03-14-10 ROMANS!!

In past 27 years I’ve been teaching here at PBF

we’ve been involved in a number of different studies

during our time together here on Sunday mornings.

Occasionally we have done topical series -

a series on Spiritual Growth,

on Freedom From Sin,

on Basic Principles of Christianity,

even one on my Life’s Greatest Surprises.

But most of the time

we have invested our time into verse-by-verse studies of Books in the Bible.

We’ve studied the Gospel of John,

and Ephesians, and Philippians, and Colossians, and Hebrews, and 1^st John, and Revelation,

and most recently we’ve studied both of Peter’s letters together.

We’ve also studied major sections of most of the other New Testament books.

Ten years ago,

in the summer of 2000,

we began what ended up being our most extensive study together,

a study of the entire book of Romans.

And this morning,

a decade later,

we are going to return once again to this remarkable document.

Many of you were not a part of our fellowship ten years ago,

and even those of you who were

will discover that your ability to hear what this letter has to say to us

has changed dramatically since we last looked at these truths together.

Your ability to hear has changed

because you have changed,

or more correctly, your God has change you

because that’s what He does.

He is in an eternal process of finding ways of feeding our spirits the truth,

finding ways of introducing us to those truths that have the power to set us free.

And in my own experience

I have discovered that the hardest part of that process

is bringing us to the place where we have ears to hear what He’s really saying.

He carefully leads us through the sometimes agonizing process

of freeing us from our massive misconceptions about Him

and about what He’s saying

so that we can hear the simplicity and purity of what it means to live with God through faith in Christ.

And I will tell you right now

that the tremendous power of this book we are about to study

is not found in our ability to dig out obscure and deeply hidden truths,

but rather in our ability to strip away all of the layers of religious assumptions that cloud our vision

so that we can finally see

what is being said with such clarity and simplicity.

As I mentioned several weeks ago,

nearly every book in the New Testament

was originally written as a letter.

Some were letters written by Paul

to specific local churches,

as with Romans,

and Ephesians,

and Colossians,

and Philippians, and Thessalonians, and Corinthians.

And some were open letters to all Christians,

as with Peter’s letters and John’s.

But what I want us to never loose sight of

is that every one of these letters

was written for a specific purpose

to meet a specific need.

In fact, it was the need

that brought the letters into being in the first place.

I remember some of the letters Sandee and I received from our daughter Joni

back in her college days.

I remember one that was addressed to:

LRH Savings and Loan,

and then down below the address was printed the slogan: “If we can’t fund it no one can!”

And there was another one addressed to:

‟Huntsperger’s Financial Help and Rescue”

and the return address was from JSH Accounting Inc.

Now obviously those letters were written

for very specific purposes

with very specific goals in mind.

Every New Testament letter is exactly the same.

No New Testament writer

ever sat down to write and said to himself,

“You know, we Christians need a holy book like other religions.

I believe I’ll write a portion of THE BIBLE today.”

Now, it is certainly true

that what they wrote

was directly, perfectly inspired by God Himself,

and now carries with it

absolute and infallible authority

for all Christians.

In fact that’s one of the first things God’s Spirit seeks to do within the minds and hearts

of all those who come to Christ -

He gives them a spirit-level trust in the Word of God.

But what I want us to understand

is that the power of what is happening in these books

can so easily be lost

if we do not understand why the books were written in the first place

and what questions or problems

they were intended to answer.

This is certainly true

when it comes to the book of Romans.

We will very likely spend

a number of months in our study of the book of Romans.

It is a carefully organized,

highly structured,

perfectly logical piece of writing.

It is the longest of what we normally think of as the Church Epistles.

Most seminaries and Bible schools

will offer full semester classes on this one letter.

Bible teachers throughout the history of the church

have often viewed their crowning achievements

as being their 500 or 600 page commentaries on this one book.

Young Bible scholars will often cower

at the very mention of THE BOOK OF ROMANS.

And yet,

as it was written by Paul,

the book was designed to provide simple,

clear,

understandable answers to four crucial questions.

We won’t look at those questions until next week,

but I’ll give them to you early in our study

so that you’ll have a solid mental framework with which to relate to what we’ll study.

But what I want to emphasize this morning

is that when it was originally written

this book was placed into the hands of baby Christians

with no one there to guide them through a six month study of the letter.

And yet in that setting

it perfectly accomplished the purposes for which Paul wrote it,

and it literally changed the course of the lives of countless Christians

and impacted the presentation of the message of Jesus Christ

more profoundly than any other document ever written.

I am not trying to suggest, of course,

that a casual, superficial reading of Romans

will allow us to instantly grasp

the depth and power of the concepts presented in the book.

But at the same time,

I do believe that in a very real sense

the wide-eyed ignorance

that the first readers of this book

brought to their reading

in many respects served them far better

than the 2000 year heritage of religion

that we bring to our reading today.

Those first readers did not have to unlearn

a huge pile of wrong beliefs,

and concepts,

and ideas about the true nature of Christianity.

They had no idea what it meant to be a Christian.

They had no idea what it meant to be the church.

And when Paul told them that, (Rom. 5:1) “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,...”

they did not have to battle their way through generations

of guilt-based religious manipulation

pumped into human society in the name of Christianity.

They could read the words,

and relax in the remarkable truth of peace with God.

And when Paul told them

that, (Rom. 8:1) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus...

they could hear the words

in the simplicity and clarity with which Paul wrote them,

not hampered by the misunderstandings

and misinterpretations of those who came before them.

There have been times in my life

when I have spent weeks

and sometimes months churning over passages in the book of Romans.

And I want to share something with you

that I hope will help you

in your own personal relationship with the New Testament.

Every major breakthrough I have ever had

in reaching a point of peace and understanding

with a passage that has troubled me

has come when I have finally been able to unlearn and let go

of what I thought the passage should be saying

to the point where I could at last

accept at face value the clear, simple truths being presented.

The book we are about to study

is filled with clear, incredible statements

that, if we can hear them as they are written,

will explode within our minds

in a way that will infiltrate every aspect of our lives.

Statements such as...

...we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

...There is therefore now no condemnation...

...(nothing) shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord...

...But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound...

There is a chapter in The Grace Exchange

entitled ‟Evil Within”.

That entire chapter,

and the remarkable truth it deals with

became a part of my life

when, after months of frustration and confusion,

I finally realized that,

when Paul talked about his physical body in Romans chapter 7,

what he REALLY meant was simply his physical body.

There was no secret code,

not hidden message,

no subtle, mystical meanings.

He was simply telling us

that our physical bodies

continue to have sin patterns ingrained in them,

and it is those sin patterns in our physical bodies

that war against the life of Christ within us.

I know I’m suppose to be introducing our Romans study this morning,

but I can’t resist the urge

for one little side-trip along the way.

It is impossible to read the New Testament

without realizing that the Church, the Body of Christ,

as it existed in that 1st century

was dramatically different

from what we have seen existing

throughout most of church history since that time.

I have a personal interpretation of church history

that helps me to understand why that is

and what has been happening ever since.

You see, immediately following the resurrection of Christ,

God set about the process

of revealing to the world

and especially to His people

His plan,

and design,

and purpose for the Church.

It was (and is) a remarkable plan

in which God places His Spirit

within each of His people,

and then reveals Himself to the world through us.

He uses the illustration of a physical body

to help us understand what it means.

He tells us that Christ is the head,

and we are the individual members of the body -

the hands, and mouth, and feet, and legs, and heart, and lungs.

And along with this revelation of the church

came a lot of other revelations

about the true nature of our relationship with God through Christ.

Now, when these revelations

were given by God to the first century church

those who received them

had no preconceived ideas

about what God was doing.

They understood themselves

to be the literal fulfillment of the prophecy given by God to Isaiah

in which He said:

Is. 43:18-19 "Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.”

And when God revealed these mysteries to them

they didn’t try to understand them

within the context of some old,

rigid,

established religious form.

They accepted the truths being revealed

as being true.

Of course I’m not suggesting

that they didn’t at times have tremendous turmoil within the church,

and have battles with sin, and heresy, and so forth.

But the remarkable fundamentals

of this new work of God through Christ

were accepted at face value,

as simple truth,

in a way they have not been ever since.

And given the fact that these revelations

were being made against the backdrop

of the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ,

it’s not surprising they found it easier

to hear and accept them as truth.

I’ll give you just two examples of what I mean.

When they were told that Christ Himself

in the person of the Holy Spirit

now dwells in each of them,

and is actively, daily expressing Himself through them,

they accepted it as truth.

They didn’t spend days agonizing over the will of God for them.

They simply went about their lives

trusting that God was doing

just exactly what He said He was doing - manifesting Himself through them in every place.

And in the same way, when God told them that,

as a result of their faith in Christ,

they were now His Holy ones,

transformed forever at the deepest level of their being,

they found it far easier

to accept and believe the truth of their new identity,

and to allow that truth

to reshape their view of themselves.

But then, in the years following that first century of Christianity,

and especially as Christianity gained wider and wider social acceptance and approval,

subtle, but powerful changes began to take place.

Gradually the living reality of Christ expressing Himself through His people

was replaced by a religious form

with carefully worded doctrinal statements,

and rigid divisions between clergy and laity,

and ritualistic forms of worship

and required religious duties.

It wasn’t long before the living reality

of Christ indwelling and transforming each person who came to Him in faith

was replaced by a clearly defined

and well-packaged religious system of beliefs and practices

that could be easily transplanted throughout the world.

And in that transition

the living realities of the simple

but world-changing truths

that formed the heart of the New Testament church were gradually forgotten.

And I believe that ever since then

a major thrust of the work of the Holy Spirit

has been that of helping God’s people to rediscover those truths that we have forgotten,

truths such as:

salvation through faith alone,

and the rediscovery of the work and life in the Holy Spirit,

and the priesthood of all believers,

and the true nature of the church and its role as the literal body of Christ,

and the true nature of spiritual gifts and how they operate within the body,

and the universal unity of the people of God,

and the literal, absolute holiness of spirit of every Christian,

and what it means for us to be freed from the law and joined to Christ.

God’s Spirit is bringing about a rediscovery

of so many of the forgotten foundations

of the true walk of faith in Christ.

It is a sovereign, independent work of God within His church,

not organized by any group or individual.

In fact, most of the time

we have no idea that God is saying the same thing,

and doing the same work

in countless other groups throughout the world.

If God would have allowed me to choose

when I would have lived in history

I would have chosen to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost

immediately following the resurrection of Christ.

But my second choice would be right here and now.

Because I believe there is a rediscovery

of the true nature of Christianity

taking place among the true people of God

that is unlike anything we have seen since the first century.

Now, I have allowed myself to get into this whole thing

because I believe it can serve as excellent mental preparation

for our study of the book of Romans.

This book,

perhaps more than any other in the New Testament,

is filled with clear statements

of the life-changing truths of our life with Christ.

It is both my hope and my prayer

that we will discover some of those truths

as a result of the time we spend in the book.