Sermons

It is always interesting to see which questions God deems the most important to answer. Many times we come to the Bible with queries we consider of utmost importance. God knows the questions behind our questions and always tells us what we actually need to understand. There are three questions answered in this passage. Each of them fills out the answer to one big concern: How should sinners who have been justified by grace through faith live their lives now?

The Lord is more concerned for His glory than your good. That becomes obvious when you unpack this passage. The other thing that becomes obvious is that He loves His people so much! In many ways, this particular paragraph pulls together the entire Bible and explains how it is God is able to save anyone… and remain God!

Today we launch into the second big section of Romans. I. The reason for the Gospel: universal guilt (1:18-3:20) II. The heart of the Gospel: justification by faith (3:21-4.25) As we do, we begin to unpack a paragraph of the Bible that some have viewed as the most important information of all. For this paragraph is answering the question of who can be declared Not Guilty by God.

It is easy to move on from the preached Word without changing how we live. James called that being a “hearer only” of the Word. In an effort to capitalize on what we have seen in Romans so far, let’s consider seven obligations laid on us, now that we have done the work of understanding the text. How should we then live? That is our question!

You will never understand what it means to be saved until you grasp what you must be saved from. The facts of our condition are dire. We are far worse than most of us could imagine. If it were not for God’s Word we would never believe how utterly helpless we were to find our way to God. This only makes His gracious salvation all the more beautiful.

After all his personal evangelizing of his fellow Jews, Paul had a good idea of what their objections would be to trusting in Jesus. First on that list was their belief that things like possessing the Law, being circumcised, and even just being Jewish, would guarantee them entrance into heaven, regardless of how much they sinned. This was a misplaced confidence that any careful reader of the Old Testament should have seen. In exposing them, Paul reminds us to make sure our hope is in the right place.

While Paul is debunking the silly idea that some people get a free pass to heaven (like the Jewish hypocrite he is arguing against), he also lets drop a fascinating insight into the relationship of God to every human ever created. Ever wonder why you feel bad for doing certain things? Curious why you have these inner conflicts in your mind about whether or not your actions were justified? Look no further than Romans 2 for the answer.

Jesus said that Christians will suffer for their faithfulness to God. That is a promise. But Christians are not left alone in our suffering. We can have complete confidence in the sovereign and powerful God of the Universe to always do what he promises and purposes to do no matter what prideful fools try to stand in his way.