God’s Sovereignty – Romans 9:1-29

Romans 9:1-29

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 9. As you’re finding your place let’s play a little game. I’m going to ask you a few basic geography questions and see if you can help me answer them. You ready?

Question 1

How many continents are there? (7)

Question 2

Can you name them? (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Africa, and Antarctica.)

Question 3

Does every continent have a continental divide, or just North America? (Yes, all, except Antarctica)

Question 4

What do continental divides do – besides divide continents? (They’re used to define the direction that an area’s rivers flow, in order to drain into the oceans and seas.)

Of all the continental divides around the world, ours: The Continental Divide of the Americas, also known as the Great Divide or the Western Divide, is the most well-known. It begins in Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska and the Bering Strait and travels south through Canada, the US, Mexico, Central America and South America, ending in Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Chile and Argentina. In the US, the Great Divide tiptoes across the ridge of the Rocky Mountains beginning with Wyoming, and continuing with Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and ending with New Mexico.

Now, there are two reasons for taking that little geography lesson. The first is to illustrate to one of the members of my family – whose name I won’t share, in order to protect the guilty – that geography is indeed important. This particular member of my family didn’t know that Alaska was part of the United States. I’m still wondering if the comment was made in sincerity or sarcasm. I pray it was the latter, but suspect it was the former. In either case, knowing the basics is important.

The second reason is to hopefully set in your mind the mental picture of the Rocky Mountains, in all their majestic beauty, and the idea of walking along that ridge that forms the Continental Divide and how careful one must be in order not to miss a step and fall either to the east (and thus the Atlantic) or the west (and thus the Pacific).

Someone once said that Romans 9-11 is like riding a bicycle. If you stop peddling you’ll fall over – either to one side or the other. You have to keep peddling in order to stay upright. The reason I say that is because the doctrines of God’s sovereignty and Man’s free will are BOTH realities that are taught in the Bible. In fact, both of them show up in these chapters of Romans. (I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself but that’s ok.)

For instance, if you look at Romans 9:10-13, Paul is using the story of Isaac and Rebekah and their two boys: Jacob and Esau as an illustration of God’s sovereign election. Listen to what he says, “Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad – in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by Him [God] who calls – she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” God’s divine election couldn’t be more clearly proclaimed. Often times we say things like, “Show it to me in black and white.” Well, there you have it.

But now, hang on with me, and look at Romans 10:8-9. In the very next chapter Paul is talking about the gospel – the Good News of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection – and listen to what he says, “the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Hold on. Wait a minute, Paul. What do you mean “if you…?” You just made the argument for God’s divine election. If that’s true, there is no “if you…” there’s only “you will…” But that’s not what you just said. Do you see, now, why I stand before you this morning in fear and trembling?

So, truth number one. God’s sovereignty is a biblical reality. God’s divine election is a biblical reality.

Truth number two. You and I are not robots. God, in His infinite wisdom, created men/women with an ability to make choices (good/bad), and we are held responsible for those choices.

So, here’s the issue… This is the reason that Christendom has been divided on this issue. Are you read? How! How do these two biblical realities go together? That’s the question. That’s the issue at the heart of a lot (not all, but a lot) of our theological conflict. So, do you want to hear my answer to how we reconcile these two seemingly irreconcilable doctrines? Flip over to Romans 11:33-36:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.

You say, “Now wait a second, pastor. That’s not an answer.” Well, it might not be the answer you wanted, but it’s Paul’s answer, and it’s my answer. “So, what are you saying, pastor? That we should just throw our hands up in the air and say ‘que sera sera’ – whatever will be, will be?” No, I’m simply trying to encourage you to be in awe of our great God and King, the Lord, Jesus Christ. Because, as we move through these next three chapters (and indeed all of your life) you’re going to want to come back to this conclusion time and time again.

Now, we could call it a day and go home. Some of you would like that, wouldn’t you? But alas, it’s my job and my duty – to the One who called me to the ministry – to faithfully proclaim and teach His holy Word to His church. So, in the few moments we have left (all of that was introduction) we’re going to quickly look at chapter 9.

Now, again, remember that chapter 9, 10, and 11 all belong together. They’re a unit. It’s a brief aside. As my preaching professor, Dr. Wayne Stacey, always used to say, “Let me drop a footnote here.” This is Paul’s footnote concerning Israel and God’s plan of salvation. And in chapter 9 Paul’s point to his people, to his kinsmen, to the Jew that’s scratching his head trying to understand salvation by grace through faith is this: God’s plan has always worked this way. That’s the point of Romans 9 – to show the Jews that God’s plan of salvation was always based on God’s free gift of grace.

The Gospel Has Always Been Based On Election

Even as far back at Abraham, God’s good news of salvation (the gospel) has always been the outworking of God’s choice. In Romans 9:6-9 all that Paul does is remind the Jews of their family’s story: God made a promise with Abraham to give him a son, right? Yes. But Abraham and Sarah were too quick to help God out and so you have Ishmael, who’s born to Hagar. That’s the point of verse 7, “and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’”

Paul is basically saying, “Hey, fellow Jews, listen, even with Isaac and Ishmael – Abraham’s two boys – it was God’s choice. It was God’s divine election at work. God’s child, God’s choice was Isaac, not Ishmael.”

But Paul continues the story in verses 10-13, and this is where the genius of the Holy Spirit, working through Paul, comes out. See, Paul knows his fellow Jews all too well. He knows that the Isaac/Ishmael comparison only proved that salvation was not made on the basis of lineage. You can almost hear one of his Jewish friends saying, “Oh, I see. I can’t punch my ticket to heaven just because I’m a descendant of Abraham and Isaac.”

Today’s modern equivalent would be, “It’s not the children of Christian parents who are Christians; it’s those who have personally embraced Christ as Savior and Lord who are Christians.” So, Paul’s fellow Jew says (and perhaps even you), “Well, surely, I punch my ticket, then, based on what I do?” Surely salvation is based on what someone does, right? So, Paul moves to the story of Isaac and Rebekah, and their two boys: the womb-mates, the twins, Jacob and Esau. Paul’s whole point here is to prove that merit and works have nothing to do with God’s sovereign plan of election.

Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad – in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by Him who calls – she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

God, through the Apostle Paul, says, nope. Merit and works; doing enough “good” things to outweigh the “bad” things doesn’t factor in either. These two boys hadn’t even been born. They hadn’t DONE anything, and yet God, of His own choosing, in order to accomplish His own purposes, chose Jacob and didn’t choose Esau.

By the way, that’s what is meant with the love/hate language of verse 13. Hate doesn’t mean what we tend to think it means. You say, “How do you know that, pastor.” Because Jesus uses the same exact word in the same context in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be My disciple” (NIV). Jesus isn’t telling us to hate our family, although He uses the word for “hate.” The meaning is to “love less,” to make a “choice in favor of one over the other.” That’s what Paul says God did with Jacob. God chose Jacob over Esau.

So far, using Israel’s own family tree, Paul has demonstrated that God’s plan of salvation has always been based on election. And Paul knows that this isn’t really sitting well with his Jewish friends (or the American spirit of independence and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps thinking). So, he moves to answer the charge that he knows is coming. You know what that charge is? You hear it in every corner of society: “That’s not…fair.”

The Gospel Has Always Been Based On Justice And Mercy

This is how the New Living Translation renders verse 14, “Are we saying, then, that God was unfair? Of course not!” God is ALWAYS fair. He’s ALWAYS just. How do we know this? Because His sovereign election is ALWAYS based on mercy. The gospel has always been based on justice and mercy.

This is so interesting. You don’t need to turn there, but mark down Romans 3:5 next to Romans 9:14. In Romans 2-3 Paul has been talking about the sinfulness of mankind and how God (as the supreme Judge) is faithful (i.e. fair) in condemning sinners, and he sarcastically says that people will find fault with that. “It’s not fair that God condemns sinners.” That’s my paraphrase of Romans 3:5; and over here in Romans 9, Paul has been talking about God saving sinners and what’s the argument now? “That’s not fair.”

Isn’t that exactly what our world says today. It’s not fair that God is the judge. It’s not fair that sinners are condemned to hell. It’s not fair that God saves based on His divine sovereignty. It’s not fair. God’s not fair. Listen folks, the same man that wrote Romans (via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) is the same man that wrote these words to Timothy, “The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3).

What I’m trying to preach to you this morning (election, justice, mercy) are not easy things to preach. Preaching the truth of God’s Word has never been easy. Mainly because the truth is often uncomfortable. Of course, you wouldn’t know that by listening to many sermons today. Messages that tell people there’s no need to repent. Sermons that stroke our egos and tell us that we’re basically good; that God is too loving to judge anyone; that the cross, with all its blood, is not really necessary; and that God wants His children to be healthy, wealthy, and content in this world.

That’s what itching ears want to hear. Don’t wrestle with Romans 9 and God’s sovereignty and justice and mercy. That’s too divisive. That’s too hard. That’s too messy. Indeed, it truly has been and can be, but we are not at liberty to ignore it. Thus, we move forward.

In order to illustrate that the gospel has always been based on justice and mercy, Paul, once again, takes his Jewish audience (and you and me) back to the Old Testament to remind them of God’s words to Moses (vss. 15ff), “For [God] says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

We don’t typically have any trouble understanding mercy, so long as we’re the recipients. If someone else is about to receive mercy, that’s when we get a little antsy. In those cases what we want isn’t mercy, we want justice. And so, to show us that the gospel has always been based on God’s justice, Paul turns to another episode in the national life of Israel: Pharaoh. “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So, then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills.”

How does God harden someone’s heart? That’s the question. We know that hearts are hardened. But how? Does God intrude into the lives of otherwise holy and righteous people to sow seeds of evil, to create wickedness? No, remember Romans 3:23, “There is no one righteous, not even one…” God is not the author of evil or sin. So, no, God’s doesn’t create evil and wickedness and hardness in Pharaoh’s heart.

Rather, are you ready? God hardens Pharaoh’s heart by simply removing the restraints of His grace and mercy and “giving him over” to the evil that’s already present. See if any of this rings a bell: “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity… For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions… And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

If that sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because those words come directly from Romans 1 where Paul describes the sinfulness of human hearts. If you want to see people be worse than they already are, then just wait until God removes the restraints of His grace and mercy. He doesn’t need to create any evil or wickedness or sin in Pharaoh’s heart. It’s already there. All God does is give Pharaoh the room to do what Pharaoh has already determined in His heart to do.

But this argument, by Paul, also brings an objection of “That’s not fair.” And this leads to the last stance that Paul takes in chapter 9, as he share the good news with his Jewish friends, and that is the gospel has always been based on God’s sovereignty.

The Gospel Has Always Been Based On God’s Sovereignty

Before Paul gives an answer to this latest objection, notice what he does. He makes a moral appeal to remember who we are and who God is, “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?” Doesn’t this remind you of another man in the Bible – a guy named Job? Job was the victim of so much injustice at the hands of men and of Satan. Job was the epitome of someone who was afflicted without relief, when finally, he raised his fist against heaven and shook it in the face of God and screamed, “WHY, GOD?”

God answered Job by looking at Job and saying, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.” And then we read chapter after chapter of questions, “Can you loosen the cords of Orion?” “Nope.” “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south?” “Nope.” “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?” “No, no, no, no…” Four chapters of this.

And finally, Job says, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ [you asked. It was me.] I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. [You said,] ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ [O God,] I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore, I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Paul draws on the imagery of a potter and his clay. “Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? In the same way, even though God has the right to show His anger and His power, He is very patient with those on whom His anger falls, who are destined for destruction. He does this to make the riches of His glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory. And we are among those whom He selected, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles.” (Romans 9:20-24, NLT).

What’s the point of Job’s response and Paul’s response? Even when we struggle, even when we don’t fully comprehend the mystery of God’s sovereign will, may it not lead us to blasphemy. Let us remember who’s will we’re talking about. Going back to the previous question: Is there unrighteousness in God? Don’t even ask it. Even though at times it seems like it. What we should understand more clearly than any other thing we’ve talked about today is the absolute integrity and righteousness of Almighty God.

Let me conclude with two quotes that I find tremendously helpful when considering God’s sovereignty and divine election. The first is from American evangelist D. L. Moody back in the 1800’s. He said, “Lord, save the elect, and then elect some more.” And the second is from American congregationalist clergyman, Henry Ward Beecher, from around the same time period. (If his name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you recognize his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852.) Listen to how Henry Beecher summed this up, “The elect of God are the whosoever will, and the non-elect are the whosoever won’t.”

If you know Jesus, today, as your personal Lord and Savior. If you’ve confessed your sin to Him, repented of your sin and asked Him to forgive you and reconcile you to the Father, then rejoice, knowing that God chose you before the foundations of the world.

If you’ve never responded to the call of God, to the movement of the Holy Spirit, today is the day to discover that you, too, are numbered among God’s elect. Would you receive the free gift of God’s grace and be made new?

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video

New Life in the Spirit (Part 2) – Romans 8:18-39

Romans 8:18-39

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me (again) to Romans 8. Some of you are thinking, “Gee, pastor, this is the third week that we’ve been in this chapter. Can’t we move on?” Listen, we will, I promise. But as I said three weeks ago when we came to this chapter, this is such a mighty chapter. I know a pastor that spent 30 weeks (that’s over half a year’s worth of Sundays) preaching from this one chapter alone. I also had the privilege of being taught by Dr. Derek Thomas, who took a group of pastors through this chapter in 12 weeks. So hang in there with me just a little longer.

John was raised in Antioch, a leading intellectual town of late antiquity, by his widowed mother, Anthusa. She was a pious Christian woman, and at her encouragement he entered into the monastery after his education. He quickly rose through the ranks of the early church (from lector to deacon to priest), and eventually found himself as the archbishop of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, Turkey).

His eloquent and uncompromising preaching earned him the nickname “golden mouth.” That nickname, in the Greek, is the word chrysostoma, and it’s the name that has forever been tied to him. John Chrysostom preached against the excesses of his day. He railed against the abuse of authority by church leaders and political leaders alike. As you can imagine, that didn’t earn him any favor with the Roman emperor, who threatened him with banishment if he remained a Christian. Listen to how this went down, according to one historian of the time:

“You cannot banish me; for this world is my Father’s house,” replied John.

“Well, then, I will kill you,” said the emperor.

“No, you can’t; for my life is hidden with Christ in God.”

“Fine, then, I will take away your treasures.”

“You can’t do that either, for my treasure is in heaven and my heart is there too.”

“Then I guess the only thing left is to drive you away from man and you shall have no friends left.”

“No, you can’t; for I have a friend in heaven from whom you cannot separate me. I dare you; for there is nothing that you can do to hurt me.”

John Chrysostom was a bit of a booger, wouldn’t you say? In my house (to use nice words) we call that “being feisty.” Either way, John Chrysostom understood what the Apostle Paul wanted the believers in Rome (and you and me) to know: once you’re liberated from the condemnation of sin and death, you’re truly free. Nothing else matters – not geography, not possessions, not relations, not even life and death. When condemnation and judgment is lifted from your shoulders, you gain the mental, emotional, and spiritual freedom that you were created to live in.

It’s so counter-intuitive, I know. But when you know Jesus Christ, when you’ve confessed your sin, when you’ve repented of your rebellion against the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and you’ve freely accepted the gift of His amazing grace, then, by the power of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you’re able to endure anything and everything because you have the most precious gift of all – a personal relationship with God through Christ.

As always, there are three things that I want us to see this morning. But because we’re covering so much ground today, we’re not going to read all of this scripture at once. I’m going to break this up into three segments and highlight what the new life in the Spirit is based on. Follow along with me (in your Bible or on the screens), as I read vss. 18-25

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

The first thing I want us to see is that our new life in Christ, our new life empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit is based on the promises of God.

New Life in the Spirit: Based on the Promises of God

And the first promise mentioned in these verses is future glory. Look at verse 18, again. This is such a powerful promise. “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Seeing beauty and greatness is one of the passionate desires and deep longings that was built into the human heart by our Creator. Think about it. We get pleasure from seeing beauty and greatness in movies and museums and world-class sporting events and art galleries and concerts and automobiles the Grand Canyon and the Rockies and the ocean and sunrises and night skies. Seeing beauty and greatness is a huge part of our joy in life.

Charles Allen, in his little book Home Fires: A Treasury of Wit and Wisdom writes, “A little girl was taking an evening walk with her father. Wonderingly, she looked up at the stars and exclaimed; ‘Oh, Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be!’” Isn’t that right. All of these earthly things are images, and reflections, and pointers to a greater beauty and a greater greatness. They all point to the glory of God.

Seeing the glory of heaven, and more importantly, the glory of the Father and the Son will bring an end to our quest for beauty and greatness. This is why Jesus prayed for us the way he did in John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory that You have given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

This was the greatest thing Jesus could’ve prayed for on our behalf. It was the climax of His prayer. Seeing the glory of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the best gift Jesus could pray that we would receive after suffering in this life. And this suffering isn’t just suffering for being a Christian. This is suffering of any and all kinds. Why do I believe that?

Just look at the next several verses. The entire creation (vs. 19) waits with eager anticipation, the creation itself (vs. 21) will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and the whole creation (vs. 22) has been groaning. No more destructive tornadoes or hurricanes or floods or droughts or plagues or diseases or accidents or harmful animals or insects or viruses.

The prophecy of Isaiah 65:17 will come to pass: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” And the prophecy of Revelation 21:1-5 will come to pass as well, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more… He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

If you’re suffering this morning (and I know there are many who are), let me encourage you to hang on. Because that leads to the second promise mentioned in these verses – the redemption of our bodies (vs. 23). I ought to get a hearty AMEN out of this crowd, Amen? Every church, but especially this one, is acquainted with broken down bodies – bodies that just don’t work right any more. Whether you’re battling the effects of MS or ALS or cancer or Alzheimer’s or impaired vision or just plain old sanity, one day, we’re all going to look back and wonder how we could’ve every felt so ‘at home’ in a world so full of groaning. Listen to how Paul describes this in another one of his letters:

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:51-55)

One day, all the walkers and crutches and wheelchairs will be put to pasture. All the medications and ointments and therapies will be stopped. For we “[know] that He who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with [Him]” (2 Corinthians 4:14).

Ok, let’s give our attention to verses 26-30.

²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. ²⁷ And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.

Our new life in the spirit isn’t only based on promises, but on the purposes of God.

New Life in the Spirit: Based on the Purposes of God

In his book, Future Grace, retired pastor and theologian John Piper (who, by the way, grew up in Greenville, SC and graduated from my wife and mother-in-law’s alma mater, Wade Hampton High School) described Romans 8:28 this way:

If you live inside this massive promise, your life is more solid and stable than Mount Everest.

Nothing can blow you over when you are inside the walls of Romans 8:28. Outside Romans 8:28, all is confusion and anxiety and fear and uncertainty. Outside this promise of God’s all-encompassing future grace, there are straw houses of drugs and pornography and dozens of futile diversions. There are slat walls and tin roofs of fragile investment strategies and fleeting insurance coverage and trivial retirement plans. There are cardboard fortifications of deadbolt locks and alarm systems and antiballistic missiles. Outside are a thousand substitutes for Romans 8:28.

Once you walk through the door of love into the massive, unshakable structure of Romans 8:28, everything changes. There come into your life stability and depth and freedom. You simply can’t be blown over anymore. The confidence that a sovereign God governs for your good all the pain and all the pleasure that you will ever experience is an incomparable refuge and security and hope and power in your life.

When God’s people really live by the future grace of Romans 8:28 – from measles to the mortuary – they are the freest and strongest and most generous people in the world.

Our new life in the Spirit is based on God’s good purposes for our lives, and that includes suffering. The suffering of verse 17 and groaning of verse 23. When we find ourselves in trying circumstances in life, we can know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. And verses 29-30 explain what God’s purpose is in His calling to salvation, and how it’s accomplished.

First, the purpose: that there might be many who would be conformed to the likeness of His Son. God wasn’t satisfied to have a family with an “only child.” Rather, since the “fall” of mankind, it’s been His purpose to redeem a family for Himself. Second, His method: from our perspective, God adopted us as spiritual orphans into His family, so that His Son . . . might be the firstborn among many brothers. That’s the metaphor for what God did behind the scenes to accomplish His purpose.

While these passages have generated much heated discussion and split churches over the years, there’s one key element which, if overlooked, gives rise to confusion, but if observed, gives focus. That key element is God Himself: God has a purpose (v. 28), God foreknew (v. 29), God predestined (v. 29), God called (v. 30), God justified (v. 30), and God glorifies (v. 30). This is all about God, not man! God is the adopter, humans are the adopted. God is the designer, engineer and One who accomplishes His salvation purposes in the earth, quite apart from the interference and influence of men and women.

How should that make us feel? Well, the answer is in our final section of scripture (vss. 31-39).

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Our new life in the Spirit is based on the PROMISES of God, the PURPOSES of God, and finally, the PROTECTION of God.

New Life in the Spirit: Based on the Protection of God

As we saw last week, the point of this whole passage is your security. God wants His people to experience deep, unshakeable confidence that they are secure in His love. And the reason that Paul stresses it is because in real life we appear and often feel so insecure. At some point in your life – things will happen that make you feel like you’re separated from the love of God. That’s why this text is here.

Neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. When Christ died He secured us in death and in life. Nothing in life and nothing in death will undo the triumph He achieved in the cross and the resurrection.

Neither angels nor rulers can separate us from the love of God. Martin Luther’s famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God says it best: The Prince of Darkness grim – we tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure – One little word shall fell him.

The present-future pair covers our fear that though the present might be tolerable now, the future is going to be horrible, and we wonder if we will be able to stand it. The future is absolutely God’s and He knows it and runs it. If He says it won’t separate us, it won’t.

Paul’s use of height and depth is akin to David’s words in Psalm 137, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.”

Then, at the end of verse 39, Paul adds one all-inclusive encouragement to make sure he hasn’t missed anything: “. . . [no] other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That covers everything that is not God. No thing and no person in all the universe can separate us from the love of God.

Let me conclude, if I may, with a brief story about Lisa Beamer. You know Lisa. She’s the widow of Todd Beamer, who was one of the 40 people murdered aboard United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. As you may know, she wrote a book titled Let’s Roll: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage, to help her in the grieving process.

In 2002 (just before her book was released), WORLD Magazine – which is a Christian news publication – interviewed Lisa. I want you to hear what new life in the Spirit sounds like.

“My family and I mourned the loss of Todd deeply that day . . . and we still do. But because we have a hope in the Lord, we know beyond a doubt that one day we will see Todd again. I hurt for the people who don’t have that same hope, and I pray that they will see something in our family that will encourage them to trust in the Lord.”

Lisa’s way of encouraging people to trust in the Lord is sometimes so straightforward that Newsweek magazine called it “stern and even a little grim.” She wrote in her memoir, “You think you deserve a happy life and get angry when it doesn’t always happen like that. In fact, you’re a sinner and deserve only death. The fact that God has offered you hope of eternal life is amazing! You should be overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.”

With hundreds of others, she attended the memorial service in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at the crash site where her husband died. The Christ-exalting memorial service for Todd had been on Sunday, the day before, and had strengthened her. “On Monday,” she said, “as I listened to the well-intentioned speakers, who were doing their best to comfort, but with little, if any, direct reference to the power of God to sustain us, I felt I was sliding helplessly down a high mountain into a deep crevasse. As much as I appreciated the kindness of the wonderful people who tried to encourage us, that afternoon was actually one of the lowest points in my grieving. It wasn’t the people, or event, or the place. Instead, it struck me how hopeless the world is when God is factored out of the equation.”

So, with Lisa Beamer, the apostle Paul, and Jesus Christ Himself, I plead with you: don’t factor God out of your life or Jesus Christ who died and rose and reigns and intercedes for all who trust Him that we might have eternal joy with Him in the presence of God.

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video

God’s Everlasting Love – Romans 8:31-39

Romans 8:31-39

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me again to Romans 8. If you’re like me this 4^th of July weekend, you’ve been looking at America wondering if there’s any hope. COVID-19 was bad enough (and still is, by the way), and the racial divide continues to grow. Fear abounds. Confusion abounds. Frustration and anger abound. So how should I strengthen your hope this morning?

Should I try to strengthen your hope politically, and comfort you that America is durable and will come together in great bipartisan unity and prove that the democratic system is strong and unshakable?
Should I try to strengthen your hope militarily, and comfort you that America’s military and police force is unsurpassed and can turn back any destructive force against the nation?
Should I try to strengthen your hope financially, and comfort you that when the market opens on Monday there will be stability and long-term growth to preserve the value of all your investments?
Should I try to strengthen your hope geographically, and comfort you that you live in northern Greenville County, far from the major political and military and financial targets that protestors and enemies might choose?
Should I try to strengthen your hope psychologically, and send you to a self-help website so that you can read about “individuals with strong coping skills . . . maintain a view of self as competent . . . and avoid regretting past decisions”?

Of course, the answer to those questions is a resounding “NO!” For none of them is true.

The American political system is not imperishable.
The American military and police cannot protect us from every destructive force.
The financial future is not certain. In fact, you may lose your investments.
Northern Greenville County and The Cliffs is not immune from disease and domestic and international terrorism, which may be more pervasive and deadlier in the future.
Psychological efforts to feel competent and avoid regret are not healing, but fatal.

So, no, I won’t contradict my calling as a minister of the gospel by trying to strengthen your hope in those ways. Instead, I want to strengthen your hope with these words:

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the One who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Beloved, listen to me this morning. Your steady, solid hope this morning is that if you will trust Christ as your precious Savior and your supremely-valued King, then you will be folded into the love of God in a way that no terrorist, no torture, no demons, no disasters, no disease, no man, no microbe, no government, and no grave can destroy. That’s the hope of this text. That’s the hope of the Christian life. Folks, we don’t put our hope in politics, military, finances, geography, psychology or anything else. Our hope is found in a blood-bought, Spirit-wrought, Christ-exalting, God-centered, fear-destroying, death-defeating Lord and His name is JESUS!

Five times, here, in Romans 8, the apostle Paul has asked questions to draw out the amazing privileges of belonging to Jesus Christ. Verse 31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Verse 32: “How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” Verse 33: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” Verse 34: “Who is to condemn?” And finally, in verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

The answers are so plain and so wonderful that Paul lets us supply the answers ourselves and rejoice in them. Verse 31: “No one can be successfully against us.” Verse 32: “God will supply everything we need.” Verse 33: “No one can make a charge stick against us in the court of heaven.” Verse 34: “No one can condemn us.” And verse 35: “No one and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.”

And what makes this text so relevant today, on this 4^th of July weekend, is that Paul spells out the kinds of things that cannot separate us from the love of Christ, and they’re the sort of things that we’ve been experiencing in 2020: “Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus!

In the precious few moments that we have left. Let’s consider three ways Christ loves us.

Christ’s Moment-by-Moment Love

Jesus is loving us now. At this exact moment, in this worship service on July 5, 2020, Jesus is loving you.

A husband/wife might say of their deceased spouse: “Nothing will separate me from his/her love.” Typically, what’s meant by that statement is that the memory of that person’s love will be sweet and powerful all their lives. But that’s not what Paul means here. In verse 34 it says plainly, “Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

The reason Paul can say that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus is because Christ is alive and is still loving us now. He’s at the right hand of God. He’s ruling for us. He’s interceding for us, which means He’s seeing to it that His finished work of redemption does, in fact, save us hour-by-hour and bring us safely to eternal joy. His love is not a memory. It’s a moment-by-moment action of the omnipotent, living Son of God, to bring us to everlasting joy.

Larry doesn’t know this, but when I first got here to Mountain Hill and listened to his prayers I always felt a little uneasy. Not because his prayers weren’t genuine. They were and they are. It was because (and maybe some of you have noticed this too) his customary conclusion is “…and save us in Jesus’ name.”

Now, see, the theologian in me was struggling a little bit because the reality is this: if you’re trusted in Christ, if you’ve confessed your sin and accepted the free gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus, then you’re saved (period, end of story). And there was a part of me that wanted to pull Larry to the side and kind of gently remind him of this. But thanks to prayer and the counsel of the Holy Spirit I didn’t and haven’t, and this is precisely why.

Yes, theologically, I’m correct. The moment you trust Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins you’re saved. But, theologically, Larry’s right too. Not only is salvation a one-time event from the human side of eternity, but it’s an ongoing event from God’s side of eternity whereby Christ’s moment-by-moment love is poured out into our lives.

Christ’s Particular Love

This love of Christ is effective in protecting us from separation, and therefore is not a universal love for all, but a particular love for His people – those who, according to Romans 8:28, “love God and . . . are called according to His purpose.”

This is the love of Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.” It’s Christ’s love for the Church – His bride. Yes, Jesus has a general love for all people. That’s why He came, and lived, and died for mankind. But, He has a special, saving, preserving love for His bride. And you know you’re a part of that bride if you’ve trusted Christ. Anyone (no exceptions) who trusts Christ can say, “I’m a part of His bride, His church, His called and chosen ones – the ones who verse 35 says are kept and protected forever no matter what.”

Christ’s Preserving Love

This is Jesus’ omnipotent, effective, protecting love. And we need to make a distinction here. Notice, that this preserving love doesn’t spare us from calamities in this life, but it does (and will) bring us safely to everlasting joy with God.

Paul makes this crystal clear in verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” And some believers have been tempted to say, “Oh, but what he means is that God will not let these things happen to His bride.” Two things prove that this is not the case.

One is the reference to death in verse 38: “Neither death nor life . . . will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” Death will happen to us. Physical death is coming for each of us, to be sure, but it won’t separate us. So, when Paul says in verse 35 that the “sword” will not separate us from the love of Christ, what he means is that even if we ARE killed we won’t be separated from the love of Christ.

The other proof that this preserving love doesn’t mean that we won’t suffer is verse 36, where Paul quotes Psalm 44:22 and applies it to himself and Christians in general, “As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’” This means that martyrdom is normal Christianity.

It’s happening all over the world. Those that were here for Secret Church last week were reminded of our brothers/sisters in Pakistan, Nepal, Sudan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Yemen, North Korea and so many other countries for whom suffering and death and calamity is REAL. It’s estimated that 164,000 Christians will die this year because of their faith. This is what Paul has in mind. And it’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for My name’s sake” (Luke 21:16–17).

Folks, here me; our country with its relatively peaceful and tolerant approach to living and faith is an anomaly. It is utterly unlike many places in the rest of the world, and that should drive us to greater and greater care for the persecuted church (Hebrews 13:3).

So, the sum of the matter in verse 35 is this: Jesus Christ is mightily loving His people with omnipotent, moment-by-moment love that does not always rescue us from calamity but preserves us for everlasting joy in His presence even through suffering and death.

What does Romans 8 have to do with today? What’s the application for July 5, 2020, with the political and racial turmoil that we’re experiencing here in America? Well, over and over again in the Bible, the love of God for us is the root of our love for each other. The reality is that if we don’t rest in the love of God for us, we won’t be able to love each other. For example, Jesus said in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

His love for us is first, and ours is an echo of it. “This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12–13)

His love for us is before and under our love for each other. And it’s a deep, deep, unshakable Calvary love. “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.” (Ephesians 4:32–5:1)

All true love begins with this: God in Christ loved us and forgave us. “In this is love, not that we loved God [or even each other], but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10–11)

As we prepare to take the Lord’s Table together… As we prepare to celebrate this love that gave Himself for us… Have you incorporated the love of Christ, have you been so filled with the love of God in Christ that it shows, that people hear it from you, that people sense it in you? I want you to think about and reflect upon how YOU are doing sharing and showing the love of Christ in America today, as you listen to this song.

The Greatest of These

(by Larnelle Harris)

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong – a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move the mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; it does not envy, does not boast; it is not proud 5 it is not rude. It is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrong. 6 Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put my childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror, but then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love. The greatest of this is love.

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video

New Life in the Spirit (Part 1) – Romans 8:1-17

Romans 8:1-17

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 8. We use degrees of intensity, every day, when we talk and yet we probably don’t give any thought to their official labels. For example, we say that we’re “happy.” That’s the absolute degree. Then we say that we’re “happier” than the next fellow. That’s the comparative degree. Finally, we say that we’re the “happiest.” That’s the superlative degree.

Now, with some things, it’s easy to assign one of these three labels. Take buildings for instance. When it was completed in 1931, the Empire State Building was the world’s tallest building at 1,250 feet. It was tall, taller, and tallest (all at the same time). But today, it’s only tall. In fact, the Empire State Building barely cracks the top 50 (at 49) of the world’s tallest buildings. Presently, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates is the tallest at 2,717 feet (more than ½ mile).

When we’re talking about concrete and steel it’s fairly easy to slap a label on it. But let’s adjust the terms a little bit and talk about good, better, and best. Ah, now we’ve moved from the objective to the subjective. Which of the world’s tallest buildings is the “best” building? In that case, you should probably bring your lunch and prepare to stay a while.

What if we move the discussion from buildings to books? Which of the books of the Bible would you say is the greatest? Which chapter? Which verse? Which word or phrase? Sure, we can look at the Bible using objective measurements (longest/shortest books, chapters, and verses), but applying subjective measures in more difficult.

I’m reminded of a story told by American theologian and Bible teacher, James Montgomery Boice. Dr. Boice had more degrees than a thermometer, and he recalled an occasion where he anointed Romans 8 as the greatest chapter of the Bible during a sermon, only to have one of his parishioners catch him at the door and tell him that he’d already given that distinction to Hosea 3 in a sermon a few years earlier. Dr. Boice, thinking quickly, fell back on a sentiment offered by renowned British minister, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, said, “Ah, yes, but the greatest book of the Bible should always be the one studied or taught at the moment.”

The reason I mention all of this gradation of degrees and the subjectivity of determining great, greater, and greatest is because we’ve arrived at the chapter of Scripture that many call the greatest, which is part of the book that many call the greatest, and which contains the verse that many call the greatest.

Philipp Jakob Spener was a German Lutheran theologian of the late 1600’s who said, “if the Bible was a ring and the Book of Romans its precious stone, chapter 8 would be the sparkling point of the jewel.” Dr. Charles Trumbull, long-time editor of The Sunday School Times perhaps said it best, “The eighth of Romans has become peculiarly precious to me, beginning with ‘no condemnation,’ ending with ‘no separation’ and in between, ‘no defeat.’”

With that, we come to what may be called the inspirational highlight of the Book of Romans. In this chapter we find Paul swept along in a wave of spiritual exaltation that begins with God’s provision of the Holy Spirit for victory over the old nature. He then breaks through the sufferings that mark our present existence, and he ends with a doxology of praise to the unfathomable love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. And I believe that’s one of the reasons that so many people love this portion of Scripture – because it addresses our greatest need: protection, security and safety.

Paul has just succeeded, in Romans 6-7 of stripping away two appealing sources of security for us: sin and legalism. Many people go in one direction and define themselves by their sin. Others go in the opposite direction and define themselves by their attempts at perfection. But the majority of us are somewhere in the middle. And Paul has told us that we can, by dying to sin (Romans 6) and to the law (Romans 7), have a new identity in Jesus Christ. Now, that sounds good in theory but it needs to be fleshed out for practice, and that’s the purpose of Romans 8.

Follow along with me as I read Romans 8:1-17.

¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

¹² So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. ¹³ For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

These first 17 verses of Romans 8 detail three freedoms that believers, who have died to sin and the law, have by way of the Spirit, and the first is…

Freedom From Condemnation

Romans 1–7 lays it all out: holy God, sinful man, coming wrath, perfect Savior, Jesus Christ crucified and risen, justification by faith, and sanctification by faith. And now Paul sums up the message of Christianity in the great conclusion of Romans 8:1: “Therefore [in view of all that, in light of chapters 1-7] there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

That’s the essence of Christianity. That’s the central, foundational message of God to the world. This is what we announce. This is what we plead. This is what we lay down our lives to communicate to the nations, to our neighbors, and to ourselves: no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

In keeping with our grammar lesson for today, did you know that the word “now” can have two different connotations? The first is the way that most of us read this passage – finally, everything is in place, everything has been done, finally, now I can receive what I was promised.

It’s like a grandfather who sends a package to his granddaughter and says, “Do not open until your birthday.” Every day the little girl says, “Now? Can I open it now?” “No, not now. Only on your birthday.” When it comes then she says, “Finally, now!” The “now” in that case comes after waiting.

But the other nuance for “now” is the now that comes before you thought it would. Let’s take that same grandfather. This time he writes to his son and sends him a $5,000 check and says, “Son, you know that someday you will inherit my estate. But I know that now is when you need it the most, so I am sending you this in advance.” In this case the “now” is not “finally now,” but, “already now.”

Both of these meanings are found in Romans 8. Look at verse 3, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned [there’s the word!] sin in the flesh.”

So, here’s the “finally now” version. All those many years the law commanded, and the law condemned law-breakers, and the law pointed to a righteousness and a sacrifice that would someday come, but the law wasn’t able to remove condemnation from sinners. If there was to come a time when sinners could experience “no condemnation!” – when the ungodly could be justified by faith – then God would have to do something besides give a law. And what He did was send His Son in human nature, as our representative and substitute and there on the cross in the suffering of His Son, God condemned sin!

That’s the gospel. That’s Christianity. All of us were under God’s condemnation because of our sin. But, as Romans 5:6 says, “While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” In Romans 8:3 we see what it means that Christ died for the ungodly. It means that God poured out on His Son the condemnation that we deserved. He condemned sin (my sin!) in the flesh (Christ’s flesh!). Therefore… finally… now… there is no condemnation. Now, everything has been done in order to absorb the wrath of God. Now, finally, there is no condemnation. That’s the “finally now” version.

But what about the “already now” version? Look at Romans 8:33–34. Paul looks to the future. He considers the fact that the final judgment is yet to come. And on the way to it, there are many days when our adversary, the devil, will try to deceive us and blind us and accuse us and swallow us up in feelings of guilt. So, Paul uses the “already now” version of no condemnation: “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns [there’s the word!]? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”

So, here, we not only have the backward look to remind us that Christ has died and become our condemnation, but the forward look to remind us that, even though there’s a judgment coming, and we will sometimes tremble at the thought of it, nevertheless, already now there is no condemnation.

We don’t have to wait for the final inheritance to know what our portion will be. “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” In that last day when your whole life, when my whole life – with all its Romans 7 imperfections is spread before us – this alone will be our hope: “It is God who justifies . . . it is Christ Jesus who died . . . who was raised . . . who intercedes.”

The verdict of the last judgment was given at Calvary: Not guilty! No condemnation! Finally, now, yes! Already, now, yes! This is the heart of Christianity. This is the gift of God.

But notice, it’s only for those “who are in Christ Jesus.” Some are in Him and some are not. Paul assumes this everywhere in his writings. There are those “in Christ” and there are those “outside.” Make no mistake, Paul is not a universalist. He says explicitly in Romans 9:3, with grief, that there are those who are “accursed, separated from Christ.” Where are you? In Christ? Or separated from Christ?

Only by being in Christ does Christ’s condemnation become your condemnation. If you want to be able to say now and at the last judgment, “There is no condemnation for me, because Jesus endured it for me,” then you must be “in Jesus.” If you’re in Him, what happened to Him, happened to you. If you’re not in Him, if you’re separated from Him, then you have no warrant for saying that what happened to Him happened to you.

There are some that say, “Ah, yes, but He died for the whole world. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Yes, indeed. And what that means is that there is infinite room in Jesus. As John Piper says “Christ is not a small hotel.” There’s room for everyone. And everyone is invited and commanded, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. . . . Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. . . . The one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out” (Matthew 11:28; Revelation 22:17; John 6:37).

But what if you don’t come? What if you don’t believe? What if you don’t receive the free gift? Jesus tells us in John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” The wrath of God – the condemnation of God is taken away in Christ. Not outside Christ.

So, where are you? In Christ? Or outside Christ? Free from condemnation? Or under condemnation? You don’t have to stay under condemnation. There’s room in Christ. There’s always room in Christ. And Christ’s word to every sinner is, “Come! Trust me! Enter! I will be your life, your righteousness, your pardon, because I have been your condemnation.”

The second freedom that the Christian has access to by way of the Spirit is…

Freedom From The Sinful Nature

There’s a lot that could be said about verses 5-11, but the main point today is the impact that our minds have on our freedom from the sinful nature (the flesh, as some translations have it). Beginning with verse 5, Paul mentions the “mind” (phroneó) five times. The Greek word is not exactly equivalent to our English word because the Greek word includes a visceral, an instinctual, and intuitive aspect, as well as a cognitive aspect. So, the mind that Paul is speaking about here is not just factual knowledge. It’s not just an educated mind, or an intellectual mind. It’s also a mind that is instinctually informed. It’s connected in a deep and significant way to the Spirit.

Thankfully our English translators have helped us out a little bit here, because they’ve translated “spirit” with a capital S – meaning the Holy Spirit. See, in the Greek New Testament, the word for “spirit” is pneuma and it’s not capitalized when speaking about the Holy Spirit. The spirit is the spirit, and only the context can help you determine whether the writer was speaking about our human spirit or the Holy Spirit.

So what Paul is saying here is that if we’ve been “righteousized,” if we’ve been justified, if we’ve been made right with God by grace through faith in Jesus, then our minds will be set on the things of the Holy Spirit.

You may not recognize the name John Owen. He was a contemporary of Oliver Cromwell in England during the mid-1600’s and was Vice Chancellor of Oxford University. In volume 7 of his multi-volume treatise on the Holy Spirit he writes about the duty of being spiritually minded, and he poses this weighty question: What does your mind default to when it’s not thinking about anything in particular? When you’re relaxed, when you’re just taking a break from all the other stuff going on in the world, when you’re not doing anything in particular – you’re just taking it easy – where does your mind go? Where does it revert to? And John Owen said that is a sign of the degree to which you’re growing towards a spiritual mindset.

It’s a convicting question, isn’t it? You might find, as you think more fully on it, that you’re troubled by what you find. A great deal of growing in our sanctification is about habits. Breaking old habits and starting new ones. And there are so many things about us and our daily living that are so habitual that we don’t even think about it. Take, for instance, this whole COVID situation. How many times have you touched your face today and you didn’t even realize it?

I was talking with several of you this week about Major League Baseball’s return to the field and some of the steps they’re taking to protect themselves. One of the restrictions that they’ve implemented is that pitchers aren’t allowed to lick their fingers. Now, for some you, that’s a horrible thing anyway, but if you’re a guy it’s natural (to some extent). And I was thinking about this. These professional players have been playing this sport for so long that doing these things is hardwired into who they are. Paul says that the person who has been regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit ought to be thinking about the things that the Spirit is thinking about. That’s profound. And humbling.

Listen to how much emphasis the Apostle Paul gives to our minds, when it comes to living the Christian life.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:2)

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

Now, I’m not suggesting that you can never think about things of this world, or material things, or things of the flesh. Indeed, our daily lives are lived out in this world. Rather, we ought to understand it as Corrie ten Boom did. She writes, “I have a glove here in my hand. The glove cannot do anything by itself, but when my hand is in it, it can do many things. True, it is not the glove, but my hand in the glove that acts. We are gloves. It is the Holy Spirit in us who is the hand, who does the job. We have to make room for the hand so that every finger is filled.”

Freedom from condemnation. Freedom from the Sinful Nature (the flesh) and finally…

Freedom From Abandonment

I have to give Melissa all the credit for our adoption of Jordan. At the time, adoption was the last thing on my mind. But I wouldn’t trade him for all the money in the world. He’s as much my son as Parker is. Those of you that have adopted know what I’m talking about. Of course, I’m not saying that biological children are less favored. But there’s a major difference between biological children and adoptive children and that difference is: choice. Every adoption is a conscious choice of the parents to choose the child, especially young and infant children. And that’s the way it is with God. This reality of adoption is a massive, firm, legal reality. And it’s a deep, strong, full-hearted emotional reality, too.

When the Holy Spirit is called, in verse 15, the “Spirit of adoption,” the meaning is that the Spirit confirms and makes real to you this great legal transaction of adoption. If you’ve trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior and Treasure, then you’re adopted. John 1:12 says, “To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” If you receive Christ, you are adopted.

Now to seal this and confirm it and make it experientially real to you, God sends the Spirit into our hearts. Here’s the way Paul says it in Galatians 4:5-6, “[Christ] redeemed those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” The Spirit is poured out into our hearts to confirm and make real our adoption.

How does he do that according to verse 15? He does it by replacing the fear of a slave toward a master with the love of a son toward a father. “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” We’re free from the fear of abandonment to slavery and loneliness. The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to change our slavish fears toward God into confident, happy, peaceful affection for God as our father.

If you want to know that you’re a child of God, you don’t put your ear to the Holy Spirit and wait for a whisper; put your ear to the gospel and your eye to the cross of Christ and you pray that the Holy Spirit would enable you to see it and savor it for what it really is. Romans 5:8 says, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The testimony of the Spirit is that when we look at cross we cry, “Jesus, you are my Lord!” (1 Corinthians 12:3), and “God, you are my Father!” So, look to Christ! Look to Christ!

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video

Law and Life: The Struggle – Romans 7:7-25

Romans 7:7-25

Following in the footsteps of his sea-captain father, he was tossed out of the British Royal Navy for his rebellious ways. He ended up in West Africa working for a slave trader where he was basically enslaved and violently mistreated. One chronicler described him as “a wretched looking man toiling in a plantation of lemon trees in the Island of Plantains . . . clothes had become rags, no shelter and begging for unhealthy roots to assuage his hunger.”

Escaping the island in 1747, he was washed overboard while drunk in a violent storm. He was saved only when another sailor harpooned him and pulled him back aboard! It was that near-death experience, and the lingering message of Thomas á Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, that turned him to God. Though a Christian, he continued for another six years as the captain of a slave ship, a practice he then gave up and ultimately crusaded against. He went back to England and entered the pastoral ministry, becoming well-known for his preaching and his hymns.

Of course, I’m referring to John Newton, the well-known author of perhaps the most famous hymn in Christendom, Amazing Grace. In it, of course, he writes, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” And although some have attempted to smooth over the use of that word (wretch), no one knows better than Newton what a wretch had been found by God’s amazing grace. As William Kruidenier writes in his commentary on Romans, “To downplay the wretchedness of the one found is surely to diminish the amazingness of the grace that seeks and finds.”

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 7. This is a wake-up call for anybody who thinks that the Christian life is all sweetness and light. As John Newton and the Apostle Paul both testify, it’s a life of victory; but it’s a victory won out of conflict. It’s the ability to conform the hand (the “what I do” part) with the heart (the “what I want to do” part). It’s all part of the tension of the “now, but not yet” that’s so characteristic of the Christian life. We’re freed from sin (Chapter 6), yet we still have to wrestle with sin’s unrelenting presence (Chapter 7). One day the conflict will cease. But for now, it’s a moment-by-moment rescue that’s realized when we call upon Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul has just argued (in Chapter 6) that we’re no longer slaves to sin because we’ve been “righteousized”, we’ve been made right by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone – that in some sense we’ve died to sin with Jesus and since dead people don’t sin we’re free to choose our master. But, once again, Paul anticipates his audience’s argument (and ours) and here it is:

“Hey, Paul, see if I’m following you correctly here. You’re saying that I’m made right before God – my acceptance, my standing, my position before a holy and righteous God – is not because of anything I’ve done, am doing, will do, or even anything that I possess. Rather, my salvation, my rescue from sin and guilt and shame, my peace with God is due to the shear grace and love of God, which is fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and has been gifted to me, imputed to my account, and poured out upon me freely. And all of this is done by trusting Jesus, by placing faith in Jesus?”

And Paul says, “You got it.” And then here’s the argument that Paul anticipates: “So what’s the point of the law? Is the law sinful? Is the law bad? If, as you say, righteousness is from God via Jesus, then why did God give us the 10 Commandments? And a follow-up question, what are we supposed to do with the law now? Do we ignore it? If we do, aren’t we ignoring God’s will and God’s character? If we don’t ignore it, and we try to obey it, aren’t we denying righteousness by grace through faith? Help me out, Paul?”

That’s where we are and here’s what God, by way of the Apostle Paul, through the super-intention of the Holy Spirit has to say:

⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Today, the first argument that Paul wants to make is that the law is good and spiritual.

The Law Is Good and Spiritual

All along the way, Paul has argued passionately against justification by works of the Law. We aren’t “made right,” we aren’t righteousized with God by law-keeping, but by faith alone. And in the process, he even seemed to say that the Law is part of our problem.

For example, in Romans 3:20 Paul says, “By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in [God’s] sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” Or, in Romans 3:28 he says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” And, even more shockingly, in Romans 5:20 he writes, “The Law came in [God gave the Law at Mount Sinai] so that the transgression would increase.” That almost makes the Law sound like an accomplice to sin.

In fact, Paul goes so far as to say that if you want to bear fruit for God – that is, if you want to be sanctified as well as justified – you have to die to the Law. Romans 7:4 says, “Therefore, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.” You can’t bear fruit for God if you don’t die to the Law. Law-keeping is not the first and decisive way to bear fruit for God. Being joined to the risen Christ is the first and decisive way to bear fruit for God.

So, the huge question that Paul has to answer is stated in Romans 7:7, “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin?” Or, a little differently in verse 13, “Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me?” Here are two huge questions raised by Paul’s gospel of justification by faith apart from works of the law: Is the law sin? and Does the law cause death?

If the answer to these two questions is “yes” . . . if the law is sin and causes death, then Paul knows that his gospel is undermined. Paul knows there’s no future for a gospel that turns the law of God into sin and death. So, with all his might in verses 7 and 13 Paul says, No! “May it never be!” “By no means!” The law is not sin; sin exploits the law and uses it.

At least three times Paul makes this point. Verse 14: “The Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh.” Verse 16: “If I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.” Verse 22: “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being.” The law is holy. The law is just. The law is good. It’s not the law that causes death; it’s sin that causes death, but sin uses the law to accomplish this.

So, Paul’s purpose for writing Romans 7:7-25 is to explain and defend that answer. Don’t miss this. It’s all about justification by faith and sanctification by faith. If these two foundational doctrines imply that the law of God is sin and causes death, they are doomed and cannot be true. And Paul concludes that the Law is not sinful and deadly, rather I’m sinful, and my sin is deadly.

As a result . . . God, in His mercy, has made His righteousness available for us another way, apart from the Law (3:21), namely through Jesus Christ His Son. For us to be righteousized or “made righteous” we must turn from our law-keeping to Christ’s law-keeping. We must receive Christ as our treasure, and be declared righteous because of our union with Him by faith, not because of any righteousness in us. That’s how we are declared perfectly righteous before God. But the Law is not sinful. In fact, it’s good and spiritual. That’s the first point.

This naturally leads to the next question: “Okay, I’ve surrendered my life to Jesus, I’ve died to sin, I’ve died to the law, the law is good and spiritual, then why do I still struggle?” And Paul’s second argument is for the reality of what he calls “indwelling sin.”

Indwelling Sin Is the Culprit

This is Paul’s way of explaining why Christians – although free from the dominion and rule and reign of sin (Chapter 6) and free to choose our master – don’t always make the right choice. On the one hand he’s arguing that the Law is good, and on the other hand that indwelling sin is the culprit in the Christian life.

This is the section of Romans 7 that’s so familiar to us, and Paul uses himself as the subject. Look back at verses 15-20, “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Let me say immediately that I do not – nor does Paul – suggest that we should settle in and coast with worldly living and a defeatist mentality. We should not make peace with our sin; we should make war on our sin. Defeat is not the main experience of the Christian life. But it is part of it. I like what J. I. Packer had to say about this many years ago. He said:

“Paul is not telling us that the life of the ‘wretched man’ is as bad as it could be, only that it is not as good as it should be, and that because the man delights in the law and longs to keep it perfectly his continued inability to do so troubles him acutely. . . The ‘wretched man’ is Paul himself, spontaneously voicing his distress at not being a better Christian than he is, and all that we know of Paul personally fits in with this supposition.”

So, I think what Paul is saying is not that Christians live in continual defeat, but that no Christian lives in continual victory. And in those moments and times when we fail to triumph over sin, Romans 7:14-25 is the normal way a healthy Christian should respond. The healthy believer should say,

I love the Law of God. Verse 22: “I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.”
I hate what I just did. Verse 15: “I am doing the very thing I hate.”
I long for deliverance from this body that constantly threatens to kill me. Verse 24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death?”

Nobody should want to live this way or, dare I say, even settle to live this way. That’s not the point. The point is, when you do live this way, this is the Christian response. No lying. No hypocrisy. No posing. No vaunted perfectionism. Lord, deliver us from a church like that – with its pasted smiles, and chipper superficiality, and blindness to our own failures, and consequent quickness to judge others. God give us the honesty and candor and humility of the apostle Paul. Romans 7 is part of the Christian experience. It’s not ideal, but it’s real.

So, Paul’s answer is that the Christian loves the Law of God, the Christian esteems the Law of God, the Christian delights in the Law of God, he/she concurs with it, regards it as good, and does not blame the Law for his/her own failures. Instead the Christian admits (and here’s a crucial and practical teaching) that there is in all of us, as long as this fallen age lasts and we live on the earth, the reality of “indwelling sin.”

Another way of looking at it is like this. The Law doesn’t cause our defeats, the Law defines our victories. It’s indwelling sin that causes our defeats. And Paul is very jealous in chapters 6-8 that we not overstate or understate the measure of holiness possible in this fallen age where Christians are delivered from the dominion of sin and yet groan awaiting the full redemption of our bodies and the “law of sin” connected with them.

So, number one, the Law is good and spiritual. Number two, indwelling sin is the culprit. Finally, Paul argues for genuine Christianity. He’s a new man, a new creature in Christ, even though he still sins.

A Genuine Christian Life

For example, he says in Romans 7:22-23: “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” I’ve been changed. There’s a new spiritual taste for God and His law in me. I’m a Christian. I’m a believer. And my growth in this new spiritual life will come in stages.

Look at verse 25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This isn’t Paul’s victory cry proving that he’s moved to a new, triumphant kind of life above the battles and losses of Romans 7. Instead, this is a shout of hope – followed by a sober, realistic summary of everything we’ve seen, namely that Paul, the Christian, is both a new man and an old man. He’s both indwelt by the Spirit and harassed by the flesh. He’s freed from the dominion of sin and indwelt by remaining corruption. This will be his lot until he dies or until Christ comes. And it reflects the reality of your Christian journey too. This is what a genuine Christian life looks like.

Paul is not describing a life that only has failure, or only has success. Paul’s point is not how successful he is, or how often he is triumphant or defeated. He’s only saying that these two realities exist in him, and that’s why he and other Christians aren’t perfect. So, the question is: How are we to live in view of this double truth about ourselves? And the answer comes from watching the amazing way that Paul speaks to us about our deliverance and our newness in Christ.

What he does again and again is to say: This new man, this new woman is who you decisively and irrevocably are in Christ. This free man, this free woman is your deepest and truest identity. Now act on it. Look to Christ, trust His help, and by His Spirit become what you are.

If your besetting sin is anger, then affirm that in Christ you have died to that identity and in Christ you have His patience and kindness. Look to Him and trust in Him and rejoice in Him. And fight against anger as one who has the victory in Him.

If your besetting sin is heterosexual or homosexual lust, then affirm that in Christ you have died to this fallen and distorted identity. I have a dear friend who has struggled almost his entire life with same sex attraction as a result of sexual abuse when he was a very young boy. He never gets tired of saying, “Do not say ‘I am a homosexual.’” Say rather, “I struggle with homosexual desires.” That’s not a superficial mind over matter trick. It’s a profound Biblical insight into Romans 6 and 7. In Christ our old selves have died – whatever their distortion and corruption – and we are decisively and irrevocably new. In Christ Jesus the homosexual, the fornicator, the adulterer, the covetous, the thief, the alcoholic, are not who we truly are. Affirm that by faith in Christ. Trust Him as your all-satisfying treasure and look to Him for the help to become (as much as possible in this life) who you truly are in Christ.

Let me conclude with another story about a hymn writer. Charlotte Elliott was born on March 18, 1789 in Brighton, England. Her maternal grandfather was Rev. Henry Venn, an evangelical minister in the Church of England that helped to bring about “The Great Awakening.” (By the way, if his last name sounds familiar it’s because his great-grandson is responsible for something in logic called the Venn diagram. See, y’all learn all kinds of free trivia when you come to church.)

Charlotte’s childhood was passed in a circle of great refinement and piety. She was highly educated. She developed a great passion for music and art. And at an early age she became aware of her sinful nature and of her need to resist sin’s enticements. (Exactly what Paul talks about here in Romans 7.) She felt unworthy of God’s grace and she knew she couldn’t face a righteous and perfect God. She was continuously told by different pastors at the many churches that she visited to pray more, study the Bible more and to perform more noble deeds.

It was about this time, when she was 32, that the Rev. Dr. Cesar Malan of Geneva, visited her parent’s house and asked her whether she was at peace with God – a question she resented at the time and refused to talk about. However, a few days later she called Dr. Malan and apologized, saying she wanted to cleanse her life before becoming a Christian. Dr. Malan answered, “Come just as you are,” and she committed her life to Christ that day.

Twelve years later, reflecting on her conflicts and doubts, she remembered those words from Dr. Malan and she penned a song titled Just as I Am. There was no way Charlotte Elliott could’ve known, but almost 100 years to the date of writing that song a 16-year old teenager would respond to the call of God upon His heart at a revival where her song was being played at the conclusion of the service. That young boy would grow up to be one of the world’s greatest evangelists, Dr. Billy Graham.

Charlotte Elliott’s life reflected what the Apostle Paul described in Romans 7, and it led her to pen a song that God used to call another great evangelist to spread His gospel. In fact, that song spoke to Billy’s heart so much that his team used it in almost every one of their crusades. Rev. Graham said it presented “the strongest possible Biblical basis for the call of Christ.” And he even used the song title as the title to his autobiography.

As we conclude our worship this morning, stand with me as we sing Just as I Am.

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video

Remember Who You Are – Romans 6:1-23

Romans 6:1-23

As many of you know, I really enjoy studying history; and one of the areas of history that I’m especially fond of is British history. I was watching a documentary not long ago on King Edward VIII – he was the King of England that abdicated the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, the two-time American divorcee – and during that program there was a clip from an interview where he was reflecting upon his upbringing as the Prince of Wales. He said, “My father [King George V] was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes, when I had done something wrong, he would admonish me saying, ‘My dear boy, you must always remember who you are.’”

How many of you remember your parents saying that to you? How many of you said the same thing to your own children? Now that our boys are in their mid-late teenage years, I find that I’m saying it more frequently – particularly as they’re leaving the house to be with their friends. “Remember who you are and who you represent.” That’s Paul’s message to the church in Rome in chapter 6, and it’s the message for us today.

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 6. Last week, we saw a few of the benefits that come to those who have been justified with God – and I encouraged you to use a made-up word in place of the word “justified” (does anyone happen to remember it: righteousize). Because we’ve “been made right” with God by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone we have peace with God, we have access to God, and we have hope in God.

This week, Paul wants you to know who you are in light of this “righteousizing,” in light of being made right, in light of being declared righteous. Four times in Romans 6 (vv. 3,6,9,16), Paul uses the Greek word ginóskó – a word that means “to come to know, to recognize, to perceive.” I’m taking in knowledge… I’m coming to know… I’m learning (experientially) what this “being made right” with God means. And Paul wants the church in Rome to know who they are, and then let that knowledge be reflected in their behavior. Just like King George speaking to his son (Edward VIII), it’s like Paul wants to say, “Dear child, you must always remember who you are.” If a future earthly king (King Edward VIII) could be called to account for his behavior on the basis of who he was, how much more should the believer in Christ be certain of whom he or she is and act accordingly?

Listen, King Edward VIII could trace his lineage back for centuries in England’s history in order to know who he was. For the Christian there are two lineages to trace. The first goes all the way back to Adam (that’s the end of chapter 5) and it ensured that we were slaves to sin, destined for death. The second is rooted in the work of Jesus Christ and gives us a new identity, a new lineage, a new heritage.

The Apostle Peter would put it this way, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10). Do you know who you are, today? Do you know whose you are, today? You’re either still bound up in Adam (a slave to sin leading to eternal condemnation), or you’re bound up in Christ (a slave to righteousness leading to life eternal). That’s the issue at stake this morning.

Let me invite you to follow along as I read this morning. And also, if I may, it’s easy to let our minds wander when someone is reading the Bible, so try to follow along and engage with the text.

¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin. ⁸ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵ What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸ and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Word of God for the people of God, thanks be to God. The first thing I want us to see this morning is…

A Misunderstanding Of Grace

Paul concluded Romans 5:12-21 by comparing and contrasting Adam and Jesus. Where Adam disobeyed, Jesus obeyed. Where Adam’s disobedience brought death and condemnation, Jesus’ obedience brought life and righteousness. Where sin increased with Adam, grace increased (all the more) with Jesus. And Paul is using this back-and-forth technique to illustrate the radical nature of “being made right” with God by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And Paul anticipates the argument that you and I (indeed the entire world) want to throw back at him, which is this: Look, Paul! If grace abounds all the more where sin increases, then why not keep on sinning? If we can receive radically abundant forgiveness through Jesus because of our sin, then why not keep on sinning so that more and more forgiveness is poured out? Since we’re no longer under the law, but rather under grace, then we can do whatever we want even if it’s condemned in the Scripture.

That’s called antinomianism. It comes from two Greek words: anti, meaning “against” and nomos, meaning “law.” There’s a little rhyme that goes like this, “Free from the law, blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still have remission.” It’s the logic that Paul anticipates the Romans will use. It’s the logic that he anticipated we would use. In fact, it’s the objection that chapters 6, 7, and 8 are all focused on answering. And so, Paul responds not once, but twice (vv. 2,15): May it never be! By no means! Certainly not! No way! God forbid!

While it’s true that Jesus has redeemed us from the curse and penalty of the law of God, and while our relationship with the Father is now defined by our union with Christ and not a written code of regulations, it does not follow that the Lord’s moral commands are now somehow optional. Folks, our God is a commandment-giving God, and both the Old and the New Testaments are filled with regulations that reflect eternal moral and ethical principles. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments (John 14:15).

And it’s not just the Apostle Paul that speaks about this. Listen to 1 Peter 2:16, “Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.”

And the author of Hebrews would put it like this: “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:26-29)?

If you’re ever speaking with someone who claims to be a Christ-follower, or you know someone that says they’re a Christian, and yet their attitude is that they can sin without any consequence, then you have mine and Paul’s and God’s permission to lovingly (yet firmly) tell them they’re flat out wrong. There’s NO room for that based on the Bible!

That’s a grave misunderstanding of the gospel and grace. And Paul wants to set the record straight for the Romans, for you, for me, for the entire church. There’s no such thing as cheap grace. It cost the life of the very Son of God, and we have absolutely no right to make a mockery of it by giving ourselves over to reckless behavior all because we walked an aisle…or said a prayer…or were baptized…or were confirmed…or whatever.

Now the second thing I want us to see is the answer. “Why, Paul? Why not, continue sinning?”

Dead People Don’t Sin

Look at verse 2. I like how the NIV translates it, “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Then, after giving his summary explanation – dead people don’t sin – he asks, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” Do you not know? Have you not been taught? Surely you know these things. Surely someone explained to you what your baptism means. In other words, Paul believes that this is important to know and if we’ve failed you and not taught you this, let’s grow now in the knowledge and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

The explanation Paul gives for dead people not sinning can be summed up in three steps.

When Christ died, believers in some crucial sense died in Him and with Him.
When Christ rose, believers in some crucial sense were made alive in Him.
Therefore, believers are commanded to become in practice what we are in Christ: dead to sin and alive to God.

Let me point out these steps for you. Look at Romans 6:5-6, 8:

Romans 6:5, “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death . . .”
Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with.”
Romans 6:8, “Now if we have died with Christ . . .”

So, when Christ died, Christians, in some crucial sense died in Him and with Him. There’s a union with Christ that makes what happened to Him valid for us. When He died, we died. That’s the key to why those that have been made right with God don’t go on sinning. Dead people don’t sin. But, of course, that raises a question: Why do we still sin? Hang on. We’ll get to that in just a second.

Now look at Romans 6:4-5 for the second step.

Romans 6:4b: “. . . so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:5, “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be [united with Him] in the likeness of His resurrection.”

So, when Christ rose, believers, in some crucial sense were made alive in Him. The believer’s union with Christ not only means that we died when He died, but that in His resurrection our new life to God was secured. In some sense we died with Him and came alive to God with Him. Paul is cautious here, and doesn’t say that we rose [past tense] with Him. We’ll talk about that in coming weeks.

For the third step in this dead-people-don’t-sin process look at verses 11 and 13:

Romans 6:11, “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 6:13, “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead.”

So, believers are commanded to become in practice what we are in Christ: dead to sin and alive to God. Notice, Paul does not draw the conclusion of a mechanical or automatic obedience from our death and resurrection with Christ. He does not say, “Since you all died to sin in Christ and are alive to God in Him, there is no need for me to command you to do anything, and there is no act of obedience involved. There is only an automatic, mechanical outcome of sinlessness. You died to sin; so you automatically don’t sin. You are alive to God; so you automatically serve God. No need for commands.”

No, that is not what he says. Instead he says, you died, so consider yourselves dead. You are alive, so consider yourselves alive to God. Remember who you are. That leads us to the final thing I want us to see this morning and that is…

We Must Choose Our Master

We have an idiom in our language that goes like this “Old habits die hard.” In Paul’s language it’s the parts of our body, the members of our body that still have the old patterns of sin. Because, for however long you’ve been alive, you’ve been participating in a world that works against God and you’ve been doing your fair share of that same thing.

You’ve trained your eyes to see things that aren’t honoring. You’ve trained your mouth to say things that aren’t beneficial. You’ve trained your hands to do things that aren’t pleasing, and your feet to go places that aren’t holy. And Paul says that the parts of your body are wired in such a way that it WILL be a struggle. He’s not saying it’s going to be easy; it’s going to be a struggle, but it’s a fight you CAN win.

Here’s the scenario. It’s silly, I know, but just follow along. Imagine that I’m a slave at the house of a guy named James. And since James is such a common name let’s make it a little more specific. Let’s say his name is James Fox. I’m James Fox’s slave. I have to do whatever he says. I was born into it. It’s been my entire life. I’m a grown man, and my life is determined by what he tells me to do. Mow my law… I mow it. Feed my fish… I feed his fish. Take out the trash… Whatever he barks out I do it, right? Go to the store… (Some of you are staring at your spouses or poking them in the side thinking: “This sounds a lot like my house…”)

Let’s imagine that there’s a neighbor. We’ll call him Doug. Doug sees this and he wants to do something about it. So, he saves up his money and eventually he buys my freedom. And he says to me, “You’re free now. James doesn’t own you. You don’t report to him anymore. You can go wherever you want. You can leave, but I want to tell you; I know your skillset, I know you don’t have a lot of social connections, if you want to work here I have an apartment out back and you can live there. If you want to work for me, then I’ll pay you. You can do this if you want to.”

And I’m like YES!!! This is awesome. I’m living this new life. I’m free. James has no authority over me, but he still hollers out orders. So, I’m outside cutting Doug’s grass and James says, “Hey, cut my grass!” And like everything in me – my body even – instinctively moves towards that voice because that’s what I’ve always done. But the fact of the matter is: I’m free. This is what Paul is talking about. Your body moves toward sin because that’s what you’re accustomed to, but in reality, you don’t have to sin any more. And so now what you’re free to do, because of what God has done for you, is choose your master.

And there are two things that will help us choose the right master. The first is that we listen to the right voice. So, when I’m tempted I don’t listen to that voice that says, “This is better for you. You’re going to enjoy this.” I listen to the right voice. I don’t listen to the voice that says, “You’re going to give in eventually, so just go for it.” Instead, I listen to the voice that says, “YOU’RE MINE, and you don’t have to do this anymore.” I listen to the voice of Jesus, the voice of grace, the voice of life, and truth, and holiness.

And the second thing we do is consecrate ourselves. Most of our Bibles translate that word here as “offer” the parts of your body, and that’s fine. It’s a sacrificial word. Remember the old hymn, “Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to Thee”? And what that looks like practically speaking is this. When I wake up in the morning I say, “Lord, I know Romans 6 is true. Therefore, God, I offer you my hands. May they be used to comfort. God, I offer you my feet. May they take me to places that would honor you. I offer you my mouth, Lord. May I speak words of life and hope and encouragement. I offer you my eyes, God. Help me to see the things you desire for me today.”

Listen to the right voice. Consecrate (or offer) yourself each day. And choose your master. Let me close with this. The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862. It went into effect on January 1, 1863. But what was legally true did not become a reality for most slaves until much later. Shelby Foote, authored a three-volume history of the Civil War called The Civil War: A Narrative. Listen to how he described that scenario:

The word spread from Capitol Hill out across the city, down into the valleys and fields of Virginia and the Carolinas, and even into the plantations of Georgia and Mississippi and Alabama. “Slavery: Legally Abolished!” read the headlines, and yet something amazing took place. The greater majority of the slaves in the South went right on living as though they were not emancipated. That continued throughout the Reconstruction Period.

The Negro remained locked in a caste system of “race etiquette” as rigid as any had known in formal bondage. Every slave could repeat, with equal validity, what an Alabama slave had mumbled when asked what he thought of the Great Emancipator whose proclamation had gone into effect. “I don’t know nothing’ ‘bout Abraham Lincoln ‘cept they say he set us free. And I don’t know nothing’ ‘bout that neither.”

Folks, if someone with the power, authority, and willingness to set the captives free does so, it makes little/no difference to the captives until they know that their freedom has been decreed – and what it means to live in freedom. Now there are some of you here this morning that are thinking that very thing right now: “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout freedom from sin.” If that’s you, can I just encourage you to receive the free gift of God’s salvation through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone. No screaming. No guilting. No pressure. Just an honest plea to get right with God by repenting of your sin and trusting Jesus as your Savior. On the other hand, if you’ve already trusted Jesus Christ with your soul… If you’ve confessed your sin and confess Christ as the Lord of your life, then you ARE FREE from sin. Remember who you are, and begin living in that reality today.

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video

Peace With God – Romans 5:1-11

Romans 5:1-11

Well, it’s been another extremely tough and emotional two weeks. If dealing with all of the anxiety, and stress, and sickness, and death of COVID-19 wasn’t hard enough. Now our country is crumbling under the weight of riot and protest as a result of the death of George Floyd. And once again, our nation finds itself teetering on the brink of complete chaos and anarchy. Of course, as pastors tend to do, I began asking myself what parallels there were in all of this. What does the Bible have to say. And I didn’t have to go very far.

Ever since Cain lifted his hand against his brother Abel (Genesis 4), peaceful coexistence has been little more than a fleeting ideal. There’s a reason for that, of course. It’s not that people don’t want peace – we do. It’s just that we want it on our own terms – terms which, of course, conflict with other people’s terms.

Whether it’s presidents and politicians attempting to hammer out policies and treaties, or pastors and popes working on religious agreements, or your average plumber trying to keep the peace at home – after all, if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy – everybody finds that peace escapes them. But chapter 5 of Romans tells us there’s a peace that’s available and attainable any time, any place and by any person, and that’s peace with God.

Paul introduces Romans 5 with this statement: “[W]e have peace with God…” Folks, as we wrestle with all that’s going on in our world today (and will, no doubt, come again in the future) the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that peace with God has been established. Peace with God is what the gospel of Jesus Christ produces in the lives of those who embrace Him. That’s the most fundamental peace there is – peace with God. All other peace in the world has its basis there.

The question before us this morning is simply this: “Are you at peace with God?”

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 5. As you’re finding your place, let me offer a summary of how we got here. Paul is writing to:

Clarify the Gospel
Connect the Church (Jew/Gentle)
Confirm God’s Righteousness

He began, in chapter 1, by telling us that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first for the Jew and then for the Gentile” (v. 16). Then, at the end of chapter 1 and all of chapters 2-3, Paul has gone to great lengths to demonstrate that the entire world is worthy of and stands under the present and future wrath of God. Gentiles are guilty before God for violating His standards. Jews are guilty before God for violating His standards.

By the way, to make this more tangible and meaningful to you, when you hear the Bible refer to Gentiles that would kind of be like the modern equivalent of saying people that weren’t born into Christian homes. And the modern equivalent of the Jew would be those that were blessed to be born into Christian homes. So, Paul says, “Hey, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. You’re guilty of sin. You’re guilty of cosmic treason – turning your back on God.”

To the Gentile, to the average Joe on the street, or the native in the jungle, Paul says, “God, through His creation, through the world that He made, and everything you see, hear, taste, and touch, has given enough evidence of His existence. And yet, you’ve rejected Him and worshipped the creature rather than the Creator. You’re guilty.”

To the Jew, to the little Sally’s and Billy’s that grew up going to church (whether Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Episcopalian, Catholic, etc.), Paul says, “You guys had the benefit of the Bible (the equivalent of the Law to the Jew) and you still blew it. You knew the Bible said, ‘Do not lie,’ and yet you lied. You knew the Bible said, ‘Honor your daddy and momma,’ and yet you stayed out past curfew. You knew the Bible said, ‘Don’t steal,’ but what about that time you slipped a piece of bubble gum in your pocket at Jean’s country store and walked out undetected? You’re just as guilty as the next guy. Don’t give me any of this ‘I-go-to-church’ business.”

And that’s where Romans 3:11-12 lands us, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Gentile, guilty! Jew, guilty! Guy on the street, guilty! Teenager in the church pew, guilty! World, guilty! And just about the time that Paul makes his final argument and nails our coffin shut, he introduces us to the solution that only God can provide – Jesus Christ. That’s what last week’s sermon was about.

Despite all of that, God has responded to the need of humanity by declaring the wicked to be righteous in a way that upholds His own righteousness (remember, Paul wants to confirm God’s righteousness) and, at the same time, upholds His justice. Romans 3:26 says that God is both “just and the justifier.” He does this by sending Jesus to become a propitiation and expiation for those who, by faith, trust in the sacrifice of Christ. And I gave you a helpful way to remember those big theological words: propitiation and expiation.

Propitiation is the process by which Jesus satisfies the wrath that God has against me. And I told you to remember walking down the center aisle of a cruciform church (or you could just remember the cross itself). The vertical is representative of propitiation, which is satisfying God’s wrath. The horizontal represents expiation, which is the removal of our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

So, not only does Jesus death on the cross (in our place) satisfy God’s wrath against us because of our sin, it removes the penalty of sin from us. Notice I did not say that it removes sin from us. Christians still sin, and Paul will address that in coming chapters. But the wrath and penalty because of our sin have been satisfied and removed. And that’s good news that brings peace with God. Follow along as I read verses 1:11,

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – ⁸ but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans 5 is Paul’s pit stop. It’s his rest area on this theological journey. I loathe stopping on trips.

My boys and Melissa will tell you there’s nothing worse than telling dad, “We have to stop. I have to use the bathroom.” Now, I know, there are some trips that you just have to stop on. If your trip is more than 350-450 miles, depending on the size of your fuel tank, there will come a time when you have to stop for more gas. I get it. But otherwise, my mission is to get in the car and drive straight through. No stopping. No using the bathroom. No food. When you stop all those cars/trucks that you passed will overtake you, and it’s just a hit to my ego. And don’t try to use logical arguments like, “Yes, but they’ll have to stop too. And when they do you’ll pass them again.” And definitely don’t tempt me to drive faster to catch back up to where we were before we stopped, because I’ll take that bait every time. No, I get it. I just don’t like stopping.

But there are times when it’s necessary to pause and rest. That’s especially true in theology, and Paul knows this. He knows the church in Rome is likely to get lost. He knows we’re apt to get confused in all of this heavy and weighty stuff, too. So, he pulls into rest area of chapter 5 and offers his passengers the refreshment of our being made right with God. And the first benefit is…

Peace

Notice verse 1 again, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, before I explain peace, let me take a real quick detour and tell you that I do not like the use of the English word “justified” in the Bible (especially here). Yes, the Greek word dikaiōthentes, which is used here can be translated as “justify.” But here’s my problem with using “justify” or “justified.” It’s not that it’s biblically incorrect. It’s that our society and culture have twisted the word to make it the ultimate excuse. Therefore, Christians often get the wrong idea.

See, in our world, maybe even in your own life, we tend to use the word “justify” as a way of explaining bad behavior or just making anything we’re choosing to do acceptable. Think about it. We justify watching things we shouldn’t. We justify speaking a certain way or using language that we shouldn’t. We justify all sorts of actions. In fact, I’ll bet that most of the images you have in your head are not godly. Are they? When was the last time you felt the need to justify feeding the hungry or clothing the naked or sharing the gospel? Probably never. We justify NOT doing those things, right?

“Oh, I didn’t give that guy any money because he’s just going to use it to buy alcohol.”

“No, no, I didn’t give her any money because, well, I have to buy lunch too.”

“Well, I didn’t tell my golfing buddy or my neighbor or my friend about Jesus because I didn’t want them to think I was weird.”

See, justification just puts the wrong taste in my mouth. Rather, what I do, and what I’d like to encourage you to do is to replace the word “justification” with the made-up word “righteousize.” When you righteousize something you make it right. Read verse 1 again, “Therefore, since we have been righteousized by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Doesn’t that do something different in your mind?

That was free. You didn’t have to pay for that. Paul says that because we’ve been made right with God we have peace. How many of you have noticed that since we moved to church online that I’ve been ending with the same statement? (Until next week, charis and eirene, which means what – grace and peace.) Eirene is the Greek word for peace. It’s also the basis of the female name Irene. (Again, that’s free.)

For the people that Paul was writing to, for the Roman church, for Christians (whether Jew/Gentile) the primary peace they would’ve been familiar with was the pax Romana (peace of Rome). Started under the first emperor Augustus, the pax Romana was a period of approximately 300 years of relative peace and prosperity that everyone in the Roman Empire enjoyed. While peace with Rome was unstable and insecure for Christians, peace with God was a settled fact.

Peace is not usually a reference to an internal feeling, though it certainly leads to that, but rather it’s an external and objective reality. For Paul, for the Roman church, for you, for me it’s a condition in which the war, the hostility, caused by sin has been removed. To have peace with God means to no longer exist under the wrath of God.

It’s an objective reality. It’s not just a feeling. It’s the thing that makes verses like John 14:27 so sweet, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Folks this is objective truth. Regardless of what is going on around me in the outside world, because I’ve been reconciled to God, because I’ve been made right with God, I have peace with God.

For some of you this morning your goal has been to have peace with your co-worker, or peace with your neighbor, or peace with your friends, or peace with your family members (your kids, your parents, your in-laws), but you’ve never given any thought to having peace with God. And at the end of the day, when the chips are down and you’re facing death, it’s only this peace that matters. Do you have peace with God? This leads to the second benefit…

Access

Look at verse 2, “Through Him [Jesus] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” That word “access” is the Greek word prosagōgḗ. It’s only used here and two times in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In fact, hold your finger here and flip over to Ephesians 2:18 and 3:12 really quick. All three occasions of prosagōgḗ refer to “having an audience (direct access) with God.”

Ephesians 2:18 says, “For through Him [Jesus] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Then, Ephesians 3:12 also speaking of Jesus, says that “we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.” The author of Hebrews echoes this very same truth when he says that because of Jesus we may “approach the throne of grace with confidence” (Hebrews 4:16). You and I have access into the very presence of God the Father because we’ve been made right by Jesus.

Think about the early days of David’s life – before he was king. You might recall that he served in the royal palace for King Saul – playing his harp to soothe Saul’s anxiety. But, on more than one occasion David had to flee for his life. Ultimately, we read of the cat and mouse game played by David and Saul, before Saul died and David was made King of Israel. Is that the access, based on peace, that you might expect from the king? David’s access was dictated by the king’s mood, and ultimately by his desire for murder. What began as a relationship of grace turned into a grappling by Saul for power and control. On the other hand, the picture that Paul paints here is one of complete, unhindered access to God because we have peace with God.

The most graphic illustration of our access to God is when the curtain, the veil that blocked access to the Holy of Holies was torn in two when Jesus died. That curtain served two functions. It blocked access to God’s holiness, but it also separated God from our human sinfulness. When the veil was torn from top to bottom – even the direction of the tear was symbolic – representing God breaking into humanity to provide a solution, not us climbing up to God’s standard, it made it possible for us to “draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22).

So, we have access into grace. We have access to the gift of God’s righteousness – eternal life through Jesus Christ. In other words, the overarching peace with God (shalom of God) allows us to stand in the place of righteousness, eternal life, and salvation by grace. Folks, there’s no way to enjoy these blessings if you don’t have peace with God. Are you at peace with Him today? This leads to the final benefit we’ll consider today, and that’s…

Hope

Look at the end of verse 2ff, “we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Paul’s words here have become some of the most memorable in the history of Christian writing. The Christ-follower, the believer, can rejoice in suffering because suffering ultimately produces hope. In what other outlook on life does suffering produce hope?

Now I do have to make an uneasy clarification here. Paul is not talking about enduring suffering that’s just a natural part of life. Paul isn’t talking about enduring cancer, or heart disease, or hunger. He’s not talking about the tragic and emotion suffering that we experience when a family member dies or when a house burns down or a tornado levels a city. Those are all types of suffering that come from living in a fallen world.

Now hear me closely. If you’re currently suffering through something like that or have in the past, I’m not saying you have no reason for hope. I’m simply saying that’s not what Paul is talking about here. Paul is specifically talking about enduring suffering as it relates to sharing the gospel and making disciples.

The Ladies’ Bible study is currently going through a series on the history of Christianity, and one of the unfortunate realities of a study like that is being introduced to a bunch of dates and names. One of the dates that we’ve talked about is the year 325 A.D. Ladies, what happened in the year 325 A.D.? (First Council of Nicaea). The Roman emperor Constantine had convened the first ecumenical council in the little town of Nicaea, what is today Iznik, Turkey. Without going into all the detail, the primary purpose of the council was to decide the nature of Jesus. Was He fully God and what was His relationship to God the Father.

When Constantine called for the council, he invited all 1,800 bishops (pastors) in the Roman Empire, but only 318 showed up. Of the 318 in attendance, only 12 did not have some form of disfigurement or scar from being persecuted for their faith. That means that 306 men showed up with some sign: perhaps they were missing an eye, maybe they lost a hand, or an arm was missing, maybe a leg or a foot, maybe they had the marks of being beaten, or burns from hot coals and pokers. The usual thing in that day was this: if you followed Jesus Christ you would be persecuted. It wasn’t odd. In fact, the odd thing was the 12 guys that hadn’t been persecuted for their faith.

You move some 1,800-1,900 years in the future, and the odd thing is when you ARE persecuted for your faith. What used to be odd (no persecution) has become the norm. And what was the norm then (persecution) has become strange. Hope comes from persevering and enduring afflictions where we prove to ourselves that we belong to Jesus. The person who falls away from faith in the moment of suffering for Christ is the person who fails to offer proof that he or she is standing in the grace of God.

Some things we hope for in life don’t come to pass. When that happens, disappointment sets in. Disappointment produces discouragement; discouragement, unproven character; unproven character, despair. How does the Christian know that he will not one day be sick of heart? How does the believer know that one day she won’t have suffered in vain? The answer is found at the end of verse 5 and verse 8, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us… and God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

As we prepare to take the Lord’s Supper remember this: being made right in God’s eyes didn’t bring about perfection in our lives; only a status, a standing. We’re reconciled. We’re at peace with God. Those who have been redeemed still sin, and the reason we’ll be saved in spite of our sins – the reason our sins don’t become an offense to the Father to such a degree as to make us irreconcilable – is because Jesus continually intercedes for us with the Father, applying the benefits of His death in the heavenly tabernacle. Is it any wonder that Paul says we also rejoice in God?

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video

The Solution Only God Can Provide – Romans 3:21-26

Romans 3:21-26

We like a good challenge, don’t we? Think about it. Almost every movie ever created involves a storyline that has the characters encountering and overcoming some type of problem. Perhaps the problem is a person. Maybe it’s a situation they find themselves in. Shoot, for that matter, every person’s life is filled with problems that need to be solved and challenges that need to be overcome.

As you’re aware, the headlines have been full of stories surrounding the launch of the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board the Dragon spacecraft. And that reminded me of the Apollo 13 mission from April 11, 1970.

Most anyone born prior to (say) 1965, can probably recall the event from first-hand knowledge and experience. Those born later find their orientation of the event in newsreels, documentaries or, more likely, the 1995 movie by the same name. (An interesting little side note, in case you weren’t aware, this year marks the 50^th anniversary of that mission, and many of the celebrations were cancelled and/or postponed due to COVID-19.)

But regardless of how you recall the Apollo 13 mission, there’s no doubt that that 5½ (almost 6) days was a real test of man’s ingenuity and problem-solving skills. And the flight crew, mission control, and all the engineers did it! They were able to find a solution to the problem and bring Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise home safely.

When you remember that event or watch that movie it makes you feel like we can overcome almost anything – that we can solve any problem or dilemma that we face. And yet, the Apostle Paul, via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has thus far painted a picture for us that displays humanity in a situation with no human solution.

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Romans 3:21ff. You might recall that when Paul began his letter to the Romans, tucked away at the conclusion of his introduction was this wonderful announcement of good news, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” (Romans 1:16-17)

But for the last two weeks and since chapter 1:18 – the last 66 verses – Paul has argued that neither the Jew (who had the Law) or the Gentile (who didn’t) was innocent or blameless or righteous before a holy God. So, the question that needs to be answered, the problem that needs to be solved is this: how can anyone be made right in God’s eyes? How can sinful man please God? How can MY/YOUR sinful thoughts, words, and deeds be justified before a holy God?

On the one hand we have fallen, sinful, immoral, ungodly man, and on the other we have a completely and utterly holy, righteous, just, and perfect God. How can the two be reconciled to one another? Do you see the monumental problem? Can you appreciate the colossal issue? It’s the reality of this dilemma that is the heartbeat of the epistle.

Listen, commentators are unanimous in their ascriptions of the importance of these next few verses. Douglas Moo says, “Rarely does the Bible bring together in so few verses so many important theological ideas… Here, more than anywhere else in Romans, Paul explains why Christ’s coming means “good news” for needy, sinful people.” Robert Mounce elevates it to another level, saying it is “generally acknowledged to be the most theologically important segment of the entire New Testament.” But it’s Leon Morris who takes the cake in his description, suggesting that it may be “possibly the most important single paragraph ever written.”

Are you there? Have you found your spot in Romans 3:21? I’m going to read down to verse 26. Follow along, with me, as we hear God’s answer to this most impossible problem.

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. [God] did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

He who has ears to hear, let him hear the veritable Word of God.

Now, before we go further, I want to try to help you understand the massive challenge in preaching this text. I want you to imagine (for a moment) that you’re listening to a song or a piece of music that is so heart-stirring that every time you hear it, it brings you to tears. Maybe it’s a favorite hymn. Maybe it’s Amazing Grace. Maybe it’s How Great Thou Art. Maybe it’s a secular song. Perhaps it’s a patriotic song: The Star-Spangled Banner, or God Bless America. Maybe it’s just an instrumental song – an orchestral piece or a jazz number. Whatever it is, you’re listening to that song and you have headphones on so that there’s nothing that can distract you from listening to the song.

The song begins and you close your eyes and the music – sometimes soft and other times loud, sometimes slow and other times fast, sometimes harmonious and other times strained – takes you on this emotional journey. As the singer soars or the orchestra reaches its height tears well up in your eyes and you hold your breath – you don’t even want your heartbeat to interrupt the moment. When the song ends a single tear drops from your eye and you take a deep breath and say, “WOW!” or “Thank you, God.” We’ve all had that experience, right.

Now, with that same emotional scene still fresh in your mind, I want you to imagine that you decide to listen to the song again. But this time, you decide that as you listen you’re going to isolate certain instruments or special words and phrases that “speak to you.” Perhaps there’s a string of measures or lyrics that just gets you every time and you want to get to that point in the song and just soak it up again. Only this time, when you get to the end – because you started and stopped, rewound and listened, isolated and started again – you didn’t have that same tear in your eye or lose your breath.

It’s not because it wasn’t the same song. It was exactly the same song. The same performers, the same arrangement, the same sound system. Everything was the same except we isolated certain lyrics or concentrated on particular measures, and the song didn’t quite flow together like it was intended. This section of Romans is like that. It’s so dense. It’s so packed full of rich, beautify truth that it’s hard to squeeze out this truth without ruining the whole thing.

It’s like dissecting a butterfly. There’s something of the beauty and majesty of it that you just ruin it the moment that you pluck it from the air. I want us to understand Romans 3:21ff. I want us to get what it’s saying. But I also want it to keep flying. There’s nothing wrong with musical notes and individual parts and phrases in a song, but it’s together that it moves us and compels us to sing.

That’s the difficulty in preaching this text. I want us to linger. I want us to understand certain measures, certain lyrics. I want us to hear particular instruments in the orchestra and get strung out as we wait for the soloist to finish her last note, but I also want the passage to move us. I want the Holy Spirit to drive the truth of this text so deep into our hearts that we leave forever changed.

The first thing I want us to notice is…

God’s Righteousness Is Rooted In The Old Testament

Notice verse 21, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.” Why is that so important? Well, it’s important because it proves He’s faithful. It proves God is indeed righteous. It demonstrates God’s faithfulness as the promise maker.

As far back as Genesis 3:15 – right after the introduction of sin into the world – we get the first notice of the gospel. You remember, back there in the garden, God is speaking to the serpent (Satan) and He says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; [H]e will crush your head, and you will strike [H]is heel.” The “he” that’s mentioned there is a reference to Jesus.

Later on, in Genesis 15, God calls Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans and makes this mega-promise that He will make Abraham the father of many nations and that the promise God is making with him will continue through Abraham’s descendants. And that promise, that covenant is confirmed with Isaac and Jacob and ultimately preserved through the 12 tribes of Israel. And we continue to follow that promise all the way up to the birth of Jesus.

Why? Because it proves to us that God is trustworthy. If God made a promise that was supposed to culminate in sending forth His only Son as the Jewish messiah, but then that didn’t happen, God would be impugning His own righteousness. He would be breaking His own promise. He would be lying. He would be sinning. In essence, God would not be God. And if God can’t keep His promises from the past, then how can we be sure that He’ll keep His promises to us in the present, much less the future.

In fact, all of chapter 4 (which we won’t cover), is nothing more than Paul using the story of Abraham (the one I just paraphrased for you) as an illustration to prove that God’s answer, God’s solution, God’s righteousness is NOT new. This isn’t plan B. This is NOT some new doctrine. This is rooted and grounded in the testimony of the Old Testament. The very same way that you and I are saved from our sin today is the very same way that Abraham was saved – by faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul is showing us conclusively that God is vindicating His own character. God is vindicating His own righteousness. This means of salvation is rooted in the Old Testament. It’s proof that God is faithful to keep His Word. He’s the supreme promise maker.

God’s Righteousness Is Through Faith In Jesus Christ

Look at verses 22-24 again, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

What Paul introduces here is something so contrary to Jewish AND Gentile sensibilities that it’s scandalous. Acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty was the norm in Israel. If the guilty party was acquitted, it was often because an official had been bribed. The iron-booted authority of Rome did the same thing. In fact, in Rome, they not only condemned the guilty they sometimes condemned the innocent just to be sure.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ introduced an entirely new way of administering justice. Since everyone is guilty, everyone deserves to be condemned. That’s what verse 23 says, “all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.” But in order for God to continue to be just, He has to punish sin. See, God would be as unrighteous as the guilty if He overlooked our sins. But what you and I didn’t count on was a God who was both just AND justifier of the guilty.

I have to pause for just a second a get a little technical. When God justifies a guilty sinner, two things happen:

You and I are declared no longer guilty and,
You and I are declared righteous.

Now those two things sound like the same thing, but they aren’t. Let me illustrate it like this.

Suppose we go to the bank to get a loan (say $10,000); we say, “I’m in debt” and we are. Let’s suppose we go to the bank and level was the banker, “Listen man, I can’t pay you back – not now, not ever.” Suppose the banker pulls up our account on his computer and there we see it – in arrears, default, late – and he says, “I tell you what, I’ll just erase the entire thing.” We’d be over the moon. We’d probably start crying. We didn’t deserve that. We just received mercy – that’s what mercy is, by the way, not getting what we deserve. That’s the first thing that happens. You and I are declared no longer guilty. That’s the first thing that happens when God justifies a guilty sinner – our debt is removed and we’re declared no longer guilty.

But suppose we were just about to walk out the door and the banker says, “Hey, before you go, come here. I want to show you something.” And we walk over to his desk and he points at that same line, which just a second before was filled with $10,000 worth of late fees and charges and big red numbers, and he enters a 10, followed by 12 zeros (that’s $10T, by the way). We’d probably pass out, right. That’s the second thing that happens. You and I are declared righteous. God, of His own free gift of grace, credits that account – the same one that just seconds ago was defaulted – He puts into our account the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Folks, that’s what Paul means when he says that we’re justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ (v. 24).

God’s Righteousness Is Demonstration Of God’s Justice

Look at verses 25-26 one more time, “God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. [God] did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – [God] did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

So far so good. Most of us understand what Paul is talking about here. God’s plan of salvation, His righteousness is rooted in the Old Testament. I get it. If God didn’t keep His promises, then He’d be guilty of sin and impugn His own character. No problem. Second, we understand grace. We sing about grace. We love the free gift of God’s grace in Jesus. We’ve all said it, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” We love us some grace.

But see, here’s where most of us stop. As soon as we hear the words “not guilty” and we receive the free gift of grace we’re gone. We’re out the door. We dust our hands off and call it a day. We punch the time clock and go home. But there’s one final aspect of this transaction that we miss if that’s our attitude.

Our sin has to be atoned for. Somebody has to pay for our sin. See, we just watched the banker clear our slate and give us more money than we could use in a million lifetimes, and we never gave it a moment’s thought about who paid the $10,000 debt. All we cared about was the fact that it wasn’t on our ledger any more.

One of the greatest lessons I learned in high school came from my economics and history teacher. It was the principle that many of you know, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” It might seem free to you and me, but somewhere, somehow, somebody paid for that lunch. The same is true for our salvation. It might seem free to you and me – which it is – but somewhere, somehow, somebody paid for that salvation. It was Jesus.

There are two old churchy words that we used to use years ago. They’ve fallen out of use in our day, but we really need to hang on to them. They’re the words propitiation and expiation.

Some of you come from church denominations where the church building itself was part of the worship experience. The architecture itself was part of the praise and adoration. I’m talking about churches built in the cruciform shape – churches built in the shape of a cross with a long center aisle and two transepts on either side. Outside of my visits to Europe, the church that comes to my mind is the Summerall Chapel on the campus of my Alma mater – The Citadel.

I want you to picture that church in your mind, as I give you this illustration. Propitiation is the center aisle that leads up to the intersection of the horizontal crossbar. The word “propitiation” means to satisfy God’s wrath against our sin. In the Old Testament, the image of propitiation was the mercy seat, the lid to the Ark of the Covenant. That’s where the blood of the sacrificed lamb would be sprinkled on behalf of the people, in order to atone for their sin. That’s why the altars in our churches are located where they are. They aren’t out in the foyer or the fellowship hall or the back of the church. It’s where the vertical and horizontal meet.

But, then, you have the horizontal transepts of the church. That’s the part that represents expiation. The word “expiation” refers to the removal of our sin. Some of you have gone through or are going through cancer treatments. Occasionally, you’ll hear someone say they’re in remission – the cancer is gone. Psalm 103 tells us “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is [God’s] love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

That’s why I don’t want to lose these words. Propitiation is the satisfaction of God’s wrath. How? By putting Jesus in my place, in your place. He was a substitute. He took the punishment. Expiation is the removal of our sin. Big words. Big concepts. Now do you see why this little segment of scripture is considered so monumentally important to our faith?

Let me close with this story. Many of you will recall the name, Cliff Barrows. For those of you that don’t, he was the long-time Minister of Music for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He used to tell a story about how his children learned to appreciate the price that Jesus paid for their sins.

When they were small, like most kids, they persisted in doing something that they had been forbidden to do. Mr. Barrows told the kids that if they broke the rules again, they would be punished. One day Cliff came home and discovered that, indeed, his kids had yet again disobeyed him. But he just couldn’t bring himself to spank them.

“Bobbie and Betty Ruth were very small. I called them into my room, took off my belt and then my shirt, and with a bare back I knelt down at the bed. I made them both strap me with the belt 10 times each. You should’ve heard the crying – from them, I mean. They didn’t want to do it. But I told them the penalty had to be paid and, so, through their sobs and tears they did what I told them… I must admit, I wasn’t much of a hero. It hurt. I haven’t offered to do that again. It was a once-for-all sacrifice, I guess you could say, but I never had to spank those two children again. They got the point. We kissed each other, and when it was over we prayed together.”

Romans 3:21-26 shows how God can remain righteous even while He declares guilty sinners righteous, and how He can be just and the justifier of the wicked. God, in Christ, has done this for you and for me.

I don’t know where you are today – physically or spiritually. But regardless, I want you to know that the God of the universe loves you so much that He sent His one and only Son to die in your place. Jesus took the punishment for your sin. He stands ready to give you the free gift of His grace and remove your sin, if you’re willing to accept it by faith. Don’t be fooled today. Nobody – I don’t care how much money you give, how many good deeds you do, how long you’ve attended church – nobody will hear those words that we all long to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant” unless you repent of your sins and accept God’s free gift of grace through Jesus Christ.

View Sermon

Leave a comment

Watch YouTube Video