Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 26, 2016 | Route 66 - Romans

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June 26, 2016 | Route 66 - Romans · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:02
SPEAKER_00: That may be the first time I've ever played an introduction to a book.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: A two-minute video for those of you online that extols the greatness of the book of Romans.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: It is an amazing book.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: My first real acquaintance with the book came when I was 14 when I rememorized the book as the way to get to summer camp.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: It was the first book that I ever preached through in an exhaustive way here at Topeka Bible.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: 160 messages spread over six years back so many moons ago when my wife was in her 20s.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: So you know, I was thinking this morning if you take the Bible and split it into thirds, 22, 22, 22 books.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: The first uh 22 begin with the book of Genesis.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Good job.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: It's the best book to begin with in the beginning God.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: The second 22, I realize, begins with the book of Isaiah.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: The first and greatest prophet, maybe arguably the greatest book of the Old Testament, called the Romans of the Old Testament.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: The third 22, the final 22 of the Bible, begins with the book of Romans.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: That's where we are this morning.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: If you have a study sheet, your take-home sheet, grab it out of your bulletin.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: You'll see that I'm entitling this book, Why Good Things Happen to Bad People.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Put on your big boy pants this morning because Romans is thick, it is meaty, and we are going to march through it.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I picked that title because a famous book that predates many of you, written many years ago by a rabbi named Harold Kushner, was entitled When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: His answer to that question in the book was when bad things happen to good people that you know, tell them that God cares, but don't tell them that God's powerful enough to do anything about it.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, I'm not concerned with that issue this morning.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: I am concerned with the point that we are fixated on the fact that bad things happen to good people like us, but heaven's fixated on another question.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And the book of Romans is about that question.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And it is not why do bad things happen to such good people as you all, but why do good things happen to bad people?
2:18
SPEAKER_00: When good things happen to bad people is what this book is about, the book of Romans.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: And the theme of the book, as I put on your study sheet, comes from chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, arguably the greatest verses, not in the book, not only in the book, but in the New Testament.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: For I am not ashamed, Paul says.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: For in it the righteousness of God is revealed, from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Because these six chapters, sixteen chapters, are so meaty, there's so much in them, I won't be able to do this very often, but I do want to walk through these two verses.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: They are that important.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: The verses have four main lines in them, or four sort of clauses.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: And the first is, for I, Paul the Apostle speaking, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Three key words there, ashamed, gospel, and Christ.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: The gospel, the word gospel simply means what?
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Good news.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: The word gospel means good news, and the gospel in Greek is the word from which we get evangel or evangelism, which means putting the word ashamed next to it, for I'm not ashamed of the evangel or the gospel, is pretty significant because if you're like me, you're a founding member of the Order of the Chicken.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's you know, I want to share the gospel with people, but it's a scary thing to do, right?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to eight, nine days from now when I'll go over with Derek Rowe and a number of our high schoolers, we're gonna go to New York City because Derek came to me about six, eight months ago, said, Jim, I think our high schoolers here at TBC, they know the Bible pretty well.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: We've gotten them involved in charities and other work, but I don't know that they know how to witness.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Would you arrange for maybe us to go up to Jews to work with Jews for Jesus, have Jews for Jesus teach us how to witness on the streets of New York City?
4:25
SPEAKER_00: I said, yeah, but now that we're getting close to it, I'm getting nervous.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: So pray for us next week.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, God hasn't called you to go out on the streets and witness on street corners.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure most of you are not called to do that, but what you can do and what God expects of you is to weave threads of the gospel into your everyday conversations with people, with your neighbors at the store, at work, and when you're talking with people.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Find ways, think of ways, ask the Holy Spirit to help you.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Weave threads of the good news of Jesus Christ into your ordinary conversations.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: I'll pray for you to do that if you'll pray for me and the others, that we won't be ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Second line is uh after Paul says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, he says, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Notice those key words there.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: The gospel has power in it, explosive power to actually transform people.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: We think too small about this word salvation.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: We think of it primarily as being saved from hell at the end of your life.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: But the word salvation is a much bigger word than that.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: There is a in Romans and in the Bible a salvation that's past, salvation that's present, salvation that's future.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the Bible speaks of salvation past.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: That's what we think about when we think of the word justification.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: It's when we say I've been saved, we're talking about being saved from the penalty of sin.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: That's a free gift, and when that happens, you become a Christian.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: But then there's a salvation that goes on throughout your whole Christian life.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: We often call this sanctification, though, sanctification is a bigger word than that.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: This is present salvation.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: I am presently being saved from the power of sin.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: This is costly, not free.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: This is the life of discipleship.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: One day, this is God's promise, there's coming salvation future.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: We call it glorification.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: I will be saved from the presence of sin when I see Jesus Christ face to face and enter eternal life, enter heaven, and I have a glorified body.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: So this book talks about all three of those.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel, the good news of Christ is God's power to salvation past, salvation present, and salvation future.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Who is it for?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: It's for everyone who believes.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: When you see the word believe, you should realize that that's the same word in Greek as the word for faith.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: So when you hear faith, think believe.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: When you hear believe, think faith.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And it's for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps this phrase, more than any other, is why I presently work with Jews for Jesus.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: I love going around the world with Jews for Jesus, but that's because I believe this phrase is more than simply chronological.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's saying more than simply saying the gospel first went to the Jews in the synagogue, and then when many of them rejected it, it went to the Greeks or the Gentiles.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: No, this verse is saying more than that.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: It's saying that there is a priority that the Jew still has in God's mind, which is why three chapters of Romans, which I can't touch this morning, Romans 9, 10, and 11, three chapters talk about the promise that God makes to the Jewish people, to the ethnic Jewish people, that they can and still will be eventually saved when Christ returns in the air, and all those who have crucified him, the Jews will look upon him whom they pierced, and they will mourn and repent.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: So those are the first two lines.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: The third line is, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: In this gospel, in this good news, the righteousness of God is revealed from one level of faith to the next level of faith.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: As you grow in your levels of faith, you find the righteousness of God keeps on getting revealed.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: And the final line, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the single greatest sentence in all of the Bible, repeated four times, this is the phrase, this is the verse that exploded in the heart of Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk in the early 1500s, in the 16th century.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Here he was, a guilt-ridden, conscious-stricken, hard-working Augustinian monk trying to work his way to heaven, and he came across this verse, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: In it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: The just shall live by faith.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: And those lines, that for the just shall live by faith, lit a fire inside Martin Luther, which spread and became a forest fire spreading across all of Europe, bringing about what we call the Protestant Reformation.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: You would not be sitting in this room this morning.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: America would not be in existence the way it is, certainly not as a Christian nation, if this line had not exploded in the heart of Martin Luther.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: And then Martin Luther sat down and wrote comments on this verse and on the rest of Romans.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And 200 years later, a man named John Wesley was in a Bible study in England, in London, and he was just sort of a casual believer, or perhaps even a non-believer, but he heard a man stand up and read Martin Luther's introduction to the book of Romans.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And John Wesley went home that night and said, I felt my heart strangely warmed, strangely warmed.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: This forest fire from 200 years ago had now lit a fire in his heart.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And John Wesley began what we call the Great Awakening in Europe, which stopped the plunge into decline of Europe.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And again, without that, we would not be what we are today, and Europe would be absolutely destroyed.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: I do not think I say, I don't think I exaggerate when I say that this verse, which has changed the course of the world through the Protestant Reformation and the First Great Awakening, this verse and this book have perhaps changed more lives than any book that has ever been written.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Changed my life, it's changed many of your lives.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I plan to do this morning, since I don't have time to go through all 16 chapters, is I'd ask you to turn over your study sheet, and I want to give you eight principles from the first eight chapters of this book.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And it begins with a one that sounds kind of negative: that God gets angry at sin.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 1, God gets angry at sin.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: There are not many verses in the Bible that are more stark and more shocking and more practical than Romans 1.18.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: The wrath or anger of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Now that's kind of now it's at that point, by the way, that some churches just close the book and seal it.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: When I was young, did anybody here live long enough to have ever heard the scary radio program called the Sealed Book?
11:37
SPEAKER_00: No, you have.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, it always was on at 6 o'clock at night, which is when my brother Steve and I had to milk goats, which were tethered out in the forest behind our neighbor's place where it was dark, and so forth.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: And so we'd have our transitor radios turn to the sealed book and we'd walk out there.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: There's this scary, scary, scary show.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: This is when I was 10, 11.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we'd go out and then we'd separate to milk the different goats in the forest, and we were all of that is extra.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have even told you that.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: But Romans is the sealed book in many places.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Romans is the sealed book in many places.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Because they have a God without anger who invites people who are without sin to a Christ without a cross to enter an afterlife without a judgment.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's the Christianity or the religion taught in many places today.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: But listen to me carefully.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: If you believe there's a final judgment, then man has to be a sinner.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: If man has to be, if man is a sinner, then God has the righteous, the pure, the sinless God gets angry.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciated that even in his children's book, The Narnia Tales.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Lewis touches on this when he has Lucy ask when she sees Aslan, is he safe?
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Of course he's not safe, comes back the reply.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: He's not a tame lion.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: And he's not a tame lion.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Why is he not tame?
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, Romans 1.18 told us that he's angry because man has suppressed the truth about him.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
13:14
SPEAKER_00: What has man worldwide suppressed about God?
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer, verse 19, for what can be known about God is plain to them, really?
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Because God has shown it to them.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Really?
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: We're talking stars, night sky, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, that God has placed it in people so naturally they understand two things about him.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Number one, there is a God and he has eternal power.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And he says he's shown this to people, so they're without excuse.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: This is why when you're arguing, when you're discussing with an atheist about God, your argument is their argument is not with you.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: Their argument is with God.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Because this verse says clearly, in their heart of hearts and their conscience, they know that God exists.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And then he continues, for although they knew God, yes they did, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: No God says, man has not evolved, nine has not gone up, man has devolved, man has gone downhill.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: The earliest man believed in one true God and then devolved into an idolatrous creature who worshipped man, birds, animals, and creeping things.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I am angry.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you've kept up with me so far, you should be asking me a question.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: You, some of you, have some problems with this.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: I am sure that some of you are saying, really?
15:02
SPEAKER_00: God's angry with people because they disrespected him, because they dishonored him, because they refused to say thanks.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get a little bit out of shape sometimes when people do that, but I don't kill them for it.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about that for just a second.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: I want to suggest that if you think that way, if you feel that way, like many people feel that way, that you have a man-centered view of sin rather than a God-centered view of sin.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you a story, it's a true story, overseas.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: Guy's name was Azim.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Azim was talking to a taxicab driver.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: He was in the taxicab and he knew the driver, so they were kind of friends, distant friends.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And Azim was witnessing.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: He was sharing, he wasn't ashamed of the gospel, he was sharing the gospel with the guy, and the taxicab driver said, Well, I admit, I I believe I will go to heaven.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Hell, but I think I'll go to hell for a little while, but then God will let me out and I'll go to heaven, because after all, I'm not that bad.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and it's a little excessive to punish me that much for not following him or anything.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And Azim said, let me ask you a question.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: If I slapped you on the face, what would you do?
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, he said, I'd stop the cab and tell you to get out.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Right, Azim said, now if I walked up to a random person on the street here and slapped him in the face, what would happen?
16:29
SPEAKER_00: The guy said, well, he'd probably call his buddies and beat you up.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, right.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, what if I went to a policeman and I slapped him on the face?
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And the driver said, Well, you'd not only get beat up, but then you'd be thrown in jail.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I agree, Isaim said.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Now what if I went to the king of our country and slapped him on the face?
16:53
SPEAKER_00: With a nervous laugh, the cabby said, You'd die.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Right, said Isaim, so actually.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: The seriousness of your sin or of your disrespect falls in direct proportion to the status of the person who's the object of your disobedience or of your sin or of your disrespect or your disrespect.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you a question.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: What exactly do we deserve if we disrespect, if we dishonor, if we disobey the king of the universe?
17:33
SPEAKER_00: And the cabbie saw it.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: We may not see it, but the cabbie suddenly saw that even the slightest dishonor and disrespect of the king of the universe is something we must stop underestimating.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Even we who are Christians sometimes am I right?
17:50
SPEAKER_00: We'll sin and we'll think, well, that's not all that bad.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: It's not that, you know, and we start thinking about ourselves and our sin and other people around us and how they live, instead of thinking as God would think, of who God is and who it is that we've disrespected and who it is that we have sinned against.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's why God has no problem saying, I get angry at sin and I punish sin.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of chapter 1 and in chapter 2, he tells us in his anger God punishes sin, Paul says.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, today the punishment for sin is sin.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: One day the punishment will be final.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: You say, what do you mean that the punishment for sin is sin?
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I say something to you that I think you'll remember when I say John, remember when Jesus said, He who sins becomes a slave of sin?
18:38
SPEAKER_00: John 8 34.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Augustine read that and he said, you know what?
18:45
SPEAKER_00: The punishment for sin is sin.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: What he meant was it's addiction.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Romans 1 24, 26, 28 says it so clearly.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Romans 1 24, therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Did he zap them with Sodom and Gomorrah, lightning fire from heaven?
19:07
SPEAKER_00: No.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: No, they were impure, and so he just handed them over.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: That's the same verb used of Judas handing Jesus over to the authorities.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: God handed them over in the lusts of their heart to impurity, so their bodies would be dishonored among them.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: They chose to sin.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions for their women and so forth.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Romans 1.28.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And just as they didn't see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: If you choose to sin, God says, I won't necessarily drop napalm on you.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: I'll just simply deliver you over to the consequences of your own sin.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: I can't help thinking of the fact that earlier this month, a guy who said he was actually a girl, you know, finished in the finals, you know, won an award in this in the state of Alaska.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And the girl who would have finished, where he finished and was knocked out, she says, that doesn't seem fair.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: He's bigger, stronger, faster than all of us.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: God sometimes just turns us over to our own folly, doesn't he?
20:16
SPEAKER_00: God gave them over.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Meaning that today, in general, the punishment for sin is sin, which is why you can tell people, don't complain when God gives you over to what you demanded, and then you suffer the consequences for it.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: And as we come up on July the 4th, it's good for us to remember that when a nation tells God that they no longer want or need him and actually tell him to go away so they can wallow in their sins, eventually, God, what?
20:44
SPEAKER_00: God says, okay.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: The punishment for sin today is generally sin.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Which leads us directly into Romans chapter 3.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: The bad news is that we're all in the same boat.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: We're all sinners, we're all condemned.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: No exceptions, all of us.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Romans 3, chapters 10 through 23.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: There's no one righteous, not even one.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Every one of us, try as we might, misses the target.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: All of us have sinned, Romans 3.23, and fall short of the glory of God.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Some of us can jump farther than others, some of us are better than others, admittedly.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are really noble, some of us are good, some of us aren't as naturally good, but we all fall short of the glory of God.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Romans 3.10-23 says, all mankind are sinners, all in the same boat, and all of us, from our eyes to our mind, to our lips, to our hands, to our feet, all of us is sinful.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: It's so complete.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: I came across, it's just coincidentally, I came across a little story this week of Alf Landon when he lost the election.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Alf Landon, as you know, the Kansan who ran for president in 1936, got absolutely schmucked.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Shellac by Roosevelt.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: He only won two states, and Alf Lannon had this great attitude about it.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And the press interviewed him.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: How come you have such a good sense of humor?
22:08
SPEAKER_00: He said, because it reminds me of the Kansas farmer when the tornado came.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: The tornado wiped out his house, wiped out his barn, wiped out his fences, took all of his livestock.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: And he laughed, and they asked him why it was he had such a good sense of humor.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And he said, it's just the completeness of the whole thing.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: So I read that and I thought, and that's what Alf Land was saying, just the completeness of his slaughter.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 3 says it's just the completeness of the whole thing.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: We're all in the same boat.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: We're all sinners, we're all condemned, and that's why it's so important that you and I get to point three, because if you never get to point three, we're all condemned.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: You'll never get to point four.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: If you never realize you're wrong with God, then you'll never be able to get right with God.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: If you continually say, well, all the world is not as good as it could be, people are raised poorly.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: If when you talk about yourself, you say, I'm maladjusted, had bad parents, I'm a victim, if you never get to the point where you say, Yeah, it's me, I'm standing in the need of prayer, I'm guilty, I'm a sinner, I'm lost, I've chosen against God, I'm a rebel, then you can never get to the place where Paul can then turn around and say, you know what?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: The rest of verse uh Romans 3, 23, by the way, you should never have people memorize Romans 3.23 unless they memorize the whole thing.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a comma partway through.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: You have to be able to honestly say the first clause before you can get to the second one.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: But if you can honestly look at God and say, For I have sinned and I've fallen short of the glory of God, then God can turn around and say to you, yes, but you can be justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And how do you access that redemption?
24:21
SPEAKER_00: The answer is that great five-letter word, faith.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: Faith in Jesus is the way to be right with God.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: The two verses right next to the ones you just read go like this, but God has a way to make people right with him, without outside the law, and he's now shown us that way, which the law and the prophets told us about.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: God makes people right with himself through their faith in Jesus Christ.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Say that with me.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: God makes people right with himself through their faith in Jesus Christ.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: This is true for all who believe in Jesus and Christ because all people are the same, Romans 3, 22, and maybe an even greater verse, salvation verse.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Romans 4, 4 and 5.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Now to him who works, say this with me, now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Stop right there.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Period.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you did not run to your boss and say, thank you, thank you, thank you when he paid you or she paid you when you got your payment at two-week period or at the end of the month.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Why?
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Because you worked for it, because in a sense, that was your debt.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't grace, that wasn't a free gift.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: But to him, he continues, read with me, but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: His faith is accounted for righteousness.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Here's the person who gets righteousness.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Number one, he doesn't work.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
25:49
SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't work.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: You can't work, you don't work.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Two, he's a believer, he believes on him who justifies.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Three, the ungodly.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize you have to be ungodly?
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that the only people that Christ came to save were the lost, not the found, were the sinners, not the righteous, were the ungodly, not the godly.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the only thing you bring to your salvation is the sin from which you are saved.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: To him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Which is why the reformers called it sola fide.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Those two Latin words say those with me.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Sola fide means faith alone.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Romans 5, 1, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And here at Topeka Bible, we like to say, by grace alone, God's grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Let's say that together.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: What a blessing.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: That means no matter who you are, this is how you come to Christ.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: The anger of God rests upon you, deservedly so.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: You recognize that you're a sinner, you cry out in faith.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I see the Son, I believe in Him, I'll stop working for it.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Him who works not, but believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, and God counts your faith to you as righteousness.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: He sees your faith and then stamps you, dumps into your bank account in heaven the righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: So at that moment, you are as righteous in heaven's books as Jesus Christ is.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: And that happens by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter how old you are, doesn't matter how young you are, doesn't matter if you're Stefan Curry, who did it age 13 when he was in his church youth group, doesn't matter when I was just read a testimony last night of a woman over here at hospice who did it on her deathbed.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: It all happens the same way.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: Sin, faith, righteousness.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of chapter 5, we're in a great position to have all of these people who've now become Christians, right?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden, all of a sudden Paul recognizes what you and I have recognized.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: If you've made that decision and trusted Christ by faith, you go, well, the Christian life ain't as easy as, you know, it's not all living righteously.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: I kind of blow it.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: How in the world do I live in this body, in this dark world, as a Christian?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: And Romans chapter 6 is this amazing chapter in which Paul says we need not live the way we used to live because we're not the people we used to be.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's not exactly the way he says it, but it's nearly inspired since I put it in my commentary, so let's say it together.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: We need not live the way we used to live because we're not the people we used to be.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, how this happens is in Romans 6.1, Paul says, listen, okay, if God's grace showered upon us like the ocean when we were full of sin, and that's how we were saved, well then, he says, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And his answer is, no, of course not.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
29:26
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we need not, we must not live the way we used to live, because we're not the people we used to be.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: And the key verse here is Romans 6, 11, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Or in the old King James, have any of you ever heard of the King James Version?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: The word there wasn't count, it was a Kansas farm word, reckon yourselves dead to sin.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: I reckon, you know, and reckon, know it or not, like count is actually a word of faith.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Where you believe something that doesn't naturally appear to be so.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: As a Christian, when you're struggling with, let's say, addiction or struggling with some problem, you tend to just blurt out your anger on the golf course and bad words, or you yell at the motorist who just cut you off in traffic, or you see something with your eyes, guys, you know all about this, and and you know it's really hard to get away from.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: And so far, I mean, you know, it's really hard at that moment to believe that you're really dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, that you're not the person you used to be, but you're a brand new person in Jesus Christ, a totally different person.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to believe that, right?
30:42
SPEAKER_00: But Paul says, you know, the that victory over sin is preceded always by an awareness of identity.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: If you sit there and you go, well, this is the way I always am.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm just a guy who cusses on the golf course.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm just a guy who looks at pornography, I'm just a person who loses their temper in traffic.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: Then you're failing to look at yourself the way God looks at you.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: You're a new person in Christ.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to live the way you used to live.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: You're not an ugly duckling.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: You're actually a swan.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Remember that wonderful story by Hans Christian Anderson?
31:15
SPEAKER_00: It's this wonderful story about the eggs hatch, and the one duckling comes out and the others laugh at it because it's a different color and it's ugly.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And and and so this duckling's going through life, you know, and you know, on the outside and thinking of herself or himself as ugly and so forth, and and and and admiring ducks, and then admiring the swans across the pond when all of a sudden one day this ugly duckling looks down and realizes that she is actually, she's developed into a swan.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is such a wonderful picture of Romans 6 that Paul says, you know, Christians, you need to realize that you're not born an ugly duckling.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: You're actually born again as a swan.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: You need to look at yourself that reckon yourself to be dead to sin, a brand new person in Jesus Christ.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And then he ends this wonderful chapter by saying, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: When I walked out of the house this morning, I said, Melody, I'm I get to do uh Romans this morning.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, her first thing was checking your wreck and we'll win over sin.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Remember when Ken Berry sang that song?
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And and there was, there was this point when I did this series where we're so it's just like transforming truth about believing that you're not the person you used to be.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: That having this attitude about yourself just helps so much.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I coined this line uh one, checking your reckon, check on your reckon.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Are you really believing this?
32:47
SPEAKER_00: Checking your reckon will win over sin.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: So Ken came up, Barry, the baseball player, songwriter, book writer, came up with a song, came up and sang it on stage, uh, after which point I had to leave the Romans series for six months.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: But um, but anyway, uh a lot of fun.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: But again, again, that's uh that's so important.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: So let's say this famous verse together for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And again, this is a summary of the gospel.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: We're walking along in life, wrath of God honest, there's wages, sin is death, we're headed for hell.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: We can't get across the Grand Canyon gap to God, but the gift of God, Jesus Christ, uh, bridges that gap and gives us eternal life.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of Romans 6, you'd think again that everything is hunky-dory.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: But I picture that Paul is there and he's writing, and Paul is is suddenly realizes you know what?
33:45
SPEAKER_00: This is really, I've got to be honest about this, because even I myself have a Jekyll and hide inside me.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Even I inside, there's a dark side of the force and a light side of the force.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Even I really struggle still with sin.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And so, point number six on your sheet is believers struggle with sin and so are plagued by sin's dire consequences.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Again, we're talking about things, we're talking about addictions, we're talking about habits, we're talking about stuff, this war within that we struggle, and we cry out.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: If you're a good Christian, if you're blessed by Christ, you'll cry, you will mourn.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Blessed are those who mourn, not just about the world's sin, but about yourself.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: And you'll cry out like Paul does.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand what I do, for what I want to do, I don't do it, but what I hate, I do.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Paul found that he was doing things that he absolutely hated.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And Romans 7 is this so honest chapter that we can all identify with if we're honest.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: And he concludes, oh, what a miserable person I am.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Who will free me from this life dominated by sin and death?
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Brilliantly, he asks the question, who?
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Not what, not a list of spiritual disciplines, not a devotion a day keeps the devil away, no techniques here.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a who, isn't it?
35:05
SPEAKER_00: And the answer in Romans chapter 8 is yes, it's a who.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: It's the person of Jesus Christ, it's the Spirit of Jesus Christ living in me that delivers me every moment of every day from this.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: Point number seven, we can be saved right now from sin's bondage by the power of the Spirit of God, Romans 8.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: When we rivet our minds, it all starts in the mind, dear friends, it all starts up here.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: When we rivet our minds on spiritual things, setting our minds on things above, as we keep in step with the Spirit each day, moment by moment, shooting up flare prayers, staying in touch with the Holy Spirit, when we rivet our minds on spiritual things and present our bodies in service to God, handing over our eyes, handing over our tongue to Him, handing over our hands and our feet.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: For it is with these feet that we go where we should or shouldn't go.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: It is with these hands that we serve or do not serve.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: It is with this tongue that we speak the words that we should or shouldn't speak, it is with these eyes and with this mind that we look at and think about the things that we should or shouldn't think about, and we can be saved, Romans 8, right now from sin's bondage, by the power of the Spirit of God, by riveting our minds on spirit things and presenting our bodies in service to God.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: The key verse is verse 11.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies, this dying body of yours that traps you into your lusts and thoughts.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: He'll give life to your mortal bodies even now by the same Spirit living within you.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: But praise God, dear friend, in any event, we have the blessed assurance, Romans 8 concludes, that we can never escape God's unfailing love.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: We have the blessed assurance that we can never escape God's unfailing.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: We sang a country western song over here in the Mulvaine building this morning.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: You'll sing it next week over in the cab building if you're listening to me.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And this is a song that says, I thank God that his love never ends.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: I thank God that his love never ends.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And all the people sang, Amen.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: And we know, Paul says as he's speaking about the love of God, that God causes, say it with me, all things to work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, Romans 8.28.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: And he concludes with two of the greatest verses in the Bible, Romans 8, 38 and 39.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: For I am convinced, I am persuaded he says that, say it with me, neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: He lists one, two, three, four, five, ten things that could possibly be thought to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is death.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: And you go, no, death can't separate me from his love, because that's when I move forever into his loving presence, death nor life.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, you know what?
38:22
SPEAKER_00: No supernatural cosmic beings, no angels or demons can do it, neither angels nor principalities nor powers.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, neither time nor space can do it.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: He says, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: And then his tenth one is, nor any other created being.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Outside of God, everything is created.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: That means you, even you, cannot pluck yourselves out of God's hand.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Even you cannot separate yourself from the love of God.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: For the love of God is the bottom hand, and the the Christ Jesus our Lord is the top hand.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: The love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, with two hands surrounds you in such a way that God encloses you by his unfailing love.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: And one day will bring you home to himself.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen?
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Let's thank the Lord that even though once we were under the wrath of God, all of us completely sinful, rebels, stuck, we recognized that fact, cried out to him in faith.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: At which point he reckoned to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: He justified us.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: He declared that we're brand new creatures in him and gives us daily victory over sin by the power of the Holy Spirit.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: And one day he will bring us home to glory.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Salvation past, salvation present, salvation future.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to sing one of my favorite songs.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Our Heavenly Father, we thank you.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: That though we were once enemies of yours, though we were once subjects of your wrath with no way to get out, yet we turn to you in faith.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And you saved us, Lord, I pray for all of us that we would not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but like Paul, we would recognize that your gospel is what takes us from faith to faith and one day will bring us all the way home.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Amen.