Why have they not believed? I can be so certain that the Bible is true and Jesus rose from the dead, but why do so many people not believe it? Maybe it's because the message isn't clear, the Bible is hard to understand sometimes. Or maybe they've just never heard the good news. For many of us, this topic is close to our hearts, we have friends and family that don't believe in Jesus and we don't know what to do about it.

Do you ever find yourself asking, “God, what are you doing?” Do you ask the question in quiet wonder…doubt and confusion…or maybe even frustrated anger? If we are honest with the answer, at one time or another, it is probably all three.

Romans 8, a mountaintop chapter, ends with a glorious promise that nothing can separate us from God’s love and favor. But, back down in the valley of reality we wonder if that can really be true. Do God’s purposes ever fail? Did God’s purposes for Israel fail? Or, to put it another way, if God did not fulfill his specific promises to Israel, what makes you think he will fulfill his promises to us?

That’s the question that sets up a deeper dive into God’s faithful purposes in Romans Chapters 9-11—because sometimes God is doing more than we think.

This Sunday we will celebrate our salvation by the New Covenant in Jesus. Then, in God’s word we will see how that New Covenant gives us new life, not only for eternity, but also today.

For many of us, if we had to choose one chapter as a favorite in Romans, this would be it. Romans 8 bridges the salvation God has provided for us for all eternity with the difference that salvation also makes in our lives today. The truth of this chapter is crucial to our experience of new life in Jesus. If the things this chapter describes were not true, there would be no Christian life, in fact no salvation at all!

But it is true! And this Sunday we are going to soak in the reality of what God has done for us by his Spirit. Then, we’ll be encouraged to take a next step in following the leading of God’s Spirit into our new life in Jesus.

I still remember the conversation I had with a middle aged man. He graduated from Bible College years earlier, but had never lived what he expected the Christian life was supposed to be. He said to me, “I guess God just doesn’t intend for me to have victory…” If we let the truth be told, most of us have been there, or someplace near there. We want to live in this new life with God, and yet too often it feels like we are wandering in a spiritual desert. Where is the fruitfulness and victory the New Testament promises?! We want to do the things we know to be God’s will and yet we find ourselves too often doing otherwise. The things I want to do, I don’t follow through, and the thing I don’t want to do, still I do it! How can that frustration be turned towards fruitfulness?

One of the best ways to get the wrong answers is to ask the wrong questions. It’s a trick used by lawyers in court, if they are seeking to gain an advantage rather than seeking the truth. It’s also a trick used by the enemy of our souls when he is seeking an advantage over us, and seeking to hide the truth.

Romans 6 poses two questions: “Can I go ahead and sin since God will forgive?” and “Can’t I just do whatever I want since Christians are not under the Law?” At first, they might sound absurd, but they must in some way be valid questions if Paul includes them in Romans 6. Could you answer these questions without decreasing or limiting God’s grace? That’s what we will seek to do on Sunday, beginning with an example from the mud bricks of Egypt.

Now, back to Romans 5, what does it have to do with the angel and his sword? You’ll have to tune in Sunday, but you’ll find a hint in Genesis Chapter 3. If you find the answer, include it in the comments section on the live stream, there might even be a prize…

Romans 2 is a chapter many of us are not really familiar with. When we read the book of Romans it seems that we could easily go from the description of human fallenness and sin in Romans 1, to justification and forgiveness through Jesus in Romans 3. Romans 2 seems like a side argument between Paul and a Jewish law-follower.

But perhaps there is another way of looking at it. Romans 1 reminds us of the prodigal son in Luke 15, Romans 3 shows us the prodigal’s forgiving Father, but Romans 2 shows us how we might be like the prodigal’s unforgiving brother. Sometimes God’s people can be more like the prodigal’s brother than we realize. That was the point of the book of Jonah to Israel, and it could also be the point of Romans chapter 2 for us as God’s church.

This past year has been a challenging opportunity for the church. We have been challenged concerning what is really essential and how to stay together and build one another up when we can’t all be together. These challenges will continue in the near future, but the good news is that the things we are learning in them can also continue, much further into the future. This Sunday, from texts like Ephesians 4:1-7 and Romans 14:1-4 we’ll consider some spiritual precautions in the midst of viral protections. We’ll also be celebrating the Lord’s table as the foundation of our confidence for the future and our care for one another.