relishing in his gold and taking delight in his treasure.

That's the word Paul uses regarding his own works of righteousness before his conversion.

He says it was gained to me.

I piled it on my table, i had all these good deeds that I could present to God and say look at my treasure.

God, you have to love me.

And now he says whatever was gained to me, now I count as one colossal loss that I may gain Christ.

And I'm sorry if this upsets you, but he actually says in the next verse all that I thought I gained is horse manure.

I'm being nice, that's what he called it.

It's done.

It cannot achieve righteousness.

And he goes on and we'll talk about that in another session where he says now I know that my quest is to have a righteousness, not of the law, but a righteousness which is of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Sad thing, as I know a lot of Christians who still think this miser mentality is right.

I remember going to a small group in our church in Florida For two hours.

People were beating themselves up because they didn't read their Bibles enough.

Now everybody understands.

I think it's important to read the Bible, but it was a wonderful expression of condemnation Oh, i'm so terrible, i need to read more.

And people were berating themselves And then everybody took a vow to read the Bible more at the end of the meeting.

I'm not suggesting to you that discipline and diligence aren't important, but you can never achieve righteousness or work off guilt by trying an elaborate works program.

So years ago, when I was very condemned about my prayer life, i remember reading a book and deciding that I would start getting up at four in the morning for prayer.

I think it was praying high.

Did anybody remember that book?

He prayed at four in the morning.

That was going to be, and I committed to it and I was faithful to it for three days And I failed.

I remember how miserable I felt the condemnation that I couldn't pray, with praying high.

And then the Lord showed me the problem.

It wasn't that I had a desire to pray, that wasn't a problem, that was a gift from God.

But he said why don't you repent of your real condition?

You have a cold heart.

See, i was guilty about my prayerlessness, so I immediately engaged in an elaborate works program to deal with the guilt.

But I wasn't dealing with the root issue that only the gospel could address.

I had a cold heart and I didn't confess it.

And when I did, jesus cleansed my heart.

The Spirit of God fell and renewed me and gave me the Spirit of prayer which has been with me since then.

By the grace of God And my prayer, life changed and disciplining myself was not difficult.

So often, when we are condemned or feel guilty about our Christian lives, rather than go to the gospel and let the gospel deal with the real problem, we start elaborate works program.

I'm suggesting by this well, if you discover your heart's cold, just don't pray.

You still do your duty.

But there is something that the gospel alone can touch.

The day the apostle Paul saw the resurrected Christ, he knew that righteousness would never, ever for him again be something that he earned by diligent performance.

And chances are there are men and women in this room listening to me right now that still aren't clear on this, which is the heart and soul of the early portions of Romans and will occupy us for these coming weeks, that is, we still feel that righteousness has to be achieved and that our standing with God is always weighed in the balance based on our performance.

I really upset some people when I said not long ago we were talking about I want to fully surrender.

And I said well, there's one that is fully surrendered.

He's the only one that ever is fully surrendered because you never will be.

Now, some may take issue with that.

There's probably theologies in the room that would take issue that say no, one day I'm going to be fully surrendered And when you are, please lay hands on me suddenly.

But so often what we promote as holiness is interpreted by people as an elaborate works program, and our standing with God is based on how well we perform.

Well, here's the good news of the Roman letter and the Galatian letter as well Your standing with God is secured and it will never change because it's not based on the performance level of the Christian.

It's based on what God did in Christ and what, by faith, we apprehend of the righteousness of God, which is not an initial gift And then we're on probation, but it is a gift to us forever.

Our standing with God is secure because, beloved.

It's based on what God did in Christ.

Therefore it is unchangeable.

Look at how Paul states this in the letter as we close.

He starts with the problem of humanity, which will take up in two weeks Wrath, and he says the entire world is under the wrath of God.

And he paints from chapters one and two and three the condemnation of the entire human race.

He takes on Gentiles first, who might dismiss themselves because they didn't have the written word of God, and Paul says you're under the wrath of God because you do have knowledge of God based on creation.

And then the Jews are sitting in the gallery as Paul condemns the pagan Gentiles and they're saying yes, yes, give it to them, paul.

They're pagans.

And Paul turns the gun on the Jews and says well, what about you?

You have the word but you don't keep it.

You're not living by the law, you just think that you possess it.

And if you have it in possession, you're okay.

And he takes on the Jew in chapters two and early part of chapters three and he sums it up in chapter three The whole world, jew and Gentile, are under the power of sin.

And then he introduces the only hope for humanity lost and undone.

Without God and his son, the only hope was for God himself to become a man and visit this planet and remedy the problem and return to heaven as your surety and guarantor.

And his intercession.

In Hebrews It says he makes intercession for us.

I believe that concludes his praying for us, but I don't think that's the primary idea in Hebrews seven when it says Jesus makes intercession.

Do you know?

the fact that he's standing in heaven with his wrist slit before the father is his intercession.

Here's why, if he could stand before the father, having born in his own person the sin of the entire human race, is there any sin, pray, tell that can keep you out of the presence?

That's his intercession, more than the fact that he's even praying for us, that he stands as our representative or as Hebrews calls him our high priest.

And there will never be a day where God says you know, you're so good, you don't need to come through the high priest anymore.

You've married in enough works, you're good, just come on your own initiative.

That will never happen.

And so, as we unfold the book of Romans in these early chapters, close tonight by taking personal stock and asking is this the gospel that I'm living under Or am I still thinking that my standing with God is based on performance?

Now, don't get me wrong.

There's two issues here that we will address in the book of Romans.

One is called justification, the other is called sanctification.

Justification is a finished work.

No one in this room will ever be more justified than you are right now.

If you pray more, you won't be more justified.

If you don't pray, you won't be justified.

You might think, well, you're going to get in trouble telling Christians that I have to.

Your standing with God is a finished work.

You're justified.

You know, after the OJ Simpson trial, when the jury said not guilty, regardless of what you think about his personal guilt, as far as the law was concerned he was totally and completely exonerated.

He can never be called up on that charge again.

And all the charges that God had against you and I, and ever will, are exonerated, settled.

And now you stand justified in far as God's law is concerned, you are blameless and it's not based on how well you perform.

It's based on what God did in Christ and that, my friends, is the heart of the gospel.

Now, what happens to you when you hear that, do you say that's wonderful, i can sin, i go out and commit adultery?

If that's your response and I know it's not, but I'm just being facetious repent and be saved.

So when you hear this grace filled good news, if your first reaction is I can go and sin, you need to be converted.

But if your reaction is I cannot believe there's a God that loves me this much.

I embrace him and I want to give him my whole life, just like when I met my wife and she loved me unconditionally.

I gave myself to her.

I was ruined.

And that's the way it is, with how grace not only establishes us in Christ but sets us free.