The Power of the Gospel

Good morning church I am excited to be here with you this morning. It is good to be in the House of the Lord. It is refreshing when God’s Presence is in the room.

We are starting a new (I’m not going to say series) You know how I am about series, I like to start them but I don’t like to finish them, because I am somewhat of a free Spirit, OK I am a huge free Spirit and while liberating for me I know that that is not profitable for you. I am not going to call this a series, but we are going to chart a course over the next few weeks in the Book of Romans. Romans is a book that I love and what I want you to do is to get into scripture with me. I will be going through the Book of Romans.

Romans has been called the Christians Constitution, because it is Paul's masterpiece in all of his writings in the New Testament. Quite literally this Book is perhaps the book that Changed the World. You know books have power, ideas and philosophies have power, power to change, power to unite, power to divide, power to build up or tear down. Power to restore or power to start World Wars. Let me read to you and Excerpt from one of Adrains Rogers Sermons the Book that Changed the World

Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive Introduction

books have great influence. Adolf Hitler, with his twisted, and warped, and fevered brain, wrote a book, Mein Kampf. And in that book he espoused his Nazi philosophies. The result of the thoughts in that book was an horrendous world war, the gas ovens, the Holocaust, six million Jews exterminated, multiplied thousands in anguish and blood. A book: Mein Kampf. Hitler got his ideas from reading another book, Nietzsche, Man and Superman. Nietzsche was a perverted atheist. He hated God. He declared blatantly, “God is dead!” Hitler drank from that book, imbibed that book. His mind was warped. Another man wrote a book, Karl Marx; and Karl Marx wrote a book on communism, dialectical materialism, Das Kapital. People read that book, the Russian Revolution was born, the Communist Revolution. Millions of people paid with their life’s blood, others were enslaved, the world rocked and ruined by communism. A book, a powerful book. Charles Darwin wrote a book, The Origin of Species, and there he talked about blind evolutionary force, and that man is not made—created—in the image of God. He is an accident of nature; he has descended from the apes. People read that book, and try to make a monkey of themselves, believe that they are an orphan of the apes. Books have power, but no book has the power that the book that you have open in your hand right now has: the power for good, for God, and power that has changed the world radically, dramatically, and eternally. And the book that will go on through the ages, and it is the book of Romans.

He goes on to talk about a Roman Catholic Monk named Martin Luther, who tried to get right with God through ritual, through penance. I have read where Martin Luther would beat his body when he had a lustful thought, he would would say chant hundreds of Hail Mary’s. He even took a pilgrimage to Rome and in Rome there were some stairts, purported to have been the stairs that Jesus ascended in Pilates Judgment hall. They felt that the blood of Christ had surely dropped on those stairs. And starting from the bottom he kneeled down and kissed every one of those stairs but when he got to the toop He said he felt no closer to God then when he was at the bottom. Then do you know what Martin Luther did, He read the Book of Romans and the Read Romans 1:17

Romans 1:17. “The righteous shall live by faith.”

When He read the book of Romans and understood that salvation was by faith in Christ and Christ alone, not his rituals, not his religion, not by obeying the edicts of the Pope but trusting in the Son of God, this very religious man was gloriously saved and out of Him God would bring the Great Protestant Reformation.

And I have seen these simple truths gloriously change so many over the years. It changed my own heart when I was about 14 years old when they had a revival in a little baptist church in Colfax Texas. I can’t even remember wha tht epreacher said that Night but all I know is that night the Lord called me and I answered. I gave my life to the Lord Jesus and all I can tell you is that I felt the weight of the world being pulled off of my shoulders. And an unexplainable supernatural peace that flooded my soul that night. A few months after that event by mother would end up giving her life to the Lord, received him by faith and was gloriously saved.... Just a few months after she was saved she would suddenly be taken out of this life by a tragic car accident, and entered into eternity. After that event I rebelled and went off the deep end for many years, because I didn’t know anything about sanctification, that’s just a big word that mean becoming like Jesus.

And years later I would get back on track enter into the ministry and lead my rebel grandfather to the feet of Jesus and just a few weeks ago he also entered into eternity, the Lord allowed me the grace to be by his side as he slipped into the next life and I believe He had a vision of Heaven right before He passed.

HOW ROMANS IS LAID OUT.

Now as I said the book of Romans is called the Christians Constitution. It is the greatest theological treatise that has ever been written for it gives us the foundations for our faith. We as Americans understand the power of a Constituition. The Constitution is the only thing that has kept certain political parties and politicians from making a complete mess out of the USA and turning the citizens to wards of the state. Our constituinal rights are the basis for our freedoms and any laws made that undermine those constitutional rights are illegitimate laws.

Well you will never understand all that God has given to you if you do not understand what God has done. You will never understand Kingdom Authority until you understand your Constitutional rights as a Christian.

Chapters 1-3- Paul starts out by dealing with sin. What has went wrong with the world

Chapters 4-5 deal with salvation, God doesn’t just show us our problem- he shows us the way out of it.

Chapters 6,7, and 8 deal with sanctification- how to become more like Jesus- he lays out a very legal defense for the gospel and shows us how we are pardoned from our sin and how to walk in the newness of the Spirit

Chapters 9-11 deal with God’s sovereignty, how God is sovereign over the entire universe and what he has been doing from eternity past to eternity future

Then we get to Ch 12 we get to that scripture where Paul tells us to let our bodies be a living sacrifice and the rest of the chapters lead into service

If you will take these things to heart, become obedient for the heart, get your opinions on how things should be and receive by faith that these are God’s ways and He is sovereign, you will stand before Him one day as the rest of the world will too. My job as your pastor is to stand on the word of God and Help you to mature in the faith..,..

Romans 1:1–5 ESV

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

THE MAN WHO WROTE THIS BOOK

Paul “a Servant of Christ”

I guess the translators put servant in there to make it more palatable for Americans… but the greek word means slave.. and Paul is not ashamed to let people know that he is a slave, a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul was not at all ashamed of Jesus Christ. Paul started out as a hater of Jesus who thought it was his God given duty to stamp out Christianity off the face of the earth. He had the authority to do it and imprisoned and stood by as Christians were killed… But one day this religious man met Jesus and entered into a relationship with the Lord.

Paul was a Pharisee, and a member of the Sanhedrin. which means that he was a very educated and successful man before He met Christ. But he lost it all when He started serving Jesus and He would later say in one of his other letters

Philippians 3:8 ESV

8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Now that word that they translate as rubbish, that actually the Greek word Scubolone and its really a crude word in Greek… It is the word for Human Excrement

that comparing to knowing Jesus and the power of his Resurrection all those other things were rubbish, that they were human excrement compared to knowing him

Then after he makes it clear who He belongs to He wants you to know that this is the Gospel of God, not of man, this is how God has chosen to save the world, its though His Son

Romans 1:1–2 ESV

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,

And not only is it the Gospel of God , but he has been telling people for thousands of years through the Prophets and the Holy Scriptures.

And A couple of weeks ago I preached a message on the Scarlet thread of Redemption and brought to you attention how Jesus was all throughout the scriptures from the very outset of the fall, to the Ark, to the Prophets the message of a Messiah was throught the Old Testament but notice the next verse

Romans 1:3 ESV

3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh

NOw why do you think Paul would state it that way? Because the Messiah was to be a King, and he had to be a direct descedent to Israels greatest King, King David..... Whoever claimed to be Messiah, had to be able to prove that they were a direct descendent to King David.

Its called the Davidic Covenant Tie to Temple and Temple Records

1 Chronicles 17:11–14 ESV

11 When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, 14 but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.’ ”

And Paul speaking as a Jew to other Jews starts out this great theological treatise about what we have in Jesus because He is establishing that these things are in accordance with the Old Testament, and that Jesus according to the flesh was the Promise to King David. It is His Kingdom that will be established.

Now stay with me, because that is why the Bible is full of those familily lineages that most people like to skip over. And mathew and Luke which were both written before 70 AD and could both be verirified, have the lineage of Jesus that traces him all the way back to King David…

SHOW PICTURE OF TEMPLE

Let me tie something else in here, there was another Old Testament passage where the Messiah, the Lord himself was to visit the Second Temple, the Temple that was standing in Jesus day, and there is an old testament Prophet that prophecied that the second Temples Glory would exceed the first, becaus eof Messiahs arrival… the Problem is the second temple never had the glory that the first had, there is never God raining fire down from heaven consumin gthe sacrigfice as he did the first, all b ut there was this Jesus that walked into that temple and said tear this Temple down and in three days I would raise it up.

The problem is that Temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans and you know what burned along with the Temple? All the family records of every jew. Jesus is the last person that can claim to be a direct descendent of King David

Romans 1:4 ESV

4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

He was a son of King David, we have the family records that Prove it, but he was declared to be the Son of God in Power according to the Spirit of Holiness by his ressurection from the Dead. You see something that we have available this morning that the rest of the World does not have is ressurection power.

Do you feel like your dreams have been dashed, your life has go on to long for any kind of come back… Listen God is a God that specializes in ressurecting the dead.... Throughout the new Testament a common theme, maybe even the Central theme is this ressurection power, the same power that raised Christ of from the dead can raise you up as well, He can restore the years that the Locusts have eaten, he can restore the years wasted living for the devil and the destruction that is caused by sin

It is real and it is available. Maybe you are here and you ahve served Christ form many years and something side tracted you, something derailed you, maybe a betrayal, maybe personal sin, ressurection power is available to you

Maybe you have been like Martin Luther who tried to push this religious train under your own power only to be met with disappointment and you believed the lie that God had somehow failed you. Listen to me this morning you need to hear me with a new set of ears this morning, Christianity is not about you doing something for God but God wants to do something through you!!

Maybe you have spent most of your life serving the devil, living for pleasure and you are overwhelmed with sadness because you realize that age is now catching up with you and you only have so many days so many hours left and you feel hopeless.

Listen jesus understands that, when He went to the cross it seemed like everything was over… He even cried out God oh God why have you forsaken me!! listen the devil and every demon in hell was giving a hellish hallelujah that they had one they had killed the very one that the Prophets said would win..... But listen Sunday was coming, and on that third day Hell’s hallelujah turned into a hellish nightmare.... I don’t know who I am talking to you but friend Sunday is here for you, a Resurrection Sunday for you is here right now. This is your day, this is your turnaround don’t let Hell have the victory over you!!!!!!~!!!!!

Romans 1:16–17 ESV

16 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. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

What do you need to have this ressurection power? Paul tells us here this is the foundation of the Christians Constitution… The Righteous shall live by faith.. and Friend when you put your faith where God put your sin , a ressurection in your heart and soul takes place. You cant earn it you dont deserve it but because of the awesome sacrifice of the Son you can have it in all its power and fullness, God pours out His Spirit without measure