Romans

Everyone has a theology or an understanding of God, but a Biblical one is the only one that is trustworthy and true. The goal of good theology is doxology. Doxology means "praise saying." Paul uses a praise saying or a doxology to bring his great epistle to a conclusion. The goal of sound doctrine is a heart that overflows with praise to God because that is the reality of things. Paul reminds us that the goal of the gospel is not only our happiness. Certainly, we should be forever happy that God has rescued us from judgment and showered on us every blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Yet, the ultimate goal of the gospel is God's eternal glory. The goal of the gospel is that we would glorify God through Jesus Christ as we live in obedient faith and proclaim Him to everyone we can. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." To glorify God is to make God look as good as He truly is to the extent we are able. This is profoundly different thinking from the commonly held notion that the gospel is all about us. It even affects our view of suffering. If the gospel is all about us and our happiness, then how do you deal with suffering and death? But if the gospel is not ultimately about our happiness, but rather about God's glory, then you can even face martyrdom as Paul did, with the goal that "Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." As John Piper observes, our happiness and God's glory are not at odds, because "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

Ever since the church of Jesus Christ was first established, she has been plagued by troublemakers. These are people who have desired to either see the church destroyed, or to see it shaped to their own will. This should come as no shock. After all, Jesus Himself predicted the rise of troublemakers in the church, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." After 2,000 years the troublemakers are still inside the church! That's right, there are still those within and without the church who work against the mission of God and seek to mold the church to their liking! Now, lest you become concerned, this message is designed as preventative maintenance. As far as I know, there are no troublemakers here. However, the best offense is a good defense! Therefore, it will be good to hear what the Bible says about how to handle troublemakers in the church. So that when trouble arises, we will be able to identify it and deal it a death blow before serious damage is done to the church of God! J. C. Ryle was a champion for the truth in the Church of England during the 19th century. In Warnings to the Churches, he wrote about how difficult yet necessary controversy in the church is. He explains, "But there is one thing which is even worse than controversy, and that is false doctrine tolerated, allowed, and permitted without protest or molestation." He wisely points out, "Three things there are which men never ought to trifle with—a little poison, a little false doctrine, and a little sin."

The apostle Paul was a caring man who loved people. He was not a mere academic nor a male chauvinist. His heart was on fire for the gospel, and he treasured his relationships. Relationships are a gift from God which should be treasured and nurtured. Paul's heart overflowed. If the long list of names and greetings in these verses teaches us anything, it is that Paul had a great love for people. The passage features 33 people, 24 of which were in Rome. What makes this list of those he knew in the church of Rome so amazing is the fact that he had never been there! Think of the energy and effort "keeping in touch" involved in such an ancient culture with no modern technology! There was no postal service for civilians, no cell phones, emails, texts or social media. Names were very important to Paul. Our own names are music to our ears. Certainly, Paul knew this. But it is also true that you learn the names of those for whom you really care. Some suggest that the reason Paul could so readily recite all these names in dictation was because of their frequent mention in his personal prayer list. Love people by learning their names and their stories. Put their names on your prayer list. Love your church. Be people persons. What a difference authentic Christian affection can make in a cold, indifferent world! "People don't care what you know until they know that you care." The church of Jesus Christ is meant to be one large and very caring family to help you onto heaven! And if you hurt your church, you hurt yourself.

The apostle Paul. His life is cause for amazement and reflection. On one side was Rome, the superpower of the world. On the other side was this little Jew, scarred and feeble and armed only with the "good news." Yet he changed the history of Rome, Western civilization, and indeed our own lives. Paul had a missionary's heart. You may think this message doesn't apply to you because you are not in ministry. But as a Christian, God has given you spiritual gifts that you are to use in ministering for Him. There are no useless or inactive parts in the body of Christ. Every believer is a priest with a ministry to fulfill. You may think that you're not "in the ministry" because you're not financially supported. You work in a secular job. But so did Paul—he made tents to support his ministry. The only way you can rightly say that this message doesn't apply to you is if you are not saved. Since all of us who have trusted in Christ will give an account to God for how well we served Him with the gifts that He gave us, we need to know some biblical principles for how to conduct our ministries. We are all in full-time ministry. It is common knowledge today that how we perceive ourselves greatly determines how we live our lives. Everything Paul did was to please God. All of his life was a liturgy. If only we could see our service as such, our lives would be transformed. Preach the gospel to the saved and the unsaved!

What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Ask ten people, get ten different answers. Most answers would probably fail to see life from God's perspective. There is more to life than meets the eye, more than the here and now. We are here "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." But how do I glorify God? When I was a young Christian, I didn't know what that meant. You can save a lot of grief in your life if you use a telescope rather than a microscope! Magnify and glorify are very similar in their meaning biblically. Paul says, "My aim is to magnify Jesus Christ." That's the same as glorify Jesus Christ. Does it mean magnify God like a microscope magnifies or like a telescope magnifies? A microscope makes tiny things look bigger than they are, and a telescope makes gigantic things that to the naked eye look little, look more like what they really are. Now, which way are you called upon to magnify God? The answer is like a telescope, not like a microscope. It is blasphemy to magnify God like a microscope! "You are on planet Earth to put a telescope to the eye of the world." That's why you exist. By your behavior, your parenting, the way you do your job, the way you worship, and the way you handle your things in life, everyone should read off of your life, "God is great." That's why you exist. To glorify God is to advertise him. He is life's most significant reality, radically worthy of receiving glory, honor and power. We glorify God when we make it our goal to please him in all things. The beautiful irony is that in glorifying God we actually find true happiness.

Sometimes we have to make sure that our American mindset doesn't cloud our Biblical worldview. Americans know their rights and insist upon them. They are weary of government intrusions on personal liberty. That is a normal part of our republic. But in the church, we should be happy to give up our rights for the sake of Christ. The strong should not flaunt their liberty in Christ to the detriment of weaker believers, who may be influenced to violate their consciences. The apostle Paul tells stronger believers that love for their brothers should trump their use of liberty. "For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died." (Romans 14:15) Individual Christians can disagree over customs and social habits and both be perfectly right with God. There are many areas that the Bible does not address or where it allows liberty of conscience. In the church, we are to accept and not judge one another when we differ on matters where the Bible does not give specific commandments or applicable principles. Our main focus should not be on our liberty or our rights, but on loving our brother. Love gladly yields its rights when it is necessary to keep a weaker brother from stumbling. Your sacrifice of some liberty is nothing compared to Christ's sacrifice of His very life! "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."

A few months ago, I was selecting a jury with a judge and opposing counsel. The time came for any person to say why they couldn't serve on the jury. Did they have an issue? Childcare? Job demands? Disability? One young man said he couldn't do it because "The Bible says, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged'"! If people would keep reading Matthew 7, they would see that in verse 6 Jesus tells us not to give what is holy to dogs and not to cast our pearls before swine. He isn't talking about animals, but about people. Obviously, we have to make some judgments to obey that command! And in verse 15 Jesus warns about false prophets, who come to us as wolves in sheep's clothing. Again, to spot a wolf in sheep's clothing, you have to make some careful judgments. So Jesus was not telling us that we should not make any judgments. Rather, we should judge ourselves by taking the log out of our own eye before we help our brother with his speck. But, having said that, there is still the danger that we wrongly judge one another, which can lead to all sorts of problems in the local church. A younger believer might come into the church and his appearance is very different than that of the older believers. If they judge him so that he feels unwelcome, he may never come back to the place where he should have felt loved and accepted, where he could grow in the things of God. In the church, we are to accept and not judge one another when we differ on matters where the Bible does not give specific commandments or applicable principles. "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."

Our age seeks authenticity but is so easily fooled by its own senses. Perhaps a poignant illustration is a photograph of a battered and bloody Jim Caviezel, dressed like Jesus, sitting with a crew member and smoking a cigarette on the set of The Passion of the Christ. Every visual representation of Jesus is inevitably false. The only wise God went to great lengths not to leave us with any physical description of the physical appearance of His Son lest we fall into the sin of image making. We create an image of Jesus that says more about the Jesus we want than the Jesus whom God sent. A movie or a play is not intended by God to represent Jesus to a lost and dying world. YOU ARE. True Christians demonstrate true Christian faith! "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34) Irresistible Christianity is marked by holy love! Putting on the armor of light or putting on Christ are not instructions to become a Christian all over again. Paul is calling us to be what we are in Christ. When you wallow in sin, you play the hypocrite. "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good." (Rom. 12:9) You are children of the light, children of the day. As John Piper says, "Dress like it, live like it, fight like it!" Amen!

This is our time. The torch has been passed to us in this relay race we call the Christian life. "From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands." (Acts 17:26) Jesus Christ is the Lord of all of the Christian's life. Christ must be Lord of our political views. That may sound obvious, but it is anything but obvious in practice. The Scriptures teach that government is ordained of God and thus accountable to God. Some groups try to use the First Amendment to mean that religion cannot have any voice in government matters. But the intent of that amendment was not to keep religion out of the government, but to keep the government out of religion. Since part of the government's God-ordained function is to promote justice, and since, by necessity, that involves legislating morality, it is absurd to talk about a total separation of church and state. Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. Yet, the church must be careful to be known primarily for the gospel, not for a partisan political stance. Christians have influenced government positively throughout history. These changes have also facilitated the spread of the gospel. The media soaks the culture in the implicit assumption that we need the government to make life better and longer. The implicit assumption made by most Americans is that government can and must solve every human problem and is responsible to usher in some utopia. The Bible teaches otherwise. Near the consummation of all things, the government will try to crush the church and it is only King Jesus who can and will save His people!

Do you love me? How would I know? Actions speak louder than words. What is inside comes to the outside. If it does not come out, it is not within. If there is no fruit, there is no root. Do you love the people that make up your church? Do you want to get to know them better, and do you care about them? Do you have holy love? Long ago, Augustine pointed out that the desire of every human heart is to experience a love that is transcendent. Regrettably for us today, however, there is no word in the English language that's been more stripped of the depth of its meaning than the word love. We tend to view the love of God in the same way popular music, art, and literature views love. However, holy love comes from God Himself. This love is not natural to fallen humanity. It originates in God and is a divine gift to His people. When we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are given a capacity for this supernatural love that has God as its source and foundation. The love of God is in a class by itself. It transcends our experience. Nevertheless, it is a love that He shares in part with us and expects us to manifest to each other. Holy love is genuine. It is loyal. It honors others. Holy love blesses those who persecute it. Holy love empathizes with others. Love in the Church and love in the world go together. They are the demands of commitment. We are totally devoted to God. If our minds have been renewed and our lives have been transformed, our hearts should be full of holy love. Holy love results in action. The Holy Spirit does this in us and through us if we are really His!

What's on your mind? If we all revealed our habitual thoughts to one another, it might make for a very interesting time. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny." Our destiny is tied directly to and starts with our thoughts. The Scriptures remind us how important our thoughts are. In Philippians 4:8, the apostle Paul writes, "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." Our thought life is largely revealed in our actions and words. "For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he." (Proverbs 23:7). It is crucial for each of us to bring our thought life into submission to Jesus Christ by learning to think biblically about life. If you don't, old thoughts, attitudes and actions will rush in to fill the gap. The apostle Paul has been telling us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world but rather "to be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Now he spells out what this means, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment." How should we who are having our minds renewed and our lives transformed think about ourselves? About fellow believers? About the church? About our spiritual gifts? Paul answers these questions in our passage!

Why give yourself totally to God? Right here. Right now. Many of you have never done this. You have never yielded yourself totally to God without reservation or equivocation. But that is God's command for every Christian. We should be motivated by mercy to live for the One who died for us. Halfway commitment is irrational. This commitment is an act of the will. It isn't automatic. It's a decision that you must think about rationally and make. No one else can do it for you. This commitment is both initial and ongoing. Living sacrifices have a way of crawling off the altar! The godless system of thinking and acting known as "the world" will cheat you out of consecration. The church should be in the world, but the world should not be in the church. The world is like a Trojan Horse. It's the water in the boat and not the boat on the water that sinks the ship. We are not to immerse ourselves in the sinful activities the world promotes, nor are we to retain the corrupt mind that the world creates. Rather, we are to conform ourselves, and our minds, to that of Jesus Christ. This is a daily activity and commitment. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold! Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

We read God's Word to realize who God is. He is who says He is in His Word, and our imaginations are usually unreliable. If you don't read His Word, you cannot know Him as He ought to be known. God said, "I am who I am" not "I am whoever you want me to be." You don't get to make your own personal Jesus, although many have tried to do so. Sometimes a lack of faith, a lack of passion and a lack of surrender arise from a deficient vision of God. We trade the God that is for a much smaller version. It's like Thomas Jefferson who believed in God but didn't believe in miracles. And so in his Bible he took a razor and cut out every Gospel account of Jesus doing miracles. His Bible now sits in the Smithsonian Institute, an artifact of a defective faith. "A god small enough to be understood is not big enough to be worshipped!" observes Evelyn Underhill. Do you prefer a God who is small, who thinks like we think, who likes what we like, who we can manage? It is a heinous sin to do this. The Word and the Spirit are the antidotes. Even creation declares the glory of God. When your God is too small, your problems are too big! But when your God is great, your problems pale into insignificance and you stand in awe as you worship the King. How big is your God? Big enough to intervene? Big enough to be trusted? Big enough to be held in awe and ultimate respect? Remember: the more you know God, the bigger He becomes.

I'm so glad that human unbelief cannot thwart God's sovereign purpose! God overrules human sin and weaves it into His sovereign plan to glorify Himself through the gospel. The cross is the greatest example: Evil men crucified the sinless Son of God, and yet they inadvertently fulfilled God's predestined purpose. Paul's subject in Romans 11 is how God used the unbelief of the Jews to take the gospel to the Gentiles, which in turn eventually will lead to the salvation of the Jews. Paul preached the gospel to the Jews first in his missionary work. If they rejected the message, then he would turn to the Gentiles. So in this sense, the Jews' transgression resulted in salvation for the Gentiles. Jesus predicted the same thing in the Parable of the Tenants. Jesus concluded it by saying, "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits." (Matt. 21:43) While we can never excuse or justify sin by saying that good will come out of it, at the same time we can take comfort in the fact that human unbelief and sin can never thwart God's sovereign purposes. Where sin abounds, God's grace abounds even more! He works all things, including the sins of people, together for good for those whom He has called to salvation (Rom. 8:28). In light of God's certain fulfillment of His purpose, we can now labor in the Great Commission with great enthusiasm and hope!

If you pay attention to the news, you've probably felt at times that the world is spinning out of control and that evil is winning. You see the horrors of terrorism, war, crime, corruption and natural disasters. The list goes on and on. Sometimes it can be depressing. Some wonder whether God is really in charge of world events. Then you come to realize your own country consists of a bunch of malcontented rich people who are amusing themselves to death. I mean, if you woke up each morning with the concern of starving to death, would you care about which pronouns that people use to refer to you? Romans 11 shows us that God is in charge and that His promises and His purpose will not fail. Romans 11 tells us that in the future, the Jewish people will turn to Christ in unprecedented numbers. God is not finished with the Jews. One other practical aspect of Romans 11 is that it helps us to look beyond ourselves to God's great purpose for history, which should lead us to worship Him for His glorious ways. Paul ends the chapter with an eruption of praise as he is caught up with the truths that he writes about here. Sometimes we get so self-focused that we forget that our eyes should be on God and His glory. "His plan includes us, but it's not ultimately about us." It's about His glory over the whole earth!

I love lamps. Putting on a lamp in a dark room after work is so enjoyable for me. It is warm and inviting. It makes me think of my father who used to collect antique lamps with my Uncle Henry. Spiritually speaking, a church is a lamp. Jesus warned the angel of the church in Ephesus, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent." Evangelism is one of the greatest privileges that God gives to the church. Nobody is going to put their trust in a Savior whom they do not believe is capable of saving them. Belief is a precondition to calling upon him. "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard?" Millions have never heard the name of Jesus, and they are not going to put their trust in someone they know nothing about. And that includes your family members and friends. They cannot possibly believe in Jesus because they know nothing about him. Saving faith requires information. That is why the church is commanded to go to every corner of the world and make that message plain to all people. A church that participates in community events is not a church unless in everything it does it makes preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ primary and vocal. There are no silent witnesses. Witnesses speak! Our church must speak the gospel of grace in everything we get involved in because we are here to be a lampstand. And if we do not speak the gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus will take away our lampstand and no one and nothing will be able to stop Him.

A few years back, I had to travel to Concord NH in the early morning to take a continuing education course. Not having been to the particular hotel where the conference was, I put the address in my GPS. This was a few years ago and GPS's were perhaps not as good as they are today. Finally, I got to the address and I looked up and it was an old broken-down barn on a dead-end road in Concord. Not anything close to the major hotel which I was trying to get to. I can imagine an old farmer coming out and responding to my request for better directions, "you can't get there from here." When you don't know where you're going, any road will do. But if you're trying to get to heaven, there is only one way. Many people believe in God, but few believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He is God. Many people want to go to heaven when they die, but most believe any road will do. The road of their own imagination is perfectly fine in their opinion. We live in a culture where even the most basic distinctions will not be made for fear of offending someone. I can still hear the words of my kid's pre-school teacher, intoned when anyone in the class even performed miserably intentionally. A child could carelessly spit on a piece paper for his art project and she would say, "Good job!" H. G. Wells famously said, "If there is no God, nothing matters. If there is a God, nothing else matters." People live like there is no God and so to them nothing matters. But there is a God, and nothing else really matters. We are dancing on this earth for a very short time, and we will face Him. Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (

If you were guilty of a crime and sought a pardon, the pardon would be at the complete discretion of the governor. There is no appeal because there is no right to a pardon. A judge, on the other hand, is responsible to find the facts and apply the law in a just manner. There is an appeal from a judge's decision because you deserve justice. You do not deserve mercy. James M. Boice writes, "It is not justice we want from God; it is grace. And grace cannot be commanded. It must flow to us from God's sovereign purposes decreed before the foundation of the world, or it must not come at all." God is not unfair. Each person will get justice but no one deserves mercy. Jesus says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you." (John 15:16) "No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father" (John 6:65). If you are wrestling with the doctrine of election, your first question should be is it taught by the Bible? The question is not yet whether you understand it or whether you like it. Election is the Bible's teaching and not man's—and this is the reason that people often find it hard to accept. In any given courtroom, there is a bench and a dock. The bench is where the judge sits. He is the highest in the courtroom. The design displays his authority. The dock is an enclosure where the accused comes into or is bright into to face the judge. It is lower. The accused is usually asked questions by the judge, for the accused is on trial. C. S. Lewis wisely observed that in the old days, people approached God as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are reversed. Man is the judge! God is in the dock. But no human has the right to judge God!

The pastor of a Christian Church is to preach the whole counsel of the Word of God. Scratching itchy ears to get more people in is warned against in the Bible. Yet that is exactly what is happening in the church world today. The doctrine of election, like every truth about God, involves mystery and sometimes stirs controversy. But it is a pastoral doctrine of Scripture, intended to help Christians see how great is the grace that saves them, and to move them to humility, confidence, joy, praise, faithfulness, and holiness in response. We do not know who else he has chosen among those who do not yet believe, nor why it was his good pleasure to choose us in particular. Knowledge of one's election brings comfort and joy. What is taught here is beyond our complete understanding. We should also note that the doctrine of election is nothing new. It was the view of Jesus, Paul, Augustine, Tyndale, Wycliffe, Isaac Watts, John Newton, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, William Carey, Luther, Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, John Murray, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Paul Washer, Alistair Begg, and Voddie Baucham, to name a few. I could go on! God loved you before you were born. He chose you. And then you chose him. We love Him because He first loved us! The sheer force of the text is overwhelming. Although the doctrine set forth in Romans 9 is absolutely clear, people foolishly try to get around it.

There are two ways to look at stained glass windows. You can examine each piece of colored glass individually, or you can stand in a quiet church and let the sun shine through all the pieces and bring the whole thing to life. Some people get absorbed and preoccupied by whatever is in front of them at the time, but they cannot see the big picture. They ignore God and are ignorant of His Word and His ways. But not the Christian. No, no, no. The Christian knows because God has opened his or heart and mind to know. And the Christian connects the dots! He or she applies the Word to his or her life now and says, "God is at work! I may suffer now, but I am not home yet." How else could James write, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds" unless he knew that "the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-4) Do you need to regain your perspective, from a "oh, woe is me" to a "thank God I'm free?" God is always at work in your life, beloved! Through both the fire and the flood. He is preparing you for the next step and the best step! Whether we have a weak faith or a strong faith, we get the same strong Christ.

"If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father." (J.I. Packer) Our salvation includes being adopted as sons and daughters of God which is a central benefit of redemption. It includes what it means to be brought into a saving relationship with God as our Father. (R.C. Sproul) Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Our Father . . ." The Apostle Paul noted that every believer has the "Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Rom. 8:15). Today, there is a widespread notion of the universal fatherhood of God. But the Bible does not teach that. Instead, we were once enemies of God. By nature we are all children of wrath. We are now saved and thus adopted as sons and daughters of God! How do we now live in the light of it? Consider what John Newton said once. You will recall that he was the converted slave-trader turned pastor and hymn-writer. I have updated it: "Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate, and his vehicle should break down a mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way; what a fool we should think him, if we saw him ringing his hands, and blubbering out all the remaining mile, "My vehicle is broken! My vehicle is broken!" Your vehicle may be broken, but keep going—there's a rich inheritance and eternal glory just ahead in the loving hands and heart of your dear, good, heavenly Father who loves you more than you know!"

This chapter has often been called one of the greatest in the Bible. Godet points out that it begins with "no condemnation" and ends with "no separation." Romans 8 is a place for us to come often. Even though mature believers experience victory over sin, we still struggle daily against the flesh and sometimes lose the battle. So we must understand how to deal with guilt and how to overcome temptation. When we do sin as Christians, the enemy comes in to stir up doubts about our salvation. Romans 8:1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." A great verse for the Christian. If you have not memorized it, please do so! Laminate it for your refrigerator. You will need it over and over again, every time you sin. The good news is that our lives are now free from condemnation. While we feel guilty about offending the Lord, and we repent, the shield of faith is raised against the accuser's fiery arrow: "True Christians don't do what you did. You're not even a Christian!" There is now condemnation. It says so. As someone said, "The unbeliever has his judgment day before him, but the believer in Christ has his judgment day behind him!"

I have a secret to share with you. Something that I came to realize that I never heard in a church until only a few years ago. It would have helped me immensely if I understood it early in my Christian life. I would have been even more effective and even more joyful. The old preachers used to say, "Your problem is that you don't know what your problem is. You think your problem is your problem, but that's not the problem at all. Your problem is not your problem, and that's your main problem." The secret is this: You and I are walking contradictions. The Christian is a walking contradiction. We do not always practice what we preach. We don't always behave as we believe. The Apostle Paul said, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." (Romans 7:15) We still sin. The world does not understand it either and loves to look at you and say, "And you call yourself a Christian!" We are not perfect. We will not be perfect until we breathe our last breath. For now, we are walking contradictions. Most Christians have at some point asked themselves, "If I'm a true Christian, why do I keep sinning?" The answer requires us to understand what Scripture says is true of Christians in the application of redemption. We must consider the Bible's teaching about what has already happened to the Christian, what is happening to the Christian, and what has not yet happened to the Christian.

Bob Dylan wrote a song in 1979 entitled, "You Gotta Serve Somebody." I don't know if Dylan was inspired by the words of Jesus or by our text, but his song certainly reflects the truth of our passage. Paul says that either you are a slave of sin or you are a slave of God (Rom. 6:22). Unbelievers tragically think that they are free when they cast off God and follow their own lusts, but they are "slaves of corruption" (2 Pet. 2:19). God has freed us from sin (Rom. 6:18), but not to live as we please. Rather, He frees us from sin to make us "slaves of righteousness." You gotta serve somebody! Spurgeon observed, "Free will I have often heard of, but I have never seen it. I have met with will, and plenty of it, but it has either been led captive by sin or held in blessed bonds of grace." So the only choice is, "Should I serve sin or should I serve God?" You gotta serve somebody! Paul is telling us: Either you are a slave of sin, resulting in death, or you are a slave of obedience, resulting in righteousness. There is no such thing as absolute freedom for anyone. No human is free to do everything he or she may want to do. There is one being in the universe who is totally free, and that is God. Humans are not autonomous. We must either be slaves to sin or slaves of Jesus Christ. But here is the wonderful thing: To be a slave of Jesus Christ is true freedom!

Romans 6 answers questions that people have asked for centuries: Is it possible to change morally? Is it possible to break destructive habits and stop sinning? Can even addicts or habitual liars change for the better? If so, how? How do those of us who are under grace live without being dominated by sin? How are we to live lives of overcoming victory? We know that freedom is not freedom to sin but freedom from sin. We got it so wrong in America today. Do we really think that statesmen worked and soldiers died so we can become bad beyond belief? Someone somewhere said so simply, when America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. Identity is powerful in the lives of people. We are always living out an identity. Christian, your identity is not in your sin but in Christ! Yet, many are trying to live the Christian life without Christ. There are attempting to face each day with their old identity, not knowing and living out their new identity as a new creation in Christ. We must remind ourselves who we are and whose we are, again and again. We belong to Jesus. We are Christians. You have a new identity in Christ. You must know this, count this to be true and yield to it by faith. This is why identity is so important. We must become who we already are in Christ.

The New England Primer was the first reading textbook designed for the American colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in the late 1600s in colonial America. It was the very foundation of most schooling before the 1790s. Children learned the letter A with this important theological truth: "In Adam's fall, We sinned all." Yes, in elementary school! Life is so simple. Sin is the pervasive problem and the only solution is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are either "in Adam" or you are "in Christ." We learn that sin and death entered the world through Adam and "in Adam," we all sinned. The Bible tells us God created Adam and Eve as the first humans, placed them in the Garden of Eden, and gave them a strict commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They disobeyed God, resulting in God banishing them from the garden and imposing the curse on the human race as a result of their sin. If you are in Adam, you're under the reign of sin and death, headed for eternal condemnation. But if you are in Christ by faith in His sacrifice on the cross, you are free from sin and death and will reign in life through Him, because Christ's gift is greater than Adam's sin!

If you were shopping for a new house, you might neglect to check the foundation. But the strength of a building lies in its foundation. The main purpose of any foundation is to keep the structure above it standing. On the contrary, a poorly constructed foundation can be highly dangerous to its occupants for obvious reasons. If you were to ask many Christians what words they associate with "doctrine," you would probably hear, "boring." We tend to be pragmatists who view the doctrines of the Bible as something that interests only theologians or seminary students. But we want something practical. We want to know how to deal with the problems we face every day. So we tend to skip the doctrine and move on to the "how to's." The apostle Paul did not take that approach. He would view it as building a house without a foundation. In all of his letters, he first sets forth the doctrine and then comes the practice. In Romans, he spends 11 chapters laying the doctrinal foundation before he gets really practical. But even within the first 11 chapters, he can't resist drawing out the practical implications of the doctrines that he sets forth. In chapter 5, he gives us some wonderful blessings that flow from the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Justification by faith gives us peace with God through Jesus Christ!

The story has been told of an elderly grandmother who had never flown in an airplane, but she had to make a trip by air. Her kids and grandkids all tried to convince her that it was safer than riding in a car. Finally, with a lot of doubts, she got on board. When she returned safely, the family met her at the airport and asked, "How'd it go, Grandma? Did the plane hold you up?" She reluctantly agreed, "Yeah." But then she added, "But I never put my full weight down on it!" Is your faith in Jesus Christ to save you like that? You believe in Him, but you're also keeping one foot in your good works to get you into heaven. Saving faith puts all its weight on Jesus Christ and His merciful sacrifice. Now certainly, James tells us that works prove the genuineness of our faith but it is always faith alone that saves us! Be sure that your trust is in Christ and in Him alone.

The fact that all human beings are under the dynamic of sin presents a dilemma. Divine justice demands the condemnation of mankind, yet divine love wants to reach out to the guilty human race and extend mercy. Today we come to the universally acknowledged turning point of Paul's letter to the Romans: God performs the miracle of righteousness. God's total provision is sufficient for man's total need. We are justified by Christ alone, which is received through faith alone. Propitiation and expiation are two of the most glorious words here. Propitiation means to satisfy the rightful demands of divine justice. We are saved by God from God, from the wrath that is to come. Christ as our substitute took upon himself the wrath that we deserve. In his work of propitiation, Jesus did something on a vertical level, satisfying the justice of God for us. Expiation has to do directly with us. Christ removes our sin from us and takes it away. The psalmist tells us, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us" (Ps. 103:12). In the work of Christ, there is propitiation and expiation. When you gaze upon the cross, look at the vertical bar and think of the vertical dimension of your justification, which is propitiation. The horizontal bar of the cross represents expiation, whereby Christ not only satisfied the justice of the Father but also removed our sins from us. God set forth Christ as a propitiation by his blood through faith that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26). There is no such thing as cheap grace!

Every human being is the same in many ways. We are all under sin. We are sinners who have absolutely no excuse before the perfectly righteous one and true living God who created us. Every one of us, whether we believe it or not, will one day stand before God in silence. We do not want justice because we know, or should know, where that will get us. We desperately need mercy. Everyone desperately needs the gospel. Everyone desperately needs Jesus Christ. Only He can remove our sin, give us His righteousness, and satisfy the rightful demands of God's divine justice!

Nothing can choke the heart and soul out of walking with God like legalism. Legalism is the notion that a person is accepted by God on the basis of his law keeping. All human beings are predisposed to it. Many forms of legalism have arisen throughout history. Jesus knows we have bad memories, so He put the whole of the Ten Commandments into two. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." "Love your neighbor as yourself." In contrast, the Pharisees had developed a system of 613 laws, 365 negative commands and 248 positive laws. The true story is told some years ago of a pastor who found the roads blocked one Sunday morning and was forced to skate on the river to get to church, which he did. When he arrived the elders of the church were horrified that their preacher had skated on the Lord's day. After the service they held a meeting where the pastor explained that it was either skate to church or not go at all. Finally one elder asked, "Did you enjoy it?" When the preacher answered, "No," the board decided it was all right! Spurgeon said this, "I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit."

The sin of moral superiority is so easy to fall into today. Society as a whole is openly committing or condoning flagrant sins. Because we don't commit those sins, we tend to feel morally superior and look with a certain amount of contempt on those who do. We can also get a kick out of discussing how awful the culture around us is becoming. We can be guilty of the pride of moral superiority, and slide right into self-righteous. But no human being can cover up what God will reveal. There will be no possibility of standing before Christ but by standing in Christ. When we truly understand our own nature, we should come to the realization that repentance is not dry doctrine, or some kind of spiritual downer! It is, as the early church fathers said, a gift God grants which leads to life. John Donne had it right: "Every man feels more comfort and spiritual joy after true repentance for a sin, than he had in that innocence before he committed the sin."

Things are happening so fast today. The societal change in the last 5 years has been breathtaking. What will the next five years bring? Our culture is corrupt and declining. Good is bad and bad is good. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes. The authority of dignified and righteous leaders is scarce. When we look at things, we can come to only one of two conclusions. Either God is not control or it is something else entirely. We know that the one and true living God is supreme in all things. He is sovereign. Nothing happens unless He has ordained it. It stands written! The correct conclusion is that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. The most fundamental sin in our fallen, corrupt nature is the sin of idolatry, the sin of refusing to honor God as he is. How does God respond to idolatry? God gives people over to what they want. What is the effect? The degrading of their bodies with one another. When men refuse to honor God, they begin to dishonor themselves. Wherever the glory of God is attacked, sooner or later the dignity of man suffers. Be afraid: the current culture is prima facie evidence of the wrath of God upon our society. When God judges people according to the standard of his righteousness, he is declaring that he will not strive with mankind forever. The worst thing that can happen to sinners is to be allowed to go on sinning without any divine restraints. We become slaves of the things we want to do, forging our own chains link by link.

Christians need theological development, now more than ever. Romans contains some of the most profound theological truths in all of God's Word. We need Christian maturity. Hopefully, it will come through your church. It brings stability to your life and the ability to weather the worldly storms and afflictions that we are about to go through as Christians. There will be a whole lot of shaking going on. Figure on persecution. God has used this epistle in the conversion of many. Some say there never was a real revival without Romans being at the bottom of it. The pivotal verse is, "For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" (Romans 1:17). It answers the ancient question: how can a human being become rightly related to God? The good news is that God declares sinners to be righteous when they trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone on their behalf. And we exchange kingdoms! When Christ sets us free from slavery to sin, the world and the devil, He calls us into the royal liberty of slavery to Him. We call him Master. He is the Lord of our lives. We are not. Human autonomy, spiritually speaking, is a lie of tremendous proportion. You have got to serve somebody, and it is either the lover of your soul or the enemy of your soul.