Transcription
I can't believe that the whole week is over and I can't believe that I've got to share with you six of my 52 favorite chapters in the Bible that I think are the greatest ones. And uh this morning we're looking at Romans 1. If you want to grab your Bible, I want to show you um my sweet wife this morning said, "How are you doing, honey?" When we left at 8:25 on our way over here, I said, 'Oh, not very well. I said, I have 42 slides this morning. All the other days I've had 30-something. But it's hard to reduce down what is probably the most important book in the Bible. If you had to be marooned on a desert island and someone handed you a Bible and you could just tear out of that Bible, one section, this might be the one you should tear out because it's the summary of everything. It's kind of the it's the drivetrain of of everything that God has done in Christ. And so it has three parts. Romans 1 introduces us to what the whole book explains. And number one is the righteousness of God. That is the underlying way that you understand everything about life, this world, history, and the Bible is that God is righteous. I mean, he's uh dayas, that word, it it means, you know, straight uh true. You know how a good carpenter will go like this and look down the to make sure that the board is straight, you know, before he does something. It's the idea that God looks at life whether it's straight.
Number two, the power of the gospel. Well, let's look at those verses. First of all, verse 17. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Now, if I had time, I'd tell you that only occurs three times in the Bible. And all three of them are somehow tied to Paul. Hebrews tells what faith is. uh Galatians tells who the the just are and right here it tells us how we're supposed to live. So those three times that verse from Haggi is quoted but it's the power of God that makes us warped people. See sin warped me. W A R P warped me. I'm crooked from birth. And the gospel straightens me out. Now, it straightens out the new part of me, but it's encased in a warped flesh that's always fighting against the new creation I am in Christ. And so, it reminds me, and that's verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jews first also for the Greeks. And then verse 18, the sinfulness of mankind. So Romans is introducing us to a righteous God who has the power to correct us, straighten us, uh make us righteous.
Actually, uh when I used to uh Oh, I don't have my pen. There used to be a pen up here, but uh I would take a uh here, I'll use my phone. Oh. Ah, this was my nor the blessing. I would have my pen stuck here and I would always I was a youth pastor. That's probably why I walk around so much and yell and wave my arms because you have to keep their attention and usually they follow moving objects. Have you ever noticed that? That's why kids need to watch those those music videos or whatever their games or they just like movement. But I'd say, "Hey, you guys come on back. Let me have your attention again. Let me show you salvation. This is you. You are dead in your trespasses in sin. God redeems you. Now I said, "Watch my hand." He grabs us who are dead in our trespasses and sin. Uh and in his great love, he redeems us. That means he buys us out of the slave market of sin. So he redeems us. Now watch this. And then he justifies us. That gives us the righteousness of Christ that we are we are on eye level with God. We have the righteousness of Christ. Before I was destined, remember about three days ago I told you that God sees us all blind, sitting in the darkness on the edge of a pit. That's the last verse of Luke. Headed toward the destruction of hell forever. And God who is rich in mercy for his great love with he loved us. Even when we are dead in sins, he hath done that quickening work and he justifies us. Now watch. So this is all instantaneous. We're dead uh in redemption, which we respond to in faith, justification. But watch this. This is the rest of your Christian life. This happens in an instant. Boom, boom, boom. But watch this. This is sanctification. God is pulling us toward him and we're resisting. That's the Christian life. That's sanctification. Some people aren't doing very well being sanctified. They're always going against God. But God is going to sanctify. First Thessalonians 5:23. And the very God of peace sanctify you holy, that completely. And I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless. So I told the high school kids, I says, "This is where God finds you. You were dead in your trespasses, sin. He reached down in his great mercy redeemed you, justified you, and he's spending the rest of your life sanctifying you, pulling you closer and closer and closer. So that like we saw yesterday in Acts chapter 2, you and I are little copies of Christ. By the way, what is the fruit of the spirit? It's a personality transplant. God wants to transplant the personality of Jesus Christ into my life so that I look just like him. So that I act just like him. So that I respond just like him. So that I have the emotional makeup like Christ that his prime emotion was compassion. He he was compassionate. If he would have been a driver and someone cut in front of him and got his parking space, he would have gone, "Oh, good. They needed it more than me." That's what we all do, right? And when someone is passing you on the wrong side of the highway, you know, on 589 or whatever that's called, Jesus driving, he wouldn't speed up. He'd slow down, put on his blinker, and go behind him. Because he'd say, "Oh, they must have somewhere to go more important than me." See, he's compassionate. He feels for others. And that's what this sanctifying job pulling us closer and closer. Mike, you can have this afterward. I might need it again. I use props all the time. So that's Romans 1. That's what we're going to see today.