Sermons

This morning we come to the heart of the Reformation and the core of the Gospel: Justification by Faith Alone. In a world that says, “Just try harder,” we’ll explore why our best is never enough … and why that’s actually good news. Looking at Romans 3:21-26, we’ll see how God’s glorious gift of righteousness is outside of us, imputed to us, and received by faith … and how it changes everything.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” – John 15:16. We continue our TULIP series with the “U” which stands for Unconditional Election. Of all doctrines, the grace of God is seen most clearly in election and it is this doctrine perhaps more than all other doctrines that should motivate us to mission, liberate us to evangelise and bring us to our knees in joy-producing, soul-humbling worship of our sovereign King.

Has God’s Word failed? To paraphrase Paul – it most definitely has not! In this sermon Brad takes us through chapter 9 of Romans. He explores the doctrine of election and what the consequences of believing this doctrine are.

Easter Sunday 2023 Service. The resurrection changes all parts of life. We are brought to life and must not live as though we are still dead. We are free from the power of sin and should not return to it.

We finish off our series in Romans with the climax to Romans chapter 8. Paul leaves the believer in no doubt that God is for us and that we will never be separated from his love. An opposition we face, any difficulties or trials are no match for the love of God for us.

As we look at Romans 8 we notice that about 2/3rds of the references in Romans to the work of the Holy Spirit are found in this chapter. The Holy Spirit assures us that we are God’s Children. The Holy Spirit helps us in our prayers. The Holy Spirit assures us that in all the difficulties and various circumstances in life that God will never let us go.

Paul opens up this section of Romans 8 by acknowledging that the result of sin has brought suffering. Yet compared with the glory to come for the Christian, our suffering and trials are not worth comparing. As God’s children, we must expect suffering, even as evidence that we are truly God’s children and disciples. So as we wait for Jesus’ return we groan. We groan because of what we presently experience and we groan in anticipation and desire for Jesus’ return. Like a mother, in the pains of childbirth, we long for the new birth. What will we be like? How glorious will it be? Like us, the creation also groans as it suffers the effects of sin and as it longs for the glory to come.

Paul reminds us that those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God (v.14). This is so re-assuring. Not only does God’s Holy Spirit awaken in ourselves a deep longing to know God and to know Jesus but He reminds us continually that we are part of the family. As Christians we use the word, “Assurance.” There is no need to fear that you are part of the family one moment and rejected the next moment. The intimate words we are looking at is “Abba, Father.”

We begin this sermon considering that Christianity is no add on in the believer’s life. God is not merely useful to us but absolutely necessary. God does not just come to upgrade our lives – to make them better. But rather he must become the centre of our lives as we deny ourselves taking up our cross and following Jesus. In Romans 8, Paul makes it plain that we cannot have any halfway ground with Jesus. He is either our all in all, or he is not. We are either in Christ or we are not, united to him or not. We are either condemned or we are not. Those who are truly united to Christ also have the Spirit. Those who are not united to him do not have the Spirit and therefore cannot please God. Some people therefore have the Spirit, Some people do not have the Spirit. But for those who do have the Spirit – the real question must be Does the Spirit have you?

What about that person and I think what Paul writes here is one of the best treatises on the subject that you are ever likely to find! While before becoming a Christian, Paul could see in himself a desire to flout the law, to do what the law told him not to do, now there is a spiritual battle within Paul. Now he is no longer comfortable with his sin. Now he desires to fight it!

Paul is continuing to answer the question of whether or not because we are justified by grace and not by works, whether then how we live actually atters? Can I not just continue to sin? If I am dead to the law, can I not live however I please? Surely I have no need to keep the law? Paul has previously used the analogy of being slaves to sin and slaves to God and now he turns to marriage. We are as such ‘married’ to Jesus and no longer married to sin. Therefore our desire is to please him. So we have a new motivation to keep the law out of our delight and joy, rather than as a demand.

The sobering question is to ask ourselves, “Who is our master”? Who do we follow? Our master is the one we follow! If we follow sin then sin is our master. If we follow Jesus then he is our master! Paul is urging the Roman Christians not to allow sin to be their master but Jesus. He is urging them to fight sin in their lives and to live a life worthy of the name Jesus.

Concentrating on verses 11-14, we see that while sin has been defeated by Jesus and while he died for our sin, yet sin is powerful and wages war on our souls with the aim of reigning in our lives. we seek to ask whether we are responsible for fighting sin, or it is God on our behalf? Do we do it in cooperation with him? Is it something we can even ever overcome? Will we get better at defeating sin?

People, even Christian people, love to find loopholes, love to make excuses, love to avoid a change in lifestyle by actually saying that the doctrine of being justified by grace means they can now live anyway they like, they are right with God anyway. In fact, the more we sin, the more they will experience God’s grace. Paul’s reaction to such a distorted view of Christianity is intense. At times we should be shocked and horrified at the way human beings can distort biblical truth. Paul is certainly not free from outbursts of emotions because the Christian faith is not just a pattern of thought, but it affects our hearts, our will and certainly our emotions.

By nature of human beings, we are united to Adam. But for the believer, we are now instead united to Jesus. Being united to Adam we are born into sin and receive the condemnation for his sin resulting in death. Being united to Jesus, we instead are justified and made right with God because of the righteousness credited to us. We now receive life now and eternally. Where one act of Adam condemned the whole human race, so too one act of Jesus gives life to all who believe in him.

This week’s message continues to look at the benefits and blessings we have as a result of our justification. Paul also uses these blessings as evidence of the assurance of salvation that we have. There is, therefore, assurance of salvation through trials, through God’s love for us and because we have been reconciled and justified.

Being declared to be right with God carries with it the privileges of sonship, of real peace, of access, and of the hope of glory. These are the fruit, the outcomes of being declared right with God. Have you experienced that peace? That acceptance? Do you know that you are a child of God – with all the privileges?

What Paul is saying here is that faith and the law are opposites and if a person chooses one he or she has in actual fact rejected the other. It is impossible to be saved by both works and faith at the same time. Putting it another way. If you are depending on the law to save you, you are depending on yourself, your abilities, your skills, your determination, your will power but if you are depending on faith in God, then you have turned your back on your will, skills, abilities and determination. Instead you are resting on God’s power to save you.

Paul in this passage answer the likely objections of his readers who might point to their Father Abraham and ask how then was he saved? Surely by his works, his flesh? Without the law, which could not have saved him anyway and because Jesus had not come yet – how could he be saved? Paul though is clear – Abraham was saved by faith, the very same way that all people must be saved.

1. “R” stands for “Righteousness.” 2. “P” stands for “Propitiation”. 3. “F” stands for “faith”. 4. “B” stands for “Boasting”. • We human beings need “a righteousness” apart from the law. A righteousness that doesn’t depend on our flawed efforts. That is what is so wonderful about the salvation Paul is talking about it. It is a righteousness granted to us, rather than a righteousness earned by us. This is what makes the Christian religion so unique. Righteousness is granted to us as a gift. Paul is saying to us that there is no way we can help ourselves, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, instead we have to receive it, accept it and be grateful for it.

Paul has spent the best part of chapters 1 and 2 building up a case of guilt, of sin against, first the gentiles and then the Jews. So that he can get to the key verse of chapter 3. Verse 9 says all are under sin. The weight of the realisation that this includes and describes you and me is weighty and hard. But Paul goes on to say that we are totally sinful – every part of us is affected. We especially sin as we fail to honour and love God. What might seem hopeless and bleak, is just that…except for Jesus. There we find Grace!

In this complex passage, Paul is debating with some first century Jewish people who are arguing that on the basis of the ritual of circumcision that they have their eternal security. Paul would seek to demolish this argument and urges everyone to put their hope and trust in the work of Jesus Christ our Lord. In this passage Paul deals with some of the crazy ways people would argue to avoid repentance. It has a strong message to say to us also because too many people in our own day have this false assurance of salvation.

Are you a true Jew? Do you want to be? Should you be? The first Jews were given every privilege and opportunity by God and yet it seemed to make no difference to them. Paul writes to tell them that they too are sinners who need a saviour and that the gospel is for them as much as it is for the Gentiles. Having and knowing so much, they still missed the point and failed to do with it as they should. The true Jew is one saved by grace alone through faith alone. They are those whose hearts have been changed and are inclined in their love, affections and obedience towards God.

A person could be tempted to think that because of their background or history that God might judge them differently to others. Paul goes out of his way to say that God judges us by what we do. This is of course something that needs to be explained because I am not talking about salvation by works. We are saved by grace but judged by our works.

Romans 2 begins in a striking way, “Not to judge”. Paul in chapter one of Romans has been commenting on the spirally into immorality by those who reject God. He however knows that we can feel pretty good about ourselves by looking at others and therefore he warns us not to judge. What Paul means is that we simply to condemn others and yet have the same traits of immorality and godlessness in our own lives. Instead we ought to show compassion for people who are lost in their sin and to seek to win them to Christ.

It is possible to know the truth and yet not act on that truth. So knowing God is all-powerful, all-wise, good, loving and sovereign when carefully considered should allow us not to be anxious. Yet knowing these things, we still often are. Romans 1:16-32 speaks of people suppressing the truth. That everyone because of creation knows enough about God to honour him and give thanks to him, yet they do not. This is the human condition apart from the grace and mercy of God.

Romans 1:18 tells us that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.  There will be a final day when Jesus returns and the wrath of God will be revealed at that time.  Yet this verse says that it is being revealed now.  So in what ways do we see the wrath of God revealed? In the week when the ex-basketball legend Kobe Bryant died and in light of the great outpouring of grief and shock, death is the reminder of how fragile our life is.  Indeed we do not hold our own life in our hands – God does.  In fact because of the sin of one man Adam, God reveals his judgement against sin through death.  But the passage also speaks of the wrath of God against human beings by giving them up to their sinful ways and passions.

Romans 1:16-18 are the verses which many say the whole rest of Romans then unpacks.  Romans 1:17, in particular, is often known as Martin Luther’s verse, one upon which much of the reformation focussed.  Yet when we break down the elements of it and study the verse can we really explain what it means? What is the righteousness of God?  And how then can it be the power fo God for salvation? What does from faith for faith mean? And do we live by faith or do we have life because of our faith?  

Each Christian has to overcome their own fears – fears of being humiliated, fears of being unacceptable, fears of physical persecution, fears of standing out in a crowd. Paul and multitudes of other Christians before you have had to think about it before saying that they are not ashamed of the gospel. Alastair Begg writes that it is as if Paul, when he first started in ministry was saying, “I don’t know if I can do this!” In his head was a mixture of love for God as well as fear of the crowds. Some people he would speak to would be governors and kings. Some would have been the smartest people of his own age! Yet, working through his fears he declares, “I am not ashamed…!”

In the 2nd week of our series in the book of Romans, we see Paul longing to go to Rome.  We discover why he has this longing, because of his mission in life given to us in verse 5, to bring about the obedience of faith among all the gentiles for the sake of God’s name.  Even though he did not plant this church and knows only a few of them, he loves them and longs to go and encourage them.  Part of Paul’s longing comes from his understanding that he is a debtor to them.  He has the gospel and knows how it can powerfully work to transform lives and so he owes it to them to go and share it with them.  Because of the gospel’s power, he is therefore not ashamed of it and longs to see those in Rome.