Here We Go // Pastor Bobby

Alright, so here's the question.

This morning,

before I read the passage,

the two verses that we're going to look at here,

the question is just simply this,

why study the Bible?

Why study it?

Right? I mean,

if you really want to ask ourselves about the priority that we undertake

in studying the Bible,

then we need to answer the question,

why are we doing it?

What's the reason for studying what we refer to as God's Word?

Or maybe some people don't study it,

some people read it.

Yeah. But they don't really start to dig in to figure out kind of,

well, what does it mean?

To me,

part of the thing that I've enjoyed most about preaching and being a

pastor is making the Word of God applicable.

How does it affect me if I read this verse or,

or I dig into that word or I seek to understand this theme?

What impact does that have on my life?

How does it affect me?

How does it change something about me and who I am?

So after we answer the question of why study the Bible,

being that,

guess what?

I want to know God better.

The Bible is the revelation of God himself in written form to us,

to his people,

to the people who want to know him,

to the people who are called according to,

to his purposes.

And so then this year we're asking the question,

why the letter to the Romans?

Why is it important?

Why should we study the Book of Romans?

Well, if you'll think back two years ago to 2023,

we did the whole year in a series,

sort of topic called Faith and Discipline.

We talked about the disciplines of our faith.

And then we looked at three books of the Bible in sort of a survey.

We looked at Ecclesiastes,

where after looking at the disciplines of our faith,

Ecclesiastes was really how not to do it.

Okay, it was like a bad example of discipline and faith.

And then we went into Romans for three months,

we did a survey of the Book of Romans and then October,

November, December,

we did a survey of the Book of Hebrews.

And I began praying through those last six months of the year.

And I was like,

this is backwards.

You know what,

we need to go back through this whole process again,

except we need to start with Hebrews because the Book of Hebrews

identifies for us the object of our faith.

Book of Hebrews just reveals Jesus to us that he is son and heir and

Creator.

He's the radiance of God's glory.

He's the exact expression of the essence of God.

He is high priest.

He upholds and holds together all things.

He's the King of Kings he's the Savior he's our Lord.

See, so that's what Hebrews told us last year.

Glad you were here.

If you weren't,

go read Hebrews.

And now this year we're going to spend the whole year and most of next

year probably in the book of Romans.

Because where Hebrews identifies Jesus,

Romans identifies us.

It tells us who we are in Christ.

It gives definition to our faith.

Alright, so here's the two verses I want to share with you this morning.

And we're going to kind of break,

break them down just a little bit because in about three weeks we're

going to be right back on these two verses.

Just so you know,

Romans 1,

16 and 17,

I happen to believe are kind of the outline or the thesis statement for

the letter to the Romans.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel.

For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

To the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it

is written.

But the righteous man shall live by faith.

Alright, let's pray.

God, thank you for this day.

Thank you God that we get to hang out together.

God, we've enjoyed hanging out with you all week.

And now we just come together for this family reunion.

Time to be able to sing,

to be able to celebrate,

to pray,

to consider together your word,

God, to seek to understand and to help us understand that which we need

to know about you.

How it is that our lives can be what you desire most for them to be.

So God,

help us to listen.

God help us to hear,

help us to pay attention,

help us to surrender,

help us to obey.

We pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. Alright,

so there's a phrase in these two verses that I want to focus on this

morning. It's just simply faith to faith.

We're going to call the messages through the book of Romans faith to

faith for the next year and a half.

At this point,

I think it's either 69 or 89 weeks that the outline is working out to.

All right,

because I can't get it all done at once.

But this idea of faith to faith.

And so I was prompted to ask myself a few weeks ago,

is your faith enough?

Is my faith enough?

Certainly if we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in our

heart that God raised him from the dead,

we shall be saved.

I mean,

that's in Romans.

Okay, so we understand that that is a faith position,

a belief position.

And yet when we see this Phrase the righteousness of God is revealed from

faith to faith.

What does that mean?

What's faith to faith?

I mean,

I've got faith.

I believe in Jesus.

I believe Jesus is the son of God and he is Lord and Savior and King of

kings and wonderful counselor,

mighty God.

All that stuff that we say,

I believe that.

Okay, so I've got faith,

but to what?

To faith.

Alright, so Nick did this little study and it was kind of interesting.

Ready? He went through a lot of versions and since he's preaching this

same message up in Burgau at 10 o'clock this morning,

we started talking about this yesterday.

So the American Standard Version of the Bible says from faith unto faith.

Okay? That,

that gives a little different nuance to it,

right? The common English Bible says from faithfulness for faith.

Okay? The ESV says from faith for faith.

The NIV says from faith.

No by faith,

from first to last,

okay? The nlt,

which is what Nick likes to preach from,

says start to finish by faith.

Okay? And then the New Revised Standard Version says through faith for

faith.

Alright, we all confused now.

Well, if you think about,

and remember I've said it over and over and over again,

translation is an art form,

not a science.

Because when you start translating from Greek in this case,

or from Hebrews or Aramaic,

even what you end up with the English is.

All right,

here's what the Greek word looks like.

In English,

it could be 12 different words.

How do you know which word?

How do you know which conjunction?

How do you know which preposition to use?

Well, you've got to take it from the context.

You got to understand what it is that God is revealing that God is

pouring into,

in this case,

Paul, to,

to put down in a written form.

For us to what?

Understand Paul?

No, for us to understand God.

See, all of it's got to point us back to understanding God revealing

himself to us.

So faith to faith.

All right,

so I actually,

this year I'll go ahead and tell y'all,

I am using a Bible that you can't even get anymore,

okay? I AM using the NAS 1977 version.

It was my textbook in Bible college,

okay? And that's the one I've decided to use this year.

Now, if you want to get as close as you can,

because somebody asked me this last week,

if you want to get as close as you can get you a 1995 NAS,

it's about as close as you're going to get to the 77 NAS.

I'm just,

just warning you ahead of time now,

you're all probably going now.

Why would you pick a Bible we can't get?

Because I want you to read whatever Bible you got and let's understand it

together. Okay?

Alrighty.

So here's the idea from alright,

so our text says revealed from faith to faith.

So when we get back to these two verses in a few weeks,

we're going to really focus in on.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

So in all of these translations,

here's what I want you to understand.

From faith to faith simply implies faith progression.

You might have faith unto salvation,

faith to believe that Jesus is the Christ,

the son of the living God,

as Peter said,

somewhere on a hillside somewhere.

But is that where it stops?

Is our faith supposed to remain?

I got saved when I was 8 years old.

Is faith supposed to stop at 8 years old and never be any more than that?

No, see,

our faith is supposed to grow from faith to faith,

from faith for faith by faith through faith.

All of those different translations simply imply that faith in salvation,

our fire insurance,

the sweet pie in the sky and the sweet by and by faith,

right? No,

no, it doesn't stop there.

And yet I know I grew up in a generation said,

well, long as you said the words,

long as you dunked your head,

you know,

and that's the generation I grew up in.

And it led us to this sort of easy believism,

as one of my professors used to call it,

that said,

well, just so long as you,

you've done this and you can act any way you want to.

That is not the Bible,

folks. You cannot claim Christ and live like the devil.

Sorry, but we don't work for our salvation either.

There is a progression of faith.

So here's my question.

Outside of is your faith big enough?

Is your faith a growing faith?

Do you see God growing you up in him?

Because Romans is pivotal for believers.

Matter of fact,

there's some quotes I want to share with you this morning.

This was all compiled by Liberty University in an article that was

written Martin Luther.

Now, I'm going to read to you and I don't like doing this,

but I'm going to Martin Luther said this.

The Epistle,

the letter to the Romans is really the chief part of the New Testament.

It is truly the purest gospel.

It is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word

by heart,

but also that he should occupy himself with it every day as the daily

bread of the soul.

We can never read it or ponder over it too much for the more we deal with

it. The more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.

Martin Luther said that.

John Calvin said,

when anyone understands this epistle,

he has a passage open to him to the understanding of the whole scripture.

J.I.

packer says,

all roads in the Bible lead to Romans.

And all views afforded by the Bible are seen most clearly from Romans.

And when the message of Romans gets into a person's heart,

there is no telling what may happen.

John Piper said Romans is the most important theological Christian work

ever written.

And this last one,

I never even heard of him.

But it's in the article I was reading,

Ben Merkel.

No other letter in the history of the world has received as much

attention or has been given as much consideration as Paul's letter to the

Church at Rome.

Paul's letter to the Church at Rome is the greatest letter ever written

because of its great impact in history,

its grand theology about Christ and its practical instructions for

Christian living.

And in that article,

Liberty University actually sort of summarized the most profound

discussion that Romans is the most profound discussion about the most

profound subject in all the Scripture,

God's plan and purpose for saving sinners.

Romans gives definition to who we are in Christ,

y'all.

So we're going to spend a long time in Romans.

Matter of fact,

we might be in Romans when Jesus shows up.

You see,

I think it's important Paul undertakes to write to the Romans and we

believe, or scholars tell me,

because I'm not smart enough to know it myself.

But scholars say he was in Corinth when he wrote this letter.

You can find that in the Book of Acts that he wrote as sort of the

precursor to his intended visit.

As a matter of fact,

when we start dealing with who Paul is and his journeys and his letter to

the Romans and all that sort of thing,

he says,

I can't wait to get to Rome because I want to go to Spain.

You know,

this idea of Paul,

Paul was motivated first and foremost by the Gospel,

the good news,

the message of Jesus Christ.

He wanted to get as many places as he could get to tell as many people as

he could tell about salvation in Jesus Christ.

I wish the whole body of Christ throughout all the world today had that

same kind of drive,

right? To tell as many people as we could tell about Jesus,

right? That was Paul's.

That was his call.

That was his motivation.

It was the priority of not just his life,

but who he was.

I mean,

God slaps him off a donkey on the way to Damascus,

right? And he go,

who are you,

Lord? I'm Jesus,

whom You're persecuting.

Why are you kicking against the goads?

Right? That's a translation for you.

So why a book to Romans?

All right,

so in a.

In a day and time where there is no Internet or television or,

let's say,

reliable mail service,

right? Paul knows that if the gospel,

the good news of Jesus Christ,

is going to go out to the known world,

then it needs to have an anchor and a root,

a deep system of belief in the capital city of the empire.

I want to get to Rome now.

He's writing to Christians in Rome.

So there are already Christians in Rome.

And more than likely,

if you go back and read in Acts at Pentecost,

it says there were Romans in the crowd.

And when they left after the whole celebration in Jerusalem,

at that time,

they went home to Rome and started telling others about Jesus and started

sharing the gospel and started bringing people into their homes.

And so really,

we don't know at this point of a quote,

First Baptist Church of Rome,

but they were having house churches,

they were doing small group ministry.

Y'all connect groups.

How about that?

Bringing people into their houses and telling them about Jesus,

offering them some.

Some of them little hot.

Them little sausages in a little biscuit,

you know,

those things.

But you see what I mean?

They were excited,

having learned about Jesus,

to get home to Rome and grab their friends and family and tell them about

Jesus. And so Paul's writing this.

We call it an epistle.

It means a letter.

He's writing a letter to Christians in the capital city of Rome,

and it'll be passed around among them.

The topic of the letter is the Gospel.

Paul undertakes to write the most detailed explanation of what God has

accomplished in the death,

burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's what Romans is all about.

Okay, so we're going to hear big words.

We're going to hear big words like sin and forgiveness and justification

and. And we're going to get all that good theology in there,

right? And so we're going to hear.

So that's why.

That's why there's a book to the Romans.

We call it.

It's a letter,

but we call it a book of the Bible.

There's a book to the Romans.

That's why Romans is not just for Romans,

it's for us.

You need to know Romans.

Listen to all those smart people.

Martin luther,

John Calvin,

J.L. packer,

John Piper,

I guess Ben Merkel.

Smart. But anyway,

you see what I mean.

The idea is that Romans is for us,

we should pay attention to Romans.

I Love it that God and I got to give him credit for it.

Because the idea is that two years ago when we were doing faith and

discipline and we got toward the end of the year and we were working our

way through Hebrews and I was like,

man, there's a lot of stuff in Hebrews.

We need to spend a lot of time in Hebrews.

So we spent nine months in the book of Hebrews and it just kept coming

back and just rolling it over and rolling it over and rolling it over

that this is who Jesus is.

And then Romans says,

this is who you are in Christ.

That's why the book of Romans is for us.

So I want you to read it.

A couple weeks ago I said,

you know,

we're going to take a week before we get into Romans,

so just read Romans,

read it and then read it again.

It doesn't take long to read it from start to finish.

I mean,

you know,

if you've read like War and Peace,

this is cakewalk.

Read Romans and when you finish it,

read it again.

Now some interesting things are going to happen this year and I think

it's kind of interesting because next Sunday is deacon ordination Sunday

when we celebrate those that you guys have observed and pointed out as

just servant hearted men in the congregation.

We're going to ordain five new deacons next week.

A couple of them at 9:25 and a few of them at 10:40.

But all morning long we're going to talk about what it means to be a

servant, to have a servant's heart.

So guess what happened?

Because we inserted that into the schedule.

All of the gathering in the Word videos are off sync with the dates.

If you get the gathering in the Word devotional,

that comes out by email every morning at 4:30 thereabout.

It follows,

typically I'll preach and then Monday through Friday you get it in the

morning devotional all week long.

Well, after next week's deacon ordination week,

the next Monday,

you're going to get the message before it's preached.

So you get to spend time in Romans before we get here on Sunday about

what we're going to talk about.

And I started praying about that thing.

I thought,

oh man,

I got to go back in and redo all those videos because we're about five

weeks ahead.

I never know what's going on,

you know,

with traveling and stuff.

But so I got way ahead and then I was like,

no, maybe that was planned.

Maybe God wants us spending time in the Word in the letter to the Romans.

And then we get together on Sunday morning and we can talk about it,

we can share it together.

And I was just like,

God, you're so smart,

right? There's a plan,

God's at work.

We just have to be surrendered and obey.

Alrighty, what's it about?

You know,

what I share with you all the time.

I am not a very trusting individual when it comes to news,

right? I pick and choose my news.

I try to be very discerning in who I listen to and what they say,

right? The gospel.

And we'll talk about this throughout this week,

next week and the week after.

Gospel comes from the word God spell.

Now, every one of you that grew up in the 60s,

go, oh,

that was that musical they did on Broadway,

right?

God spell.

Well, that's where the word gospel comes from.

Because the word spell in Saxon,

Anglo Saxon means story.

So God's spell means God's story.

So gospel means God's story.

It's a good news story.

That's why we translate the word gospel or we sort of define it as good

news. All right?

So I want you to think a minute before we dig deep in,

deep into this realm,

really. You know people that don't know Jesus,

you know people that have never surrendered anything of themselves to a

plan and a purpose that God may have for their lives.

Now, there's a reason why so many people in my generation grew up with

this evangelism outline called the Roman Road.

Because Paul undertakes to explain from start to finish what it means to

acknowledge and recognize that we're sinners,

we're fallen,

we're broken.

And the only real means,

healing, redemption,

correction, life,

fullness, whatever words you want to stick in there is Jesus.

So you live in a world that needs Jesus.

Paul identifies the gospel as the death,

burial and resurrection of Christ.

But what we know is,

is that Jesus,

from birth,

actually pre existent eternity,

is God's good news for our broken,

fallen, sinful state.

We need to tell people the good news.

People need to hear it.

Do they need to hear it from me?

Not really.

Do they need to hear it from Paul?

Yeah, that's a good idea,

Right? Who they going to listen to?

You got friends and family members that will hear it from you.

Okay. Why a book to the Romans?

Because Paul,

God wanted Paul to spread the good news.

Why Romans for us?

Because we need good news.

We live in a world where there's not a lot,

right? We need good news.

What's it about?

It's about Jesus and it's about who we are in Christ.

If you don't know Jesus this morning.

You need Jesus.

You know,

it's funny,

we just came out of that whole gift giving season that we call Christmas,

right? You know,

people always call me up early.

My family calls me up and goes,

what do you want for Christmas?

And I go,

I don't want anything for Christmas.

Be honest.

I mean,

typically, if I see something at Ross,

I'll buy it,

right? I mean,

that's discount shopping,

y'all. Anyway,

you see,

ask somebody what they need.

What do they need?

I read a book years ago,

and I finished the book ultimately,

because I walked with somebody through the book.

But in the introduction of that book,

the author was just broken.

Life was a mess.

This author got before the Lord and in the prayer understood that God was

saying, what do you want?

And so they made a list.

Made a list.

All the things in this life that was a disappointment,

all the things in this life that were a hurt.

All the things.

And this is what I want.

And in the prayer that this author describes in the introduction,

God's answer was,

is that all?

Because you can find all that in me.

See, if you don't know Jesus,

you need Jesus.

We're going to sing one last song.

You get to respond.

You can respond right there where you are.

If you want to know Jesus,

just reach out to him.

Admit your sin.

Ask him to forgive you and save you.

Maybe you want to pray with somebody,

turn to your neighbor.

Pray with somebody that you don't know.

That's cool.

You know,

last week when I told you to look around and pray for somebody,

Somebody came to me later and said,

I picked somebody out.

And I went to them after worship and said,

you're the one I picked out and prayed for you.

What can I pray for you about?

He just had a bad diagnosis.

God said,

pray for me about that.

So they prayed.

Pray with your neighbor.

If you want me to pray with you,

I'll be standing right here.

Really, though,

we just get to respond to God and his word.

Okay, let's pray together.

God, thank you for this morning.

And God,

all that you're doing,

things that you're doing around us and things that you're doing in us and

the things you want to do in us.

God, help us to acknowledge and recognize that we're not much.

And yet,

God, you love us and you choose us and you call us and you make us yours.

And so,

God, my prayer would be that 2025 is a year,

God, where the gospel goes forth and where we're the ones who take it.

That God,

we are boldly proclaiming God,

the life that we have in Jesus.

God, if there's somebody this morning doesn't know Jesus,

God just move their hearts to bow before youe.

And God,

if there are Christians here this morning that just need the strength and

the boldness and the willingness to go out and live it in a loud way,

God, that'd be my prayer.

God, help us to respond to youo.

We pray it in Jesus name,

Amen.