So often we think of people as being inherently good. That we are all good people that sometimes do bad things. But is that what the Bible teaches? One thing that unites every single person on the planet is our unrighteousness, our sinfulness before God. The beautiful thing about the gospel is God is not trying to make us feel terrible by helping us see our depravity, He is showing us the truth so we might run to him and be set free.

Jesus often talks to us in a very clear, blunt and challenging way in the Gospels. He doesn’t hold back what it means to be a disciple, and what it looks like for a disciple to live out their faith. Sometimes we need to step back and ask, does my faith, do my relationships, and does my church reflect what I see in the NT? Jesus is calling us into the depths of his love, are we willing to let go of ourselves and follow him?

The mission God has given FreshwaterSGF is to Glorify Him (exalt and honor God) and to Advance the Gospel (the truth of Jesus).

It seems that the Jews in Rome and Paul had some conflict. The Jews in Rome seemed to think Paul didn’t take God’s law serious enough and that his talk of grace meant he was condoning people to sin whenever they wanted. Paul seemed to think that the Jews in Rome didn’t understand grace and were placing their trust in things other than Christ (Heritage, circumcision, privilege). In the end, I think what the Word shows us is we all have a tendency to either trust in our good behavior as a means for justification, or we swing the other way and treat God’s grace cheaply. True love and faithfulness comes through humility before God. A humble heart leads us to an understanding of the unimaginable cost of grace, and what it took for God to forgive our sin.

So often we make our faith about the stuff we should do. Did we read our bible, did we pray, did we go to church? Those things are important, but when we define ourselves by that we begin to lose our way. Circumcision on the surface seems weird and insignificant to us, but when we dive deeper it’s a window into our tendency to make our faith about us- when it was always and will always be about God.

We have talked a lot about God’s wrath and judgement for sin over the last few weeks, and today’s passage is no exception, but Paul also hints at an incredible promise. It’s not only that God will judge those who have no hope without Christ and his righteousness, but that God will reward those who have been made righteous by Christ when they do good in his name. God sharing his glory with us in staggering ways.

Sometimes sin is obvious and we see it in ourselves or others very clearly, but sometimes sin is more sinister. It creeps into how we view the world and more specifically how we view other people. In Romans 2 Paul warns us of the danger of judging others while at the same time not seeing our own sin clearly. God has no patience for the judgmental “religious person”. We should always be evaluating our hearts and asking, “do I strive to love others as God does, or do I give love based off of how well people meet my expectations?”

There is Purpose for the Fire: Pastor John Stroup encourages us that trials are meant for our good. Join us as Pastor John teaches from 1 Peter 1:6 -7.

Romans has been showing us what happens with we reject God and pursue sin. Our hearts and minds fall further and further from God we begin to reject the truth about God, ourselves and his creation. This weeks passage helps us see just how far that depravity can go if God finally releases us to pursue the sin we have chosen over him.

We are all worshipers. We are all built to give glory. Yet, so often we give our worship to things other than God and it leads to all kinds of devastating effects. Before diving into specific ways this plays out, Paul shows us just how damaging and dangerous replacing the rightful worship of the God of the bible can be to our hearts and minds.