Bible Study Romans Part 7-Gospel OF God

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The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold.

And we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture.

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It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision.

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We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death.

In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death.

Never treat what God has said lightly.

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Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

We are making our way through the Bible.

We are spending time going through the details of what God has said to us.

We are absolutely blessed to be able to have his word.

Catherine just prayed for us before we got started, and she thanked God for the Apostle Paul.

We're studying the letter to the Romans in this program.

And absolutely right.

We have a friend that teaches in schools and they were talking about Christianity.

And guess whose name came up?

Paul.

Paul is associated with Christianity.

And so what does that tell you?

That tells you what Paul has to say is important to you as a Christian.

If you ignore what Paul has to say, then you're ignoring the entire doctrine of Christianity.

Oh, I don't believe in doctrine.

All I care about is that Jesus died for me.

Listen, you cannot deny the fact that there are things that we have to stand by as Christians.

God has a certain set of things that He needs us to be aware of in order to be effective fruit-bearing Christians because that's what we're here for.

We didn't get saved just so we had a cushy cloud to sit on.

We got saved so we can be a part of God's plan of redemption.

There's a lot of work to be done.

There are billions of people on this planet.

Every one of them needs Christ.

We need to be a part of the solution.

So that's why God has saved us.

That's why we have to pay attention to what his word has to say, and that's why we love the apostle Paul.

He clearly states to us what we need to know.

That's what we're doing.

So here we are.

We are in the letter to the Romans.

We are going to continue.

We haven't gotten very far.

We're at verse one.

Let me read it.

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

We're still talking about Paul's efforts to introduce himself to these Romans before he gets into the meat of this letter.

Why is this taking so long?

Listen, don't blame me.

Paul's the one who knows how to pack a sentence.

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

Now let's be honest.

By the mid-50s A.D., I don't think Paul was a man who needed an introduction.

Technically speaking, none of this personal identification stuff was really all that necessary.

They knew who he was.

Almost everyone knew of this Jewish convert from Tarsus.

At the very least, they'd heard of him.

You see, the church at Rome was already very well established.

These weren't newbie Christians.

This wasn't some fringe frontier startup group.

You know, there are some who believed that the first century church at Rome was formed by those who had been converted way back on the day of Pentecost, which was more than 20 years before this letter was in circulation.

The theory is that the founders heard Peter's sermon that day and were among the first 3,000 converts.

Now, if that's true, which I believe it is, then we're talking about foundations that go all the way back to day one of the Christian church.

And we're going to find out in a little bit that they were actually a church that was well known in a good way throughout the entire Christian world.

So these were not cut-off unaware people.

They knew about the important figures within the Christian movement.

Have you ever seen a major celebrity introduce themselves to say a fan or something?

Hello, my name is Tom Hanks.

Nice to meet you.

It's like, duh, of course you're Tom Hanks.

Everybody knows who you are.

When you see something like that, when you see a well-known figure present themselves like you and I would, it sort of gives you the impression that they're humble.

Ah, come on, John, don't let them fool you.

They want you to think they're nothing but a regular guy.

Maybe, I suppose, but I don't think that was the way Paul saw things.

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, separated, set apart for the gospel.

Paul, we know who you are.

You're Paul.

Everyone knows you.

We talk about you all the time around here.

We're just so honored that you wrote to us.

You know, I think the unmistakable mark of a true man of God is the sense that they see themselves as nothing, that they're less than nothing, that they're no more than a nameless, faceless laborer for the king, just like the rest of us.

Listen to me, if you're truly led of God, you will always see yourself as just a behind-the-scenes prop in God's grand scheme.

I don't think Paul had any idea how well known he was among all the churches of the first century.

To him, Christ was out in front of everything he did.

Truly, he must have thought he himself was hidden and obscure.

I mean, he calls himself the slave of Christ.

Listen to me, there's no such thing as a famous slave.

To everything, to him, everything he did, he did simply to shine a light on Christ.

I mean, he wasn't Paul of Paul of Tarsus' worldwide ministries.

Come on down, hear the great man Paul preach.

He's your guy.

Come visit us and take in all the glorious teaching of Paul.

Maybe you'll even get to shake his hand.

Maybe he'll smile at you on the way out.

And if you're lucky, he might even take a picture with you before hopping in his Land Rover to speed away security detail following close behind.

Listen, I've been to churches like that.

The pastor's a big shot.

There are pictures of the guy everywhere, and each one of them containing a quote of something incredibly wise or profound, he once said.

And when he arrives, when he arrives at the church, you think George Clooney stopped by.

You think I'm kidding.

For Catholics, this isn't a very common thing.

But if you're around the evangelical church world, you will see this sort of thing happen with the big shots.

People all standing around just trying to get a glimpse.

And you can't even get into place without a reservation.

And then when you arrive, there's this army of ushers who literally arrange you around a sanctuary so that you're positioned in a way that's pleasing both to the pastor as well as the camera.

And you gotta have the cameras.

You gotta have the TV crew on hand.

And then when he finally steps on the stage in a dramatic way, the people cheer and sometimes they stand up and they're giving him this applause, and whoo, you know, whistling as if he's about to take the field for the big game or something.

I've been in places where half the sermon is taken up with stories of how blessed the pastor has been over the years and how much God must be impressed with him because of the constant divine intervention into his ministry.

All Paul wants you to know is that he is a slave and a called apostle, and he wouldn't even bother telling you that if he didn't have to.

We've gotten so used to the gospel today that it's not the thing that dazzles us.

We have to have more.

We're just gonna lose interest.

And listen, if we lose interest, well, we're just not coming back.

Which would be which would be fine with the pastor as long as we keep sending in our offerings, which by the way, most churches don't trust you'll do, so they won't even consider canceling a service, even if it means someone might get hurt or sick.

If you decide that it's snowing too hard to make it to the service this morning, or you have the flu and you don't want to spread it, you're made to feel like you've somehow surrendered your soul and the whole Christian church to the evil one.

But the real reason is that they're convinced that if you're not there, then they can't apply the past the plate peer pressure.

The church, especially in America, has become nothing but a business, and I hate to say it, but Paul's brand of Christianity is not in high demand.

In fact, it sits on the shelf gathering dust since it's sure to be filled with stuff no modern Christian cares to hear.

It's too focused on the dreaded themes of self-denunciation and self-denial.

No one wants that.

All right, let's get back to Romans.

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.

So now Paul is the herald of the good news, as Martin Lloyd Jones put it.

Paul is here to talk about the gospel of God and not some human philosophy.

That's about all we get in our churches anymore, isn't it?

Well, you're hard on the church today, John.

We started this ministry because of the degradation and the decay in the modern church.

I mean, all they do is talk about social justice.

They talk about respecting the rights of others to be whatever they want to be, no matter how much that offends God, no matter how far from his ideal that may be, we should give them the right to say who they want to be.

Come on in, it doesn't matter.

We welcome everyone.

We spend so much time on nonsense that's there's no time for anything that's important to God.

This is the good news of the eternally good God.

If listen to me, if he says it's good, then my friend, it's good.

But let me ask you, is it good news to you?

Does it thrill you that God has done something for you that you couldn't do for yourself, something that had to be done, and yet something so far from your own ability to pull off?

Listen to me.

God has punched through the cosmos and presented to you something that the angels want to peek at, as I quoted Peter as saying some weeks back.

To them, to the angels, this is mesmerizing.

They don't have any deal like this.

They can't understand it.

They strain to see what we take for granted.

This is the most amazing news the universe has ever heard.

The coming of sin was the worst news the universe ever heard.

But you don't think God is going to let bad news permeate his creation forever, do you?

Of course, he won't.

Man brought about the bad news.

Man in cahoots with the devil, of course, but God's not going to let that be the last word.

Instead, he brings his own news.

And because it's his, it's not only news, but it's good news.

Come on, John, aren't you overselling this a bit?

Of course, none of you would ask me that question, but there are certainly those who would.

I mean, there are some, some who even call themselves Christian, who might see this as, well, news, I guess, but good news.

I mean, it's not that it's bad news.

It's just, well, what's good about it?

Well, I have to be honest, in my youth, I may have thrown this word gospel around.

I may have referred to it as good news, but I don't see how I could have really thought of it as such.

I mean, I was in a church system that downplayed the good part of the good news.

You see, as I just said, the part of this news that makes it good news, listen to me, is that God has done something for our salvation.

I mean, under those circumstances, what else could it be?

What else could make this news good?

Oh, I tell you what, that's easy, John.

The good part of this is that Jesus came down and he gave us an example of how to live.

We should just follow his example.

That's the good news.

He showed us what it means to be a moral upstanding person.

Well, that may be the good part to you, but it sure wouldn't have been for Christ or for God for that matter.

If the good part of the good news was that Jesus came to give us some set of behaviors to follow, well, we still haven't gotten it, have we?

How could how good could it be if it isn't working?

And how good could it be if Christ died delivering it?

God had to witness his son's execution.

Jesus had to endure a grisly death as a messenger boy?

None of that sounds good to me.

We may have called it the gospel, but we couldn't have understood what that meant.

I asked you Justin a second ago if you think it is good news.

I mean, if you don't know if it's good, or if you flat out reject that it's good news, which not many people do, if nothing else, because that would be rude.

But if you refuse to see this as good news, well then you belong to a very sad group of people.

The only way you can see the gospel as the gospel is if you understand the predicament we're in.

And the only way you can understand the predicament we're in is to understand the nature and extent of sin.

Now we're taking our time going through this because listen to me, the only reason I decided to teach Romans in parallel with our other Bible study is because I feel compelled.

I'm terrified that I'm not fully explaining to you why Christ came down off of his throne and why you need him so desperately.

The book of Romans is the perfect manual for explaining this.

No man knows this better than Paul.

No man can explain it like the Apostle Paul.

Rushing through this would be counter to my purpose in teaching it.

I have to be sure you understand why the gospel is the gospel, why the good news is good.

I mean, if you're the type who sees themselves as, you know, not perfect, but I do my best, you're just not going to get much goodness out of the good news.

I mean, you have your own good news.

Your good news is feeling like you've got this whole thing covered.

You see yourself as more than capable of providing for what the gospel claims to offer you.

If you don't need the gospel, then it's not all that gospely to you, is it?

If that's you, then you obviously won't think you need what makes the gospel good news.

So it doesn't excite you, right?

I mean, it's good because it's the good news of God.

The gospel of God, as Paul puts it, and it's the good news of God because the actions are all his.

If you're counting on the fact that your goodness outweighs your badness, then what do you need this good news for?

For you, God isn't even in the mix until the end.

I mean, all he is is the guy at the scale, not much more than the corner corner butcher.

He takes your naughty deeds and puts them on one side of the scale, and then he puts your$2 every Sunday in the collection basket, and you're holding the door open for old ladies, and your refusal to say bad words, and your willingness to work the parish basketball games, and just reads the numbers, and then he tells you whether you're in or not.

In your life, God's not much more than a bit player, and so the same thing goes for his good news.

You don't need Christ on the cross.

If you decide to swipe your neighbor's Sunday paper but feel bad about it later on, you don't see any need to call on God to forgive you.

You don't even consider that.

Why bother him?

He's probably busy.

You say a few extra Hail Marys tonight before bed, and then the whole thing is handled.

The gospel isn't good news to you because you don't think you need it.

Oh, of course, you'll call it the gospel, but only because everyone else is.

Is.

For one thing, you just don't know what the big fuss is about sin.

It's not like I murdered anyone.

I haven't been unfaithful to my wife.

Little cheating on my taxes, maybe, a little overindulging at happy hour, a harmless slap on my secretary's rear end.

What?

What's the big deal?

I mean, after all, God is love.

How could he be upset at me?

I'm not that bad.

Maybe the other guy needs God's good news, but not me.

I'm all right.

Why would he be mad at me?

Listen, my friend, nothing more than a bite of a piece of fruit, ruin the entire race of mankind, curse the earth, and put all of us in a wilderness.

And we're not wilderness types.

We might fancy ourselves as survivors, but we're no match for a world that is now completely against us.

There was a time when we had fellowship with the Almighty and dominion over all the earth.

And all it took was one tiny slip of judgment, one little moment when we thought we'd grab just a little more than we deserved.

Listen, I've told you before, as far as we know, that's the only thing either of our first parents ever did wrong.

And no wonder.

You talk about being scared straight.

They heard the voice of an angry God.

They witnessed the wrath of El El Yon.

That'll get you right back on track in a hurry.

I wonder what Adam and Eve think of your view of sin.

I wonder how they'd counsel you on underestimating what it's like to offend the Almighty.

Let me take a guess and say that they would see the gospel as good news.

Or maybe you just don't believe in hell.

I mean, that'd be very sophisticated of you.

That's what all the cool people think.

Even people who go to church every Sunday.

Sit down and have a conversation about hell this Sunday.

When you go to church and you're sitting around drinking coffee, ask the person next to you what they think of hell.

And they'll tell you it doesn't exist.

You know, of all the things that have surprised me in my Christian adulthood, this is probably one of the biggest.

And I still don't fully get it.

I'm still not sure why the vast majority of Christianity denies the existence of the devil and his abode.

You know, one thing I can credit to my Catholic upbringing, one of many, I might add, but one thing I thank my priests and nuns for is my fear of hell.

There's not a good Catholic alive that doubts that there's a place where the evil people of the world go.

The Catholic Church teaches the reality of hell.

But as I said, that's the minority position in the Christian church.

And unfortunately, from what I can see, it's quickly fading away even from the Catholic pews.

Hell is now considered a fairy tale, by and large.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, hell went from the feared, dreaded place that must be avoided at all cost to nothing more than a colloquialism.

Man, it is hot as hell in here.

I'm taking the last frozen Snickers like hell you are.

Or my personal favorite.

Wow, it's crowded as hell in here.

And I think those that see hell as nothing more than a joke are eventually going to see the irony of saying that last one.

Especially since, listen to me, getting to hell, ending up in hell is far easier than most people can imagine.

The rare few who do believe in hell think it's only for the Hitlers and the Stalins of the world.

Not so.

Let me be blunt.

Simply being born is all it takes to qualify you for a one-way ticket down.

And by the way, this is another reason why the good news is so good.

All humans, simply by virtue of their relationship to each other, are hellbound.

John, have you become some sort of fire and brimstone preacher all of a sudden?

If I struck you as if I wasn't before, then shame on me.

Now, I may not teach this sort of message all the time, but that's only because I hope to convince you to accept Christ because you see the propriety of doing so rather than because you're afraid not to, but whatever it takes.

If I'm not getting through to your intellect, I'll go right for your nightmares.

But listen to me, you've never had a nightmare that could compare to this.

You see, every one of your nightmares ends when you wake up.

Hell is a nightmare you can't wake up from.

And while I'm at it, let me say something else.

The characteristic of all nightmares is that you're never really sure what's going on.

You're never really fully experiencing whatever's terrifying you.

Well, hell is not like that.

In hell, you belong to the one creature who completely lacks sympathy while at the same time is filled with a love for cruelty.

The devil will make sure that your pain and your fear and your torment is experienced to the fullest.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he'll do what he can to heighten your suffering.

And it will never end.

I've watched a few people die, and one thing that seems to be constant is by the end, especially if they're suffering, they're begging for their torment to be over.

Listen, if you let yourself end up in hell, your begging will fall on deaf ears.

Actually, let me correct that.

Your begging won't fall on deaf ears, it'll fall on ears that will delight in your begging.

Now, come on, you're you're just making us up to scare us.

I know through scripture who's the prince of this world, and I know through experience the cruelty that exists here.

And I know through scripture that we're told that the Holy Spirit and the church are actually a restraining force against evil.

So I know it could be much worse here.

Well, what should terrify you is that the Holy Spirit and the church will not be in hell, and therefore there will be nothing to hold back its cruelty.

If this world is the way it is despite being managed, well, I'd let you imagine the rest because frankly it scares me too much.

Listen to me.

Any news that keeps me out of that place is good news to me.

Ah, this is nothing but primitive caveman fairy tales.

Sure about that?

I mean, you better be because if you're wrong, one of these days it's going to be too late.

If I'm wrong, what's the worst that can happen to me?

I would have lived the life that would be considered good, right, moral.

Even if I'm wrong, which I'm not, if you're wrong, even if you live a life that's good and moral and right, if you're wrong and hell doesn't exist, and this news isn't good to you, as I said, I'll let you imagine.

Listen, you have the resolution right in front of you, and it's always been there.

The good news of God is all you need, and frankly, that's all there is.

If you haven't by now, don't let this night end without God hearing from you.

He wants to know if you agree that this news is good news, it's yours for the asking.

The word repent is very common in the Bible, and it literally means to change one's mind.

Everywhere in scripture we are called to repent, to change our minds.

The mind is where your opinions are formed.

And if your opinion of this, that this if your opinion of this news isn't that it's good news, please ask God to help you change that opinion and don't waste any time doing so.

All right, let's leave it there for now.

Next week we'll try and make some progress.

See you then.

We hope this study has blessed you.

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It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners.

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