Romans 1:16-23
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 2 viewsNotes
Transcript
intro:
intro:
Apple of your eye.. throughout the Old Testament.., such as a prayer of David..
Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,
What it means is that you are valuable to God. If you looked in the center of His eye, the most sensitive part, you would see your reflection. You are on His mind!!
We are going to read a portion of scripture from Romans, But I will show you later how that fits with what we are talking about..
Text:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
We will pause there for now..
Prayer
Story: Sheri buying me a sweater but it’s really a girl sweater..
Transition: WE were made for the Glory of God. Maybe when you first heard the gospel, “that’s not for me” Or now that you’re a Christian — Sharing the Gospel with others, “That’s for pastor Sheri.. not me..”
“Im going out in that?”
— Paul is saying he is not ashamed of the gospel, I hope that we aren’t ashamed of the gospel either!! As we begin to share our faith this Easter!
— Why is he saying that?
but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
— The Jews couldn’t accept that Jesus was the Messiah. The gentiles saw weakness!!
— Think about the word he is using. POWER. If Romans understood anything they understood power! They were like, Greeks you can keep your philosophy we want our power. Think of the military and political might of Rome!
— But Paul is saying that no matter what group he speaks to, when he opens his mouth, it is God that will do the work!
— The Jews are thinking he’s a heretic, the gentiles think he’s lost his mind.. But Paul is able to overcome that major obstacle why? Because when the Gospel is preached to humans there is an interaction that occurs between God and man..
— I wonder today if we can share a little about our faith.
— Do we feel shame in sharing our faith?
— What certain groups you don’t even want to share your faith with? Just like Paul knew the stakes when he shared the good news with the people of his day, what about certain groups you know of that have certain thoughts about Christianity.. Often misguided, but there they are..
— That person is going to reduce me to a certain side of the political spectrum.. Maybe that person our group has a hang up regarding certain hot topic issues like abortion, like their stance on the LGBTQ topic etc..
— I want to encourage you today that the reason that Paul felt no shame was because his message came with POWER
— No matter how the message would be recieved by his various audiences, he knew that what was going to prove his message was God’s Power.
— Greel for “power” is dunamis,
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
— Church, you have POWER “dunamis” explosive life giving power to share the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself said..
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
— That is why the early church prayed for boldness to share their faith..
— I dare you to “wear” the Gospel. That looks good on you!
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
“I can’t afford that”
— The reason it’s good news is because humanity has been looking to be acceptable to God or their perception of who God is, false gods even others from the beginning of time.
— And Paul says that within the gospel, the “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith..”
— Here it is. The Jews had the Mosaic Law. They had to follow 613 laws.
— As a matter of fact the Mosaic Law proved to us that we are incapable of fulfilling the requirements to be righteous.
— That is why Christ came to live the perfect life on my behalf..
— How do I receive that perfection in the eyes of God?
— Paul here uses a confusing phrase “from faith to faith”
— A way to put that phrase that might help us get the meaning would “Faith all the way through” or “Faith from beginning to end”
— In other words, there’s a beginning when first believe that Jesus died and I receive His righteousness, and all the way through my life.. I receive by faith His imputed righteousness, I receive also from Him by faith the ability to walk rightly..
— Note the word “to everyone who believe’s” that word not only implies intellectual ascent or belief in your mind and heart.. Belief here has an active component as well. An idea that your actions will prove out your belief.. That you will act on your beliefs, it won’t just be theoretical faith but one that that is practiced.
“a fit of rage?”
— So, here we get to some challenging bits of scripture! WRATH..
— Now Paul is stressing why preaching the gospel is so important..
— The righteousness of God is being revealed through the gospel and he’s saying that’s important because the wrath of God is being revealed..
— We need Godliness and His righteousness because “ungodliness and unrighteousness” is the cause of God’s wrath on mankind..
— Now here is where the English language struggles to give a more precise rendition of the original Greek..
— Because, maybe you think of God as someone who is likely to fly into a fit of rage..
— I had this idea when young too. I remember this nightmare I had during a stormy night.. God and these angels looking down on me from between the raging clouds..
— This is not the heart of God at all. He is not unstable like some people we have met in the past, maybe even like one of our parents.
— No, the idea we get from the Greek is:
..it does not mean that God is given to a capricious, uncontrolled anger. There are two basic words in the Greek language used to express anger. From thumos we get our words thermometer and thermos. This is red-hot anger—the kind that overcomes people when they lose control and smack someone on the nose. It is impulsive and passionate. That is not the word used in our text. The word here is orge, which signifies a settled and abiding condition. It is controlled. “The wrath of God” is not human wrath, which at its best is only a distorted reflection of God’s wrath because it is always compromised by the presence of sin. “The wrath of God” is perfect, settled, controlled.— R. Kent Hughes
— We see a God that created us to be a perfect fit with Him in the garden. But we went astray!
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
— God made the world and everything in it to be this setting where we could have communion with God.. Yet, we bucked against that perfect scenario and it’s been a slow train wreck ever since.
“trying other things on”
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
— What this text shows is that all humans were made to know and commune with God
— “suppress” implies that we understand on some level that there is a creator God.. But it’s exhausting! It’s like holding a ball down under water! We know on a core level that there’s a God.
— To underscore that point Paul says even nature itself is a huge clue that there must’ve been intelligent design.. Look to the stars..The grandeur of it all, the vastness of it all, the order of it all.. How everything is in perfect alignment..
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
— Or look at a more micro level.. The fact that our bodies are so intricately assembled and it all just works..
— Or look at the complexity of DNA code..
If printed, the human genome, containing 3 billion base pairs, would fill approximately 2.3 million pages.
— That is your defining characteristics. Scientists can read DNA. Probably all a happy accident?
— There are numerous stories of scientists coming to Christ just by going deeper into these mysteries.
— Yet, we work at replacing God with something more appealing. “Exchanging the glory of God for images resembling mortal man..”
— This means that we did this intentionally. We decided to make god in our image.
— A common way that is done nowadays is that is ok to believe in God, just you make a god that agrees with your belief system and I’ll make one that agrees with mine. But just watch out if you mess with the deity that I created. Watch out if you don’t call me by my proper pronouns..
— No, God is one. God as a person created all. We can’t go and say the earth is square. He made it round! He is entitled to His own opinion!
Force fit
— But we all do this to some degree. We all trade the glory of God for something else. We put things in place of Him. We put relationships, or stuff, or careers, or our ego on the throne. Whatever is most valuable to us..
— We can see that God who created us for intimacy with Him would be provoked. Now He doesn’t act in a rage. But we have free will. He gives us enough rope and slack but we end up hurting ourselves in the end.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Conclusion
— You were created by Him for Him. You are the apple of His Eye. You fit right in there!
— I think of the Prodigal son. Mind you, this is a story Jesus shares to religious people who can’t stand that Jesus is connecting with sinners.
— He shares a story about a young man who made the conscious decision to leave his family. Go live a life of sin. Go away from the way his father did things.
— Things as you know ended badly. There was a famine in the land. He was forced to work a menial job of feeding pigs. He was starving and couldn’t even afford to eat the food he was feeding the pigs..
— He comes home to dad.
And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
— No doubt the son was the apple of his fathers eye. He fit right in there, in the center of his thoughts.
— It is so good that when we came home to God, as filthy as we were, He gave us new clothes to wear, to signify good fitting righteousness. A ring for our finger to signify that we belong to the king. He slaughters the calf to signify the sacrifice that Jesus made to give us fellowship with our father.. He also gave us sandals.
— Those sandals tell us to go. Go tell people. God has your friends on His mind. Your family is on His mind. Your neighbors are on His mind
— It says in scripture Ps. 30:5
For his anger is but for a moment,
and his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
— God is not willing that anyone should perish! Let’s pray for boldness. Lets’s not be ashamed of the gospel. Let’s invite someone to Easter service! God will give you power.
— Remember, people can argue with theology all day long. But they can’t argue with your story. That is something God has done in you. As you pray, maybe God will highlight a certain portion of your story that resonates with them!
