Phil: Well, it seems like there is a pattern when it comes to ministry and that’s the weaker I feel, (chuckles) the more I need to trust the Lord. And I feel my weakness. I know, the last couple of weeks I’ve had scriptures come to my mind and thoughts come to my mind. And the more I try to think about it and organize it, the harder it gets. And the more murky it gets sometimes. But I know the Lord is in charge.
And I know there’s a secret when it comes to everything in the Christian life is that when we try in our own strength to do anything, it’s not really any good anyway, is it? We need Him and He has to show us our need of Him because we don’t naturally gravitate to that kind of thinking.
But anyway, you know, my mind went back to the book of Romans, and there’s so much there. And my mind wanted to just, you know, cover it almost the first part of it. And it just seemed like it’s way too much. I don’t know, I’m just gonna start at the beginning of Romans and we’ll see how far we get and see what the Lord has. And who knows where it may go from here in the future, but we’ll just trust the Lord step by step.
But anyway, Rome was, of course, the leading city of its day. That whole section of the world was ruled by Rome, and somehow there had been a ministry of the gospel to people in Rome. And there had been a group of Christians that had been brought together. There were those who served the Lord in Rome. And their fame went out. People heard about it.
Paul had never been there. And here was this apostle called to be an apostle to the Gentiles. And his heart had longed to go there and to meet with them, and to encourage them and to be encouraged by them. And so finally, he wrote, decided to write a letter. And what an amazing letter it is because he unfolds the gospel in very great detail.
And you know, in one sense, these are things we’ve heard many times, but I feel a need in my own heart to hear it in a deeper way. And I believe the Lord has things for us that He wants to impart in a deeper way. We don’t realize our need. We don’t really have the sense that we ought to have the depth of our need.
I mean, you can grow up in church and think, Oh, I’m okay, are you? I need the Lord. And the farther I go knowing Him and experiencing life and experiencing His dealings with my own life, the more I know I need Him. And that’s a good thing because it’s the truth. And I praise Him for His faithfulness.
You know, the scripture was that we so often quote was referred to in a while ago, on how the Lord’s begun a good work and He’s gonna finish it. Well, you know, sometimes we just focus on the beginning and just kind of rock along and don’t realize what He’s gotta do with us to get us to accomplish in us what He wants to in His life.
But anyway, Paul begins, and I’m not gonna try to read all of this. And I want to ask God to help me not to run down every rabbit trail ‘cause there’s so many, you could take every paragraph in Romans and preach a message on it. I mean, you could do that. It’s that deep.
But anyway, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God, the gospel He promised beforehand through the prophets in the holy scriptures.”
Now, what does the word gospel mean? Good news. Does that not imply that there’s some bad news out there and there’s a need? Yeah, there’s a situation that exists on planet Earth. And in the midst of that, God comes on the scene, lays hold of a man, a very unlikely man at that and commissions him to go and spread a message that is good news. Okay? So that’s kind of the setting of all of this.
And then he goes through and he talks about how the prophets prophesied all this. And he accomplished it through Jesus Christ who became declared, who did what He did, went to the cross. But then God set a declaration, if you will. There’s many meanings to that word that’s translated there. But God basically said, This is my Son and I’m gonna prove it to you. I’m gonna raise Him from the dead. This is not just some religious philosopher that’s coming along, starting a religion. This is my Son. He’s here to accomplish something that is eternal, that is that matters. It’s the one piece of good news that exists in this broken world is the good news that comes because of what Jesus Christ did.
In verse five, Through Him, through Jesus Christ, we received grace and apostleship. Okay? Apostle is a sent one. This is a messenger who’s out on a mission and an apostleship to do what? To call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. So faith is not just a mental thing, is it? Not just the practice of religion. It’s meant to percolate into every area of our lives.
God has come. I mean, you’ll see it unfold as He goes along. But this is something that is meant to affect every aspect of life. The gospel is just not about getting our sins forgiven so we can go to heaven. Is it something we’ve said many times? But anyway, it says, “For His names sake, the obedience that comes from faith for His namesake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.”
Interesting phraseology there. Who do you belong to? You know, a lot of people by nature belong to themselves, don’t they? My life, I’m gonna do as I please, I have desires that arise in me. I’m gonna follow them. I don’t mind if Jesus wants to wipe the slate clean and give me a ticket to heaven, but it’s my life. Oh, no. The call of the gospel is to belong to Him. To no longer be our own, but to be His. All right?
But listen to this, “To all in Rome who are loved by God.” Isn’t that an awesome thing? It’s not just, I’m gonna dominate you because I’m bigger and stronger than you are. And I wanna make you do what I think is right. This is a God whose motivation is love. He looks at a broken world, sees everything that is wrong, everything that is wrong, things we don’t know about ourselves, He sees them. And yet the motivation for all of His action toward us is not disgust, contempt, looking down His nose, condemning. It’s not any of those things. It’s love that reaches out.
I’m so thankful. The further I go with the Lord, the more I know. That’s my only hope is that there’s a God who loves me enough to reach out to somebody like me. Oh, my God, I just thought of an old hymn that was written many years ago, and I believe I had the privilege of meeting the hymn writer before he died. When I was a little boy came to our house. I remember playing the piano for him with my little beginning years.
But a famous Hymn Writer, Robert Harkness, wrote a hymn called, Why Should He Love Me So? Some of the older ones may know that. Why should He love me so? Love sent my savior to Calvary’s cross. Why should He love me so? And over and over again, it lifts up what He did and how incredible, why in the world when I look at who I am and what I am, why should He love me?
But that’s the miracle of the gospel. That should be the motivation for what we sang about this morning. It is. He doesn’t seek this unwilling, miserable life of being religious. Oh, my God. It’s a love relationship that He seeks. Thank, God, when He opens our hearts of that.
But, “to all who are in Rome who are loved by God and called to be His holy people, grace and peace to you from God, our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then He goes on and talks about the fact that He wants to come, He prays for them. There’s this longing in His heart to be there and as He says, “To be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.”
And I want you to know I tried many times, but up to now the Lord hasn’t allowed me. So boy, we need the Lord’s time in everything, don’t we? Our lives are governed by Him and He knows how to do the right thing at the right time. We’re the ones who try to second guess and struggle and all of that. Oh, what a blessed place it is just to come to that place of rest. Lord, my life is yours. You take over, you show me, you lead me. Praise God!
But then He comes down to this, to what it’s all about is the gospel. And I believe the Lord wants to shine a fresh light in all of our minds on what that gospel is about. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” That’s an interesting phrase there. And I believe that the Lord wants to unpack that just a little bit as we go along.
Why does He say, “the power of God”? Think about that word. Why doesn’t God just give us information? Rules to live by? A better religion to practice? I don’t need just instructions. The Law of Moses is enough to tell me that. All I can see is what’s wrong with me. But what, what I need, if I’m ever going to be delivered from what I am, I need power. So just keep that in the back of your mind.
This gospel is not just about God informing us of things and getting us to believe and practice certain things. I need power. If I’m gonna be delivered from the condition in which He finds me. I’m gonna need something way beyond anything I’ve got. It’s got to be divine power. Okay? All right?
And it’s “first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” And I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on why He makes that distinction. But obviously God, in the unfolding of His purpose, He worked first with the descendants of Abraham. Why? Because He has a special separate program for them? No, it was a vehicle through which He brought forth the prophets, the law, the revelation of His love and His truth. And then it was through them, He brought the Savior. That was the focal point. That was the whole purpose of the children of Israel.
But it’s first to the Jew because God was bringing forth what He had promised and letting them first know. But then it was always, even in the prophets, you see, where this message is gonna go to the ends of the earth. And I’m gonna call people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation.
So anyway, A righteous in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is” from faith, “by faith, from first to last, just as it written, but just shall live by faith.”
And then the passage that people in modern culture just absolutely adore, we gotta find out if, if there’s good news, it means there’s some bad news out there, right? So we need something good to come from God. We need a message from God that’s to counter that. But it’s not just a message, it’s power.
There is a power that is operating in this planet that only the power of God can conquer. Anybody aware of that, not just out there, but in here? Yeah, I need something way beyond what I got. I need divine power.
But now Paul is going to unlock the problem here. And he begins with the condition of the heathen world in general. But it doesn’t include just what he called the heathen world. It was the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people. And here’s the amazing thing, “who suppressed the truth by their wickedness.” And He goes on and says, “since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them, for since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.”
Okay? So the heart of the problem is that every human being, obviously of any age at all, you know what I mean? Human beings, we have some kind of knowledge. Now here obviously, there’s a great responsibility because the gospel, I believe, has been preached. But what about in the heathen world?
And Paul says, Every one of them can look at the stars, they can look at nature, they can hear the voice. He’ll talk later about the voice of the conscience. God has given all men a witness, and He declares that all men are without excuse. Because by nature they rebel against that. They absolutely are aware of it, but they make a deliberate choice to say, No, I will please myself, I will follow my own earthly desires.
And then of course, He unlocks that in all kinds of ways. And do we not see the ancient heathen world being replicated in America today? All of the things that you read about going through the end of this passage, some of them are sexual deviancy, but it’s a whole lot more than that. It’s everything that is afflicting our society that is boiling outta people’s spirits every day. There’s not a day goes by, but what? There’s some kind of a shooting someplace. There’s some kind of a terrible crime. And we don’t even hear about it all. Where’s that coming from? It’s coming from people who are operating under a power. Okay? But the thing is God says, You are under power, but you are responsible. There is a responsibility in you, you are aware. And yet you make a deliberate choice to reject that. Okay?
But then He goes into this point, we are well aware that people like to compare themselves one with another, right? Now, why do we do that? We would like to feel like we have grounds to think better of ourselves than other people. Yes, the world is full of wicked people. I am so glad I’m not like one of them. And we’ll sit there and say, Yeah, man, that’s terrible. God’s doing right by judging those people.
And so the beginning of chapter two, Paul says, Oh yeah? You who condemn others, what about you? Okay? “You therefore have no excuse you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge another you, you are condemning yourself. ‘cause you who pass judgment do the same things.”
Oh, my God. We judge by outward behavior and things that we can see. But boy, if you were to go back and see where that comes from, is there anyone here who can look at the worst sinner on this planet and say, I’m better than you? It flows from the same fountain. I can’t.
If there’s somebody who hears this. I mean, sometimes these services wind up being viewed in prisons. I don’t know if that’s still the case or not, but I’m gonna say to somebody who’s listening to this, I don’t care what you’ve done, I’m no better than you are. But the good news of Jesus Christ is there’s an answer to sin’s power over you. And that is the power of God. If you want it bad enough and you call upon God, He will save and rescue you from all of this.
[Congregation] Amen.
And give you a hope beyond all this judgment He’s talking about. Because that’s what He’s coming to. Not only is that the world’s condition, but there is judgment that is coming. God has absolutely appointed a day in which everybody will be brought to answer for how they’ve lived their life. It says, now we know in 2:2, “That God’s judgment against those who do such thing is based on truth.”
You think God knows it all? (chuckles) Absolutely. There’s not a secret that men keep, that will not be exposed on that day. There is justice coming, there’s judgment coming. All right?
“So when you a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment or do you show contempt?” This is an amazing statement because it goes to God’s heart. It says, “Do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.”
You know, when you look at the world and you realize how wicked and awful it is in so many ways, if you really ever see it that it’s true character, it would be easy to ask if God is righteous and pure, and this is so terrible, why does He put up with it? Why doesn’t He do something about it? And the answer is here, because God’s heart is reaching out to everyone who can be reached. Every heart that has the capacity to listen. God’s heart is to reach everyone.
And again, we look at these things that we see in the world and we get angry and disgusted, and here’s God reaching out. Yes, there’s an anger against what’s wrong, but there’s a heart that says, I have the power to save you. I have the only answer that can pick you up out of this gutter, out from under the power of sin. I’ve got the answer. And I’m gonna do everything in my power to reach your heart, because that’s my heart toward you. What an amazing God! Amazing!
Things like love and kindness and patience and all of these things can be brought into this context of what’s wrong with us and what’s wrong with the world. But that’s the way it is. And so basically He unfolds the thing about judgment and all of that.
But then He gets down to a natural question because the world of that day was very much divided into the world of the Jews and the world of the Gentiles. The world of the Jews, they had a tradition, God had spoken among them, as we said, they had the Law of Moses, they built a religion out of it, but still they had a witness from God. And so naturally, a Jew brought up in that tradition would look out at the world and absolutely look down His nose at them and think that he has a better standing before God.
And so Paul has to deal with that, and he deals with it straightforward. And he says, It has nothing to do with what you are outwardly. That’s not what God considers you. You do the same things. You have no right to look down your nose at anybody. You are exactly like them on the inside. And so that’s kind of what he’s unfolding here. All right?
So then he asked the question at the beginning of chapter three, “So what advantage is there in being a Jew?” Well, he says, Yes, there is one, because God entrusted His words to you. You had an opportunity that a lot of other people didn’t have it. That just all they had was nature. But what good is that if you don’t do something with it? What good is having God’s word and then just turning against it and resisting it? All right?
Well, I’ll just make a passing reference. Paul deals with a crazy argument that some people would have... here it is, our sinfulness by contrast makes God look good. So why would He judge us if all we’re doing is making Him look good? But boy, what a dumb human argument that is. We’re projecting our nature onto Him and supposing it’s an ego contest where God’s basically, His motivation is to look good.
No, His motivation is to reach out with a heart of love that sees need and does something about it. It’s focused not on Him and His and all. It’s not all about Him. It’s all about those that He can love and change. And here’s the other thing, what are we being saved from? What’s salvation about? We’re being saved from sin. There’s no place for a heart that still is attached to sin. That’s what God is delivering us from.
So any kind of argument that tends to cloud that issue is, you know where that comes from, don’t you? It comes from the voice of the enemy. And there are other places where that comes into play, but I don’t know how far, as I say, we’ll get with all of this today, but I just pray that God will... There’s some things that I want Him to bring out with clarity. I believe He will. Don’t you?
