Scott Brown's sermon on the book of Romans emphasizes its significance as Paul's most comprehensive letter about the Gospel, addressing both the depths of human sin and the heights of divine grace. The sermon begins with an introduction to Romans Chapter 1, highlighting key themes such as the power of the Gospel, the righteousness of God, and the cosmic rebellion of humankind. Brown discusses the historical impact of Romans on figures like Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Wesley, illustrating its transformative power through single verses. The sermon outlines the book into two main sections: the first (Chapters 1-11) deals with the problem of sin and justification by faith, while the second (Chapters 12-16) explores how faith is lived out in relationships. Brown stresses the importance of understanding concepts like justification, sanctification, and election, using examples from biblical figures like Abraham and David. He urges the congregation to immerse themselves in the book, memorizing key chapters to fully experience the hope and transformative power of the Gospel as presented in Romans.

Let's stand for the reading of Scripture. Turn to Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them. For God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, Nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like corruptible man, and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever and ever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, seething in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even though they did not retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, back-biters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve those who practice them. Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are to judge, for in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself for you who judge and practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to the truth against those who practice such things. And do you think, O man, you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?

Or do you despise the richness, the riches of His goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance. Amen. Please be seated. Let's pray. Oh Lord, you have laid before us the key to life and godliness.

You have shown us ourselves, you've shown us the world and all that it is. And you have come to us through the love of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And now that we would partake of the Lord Jesus, that we would taste this goodness from heaven as we look at all of our lives together. I pray that this time in this book would be transforming for us Lord and that you would help us to walk in your ways. That you would use this book, this letter, to transform us and make us what we have never been before.

In Jesus' name, Amen. So this is the launching pad for what will probably be 40 or 50 sermons in the book of Romans. Romans is the longest of Paul's letters. It's probably the most quoted of Paul's letters. It's the most complete testimony of the Gospel, and it gives every side of the Gospel in all of its beauty.

We are just going to have one Sunday after another of being covered with the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This letter supplies the only solution for the hopelessness that you see in this world today. It supplies the only solution for the hopelessness that you even have for yourself and that I have for myself in this discipleship journey, which is often so slow in its sanctification. Patterns to be broken, sins that seem to rise up again and again. What in the world will you do about that?

What will you do? This letter tells us exactly what to do about it. And I pray that God would exercise His power upon us over these coming months as we're in this book. That He would come to us, each one of us, even the littlest child in here, to begin to work out the spots and the wrinkles that are in the Church in us. That He would come and He would clear away cobwebs of wrong thinking about sin, and righteousness, and judgment, and the world, and our lives together in the Church.

That He would just come and help us with all these things. And so this is a wonderful opportunity that we have to open our hearts in humility and submission before God, that he would exercise his power upon us and he would continue to transform his church through these words that are here. This book has had a pivotal role in church history. It's staggering to think that it was in 386 A.D. Where Augustine of Hippo was in Milan.

He was the professor of rhetoric there. He was sitting in a garden with a friend, and he heard a child saying over and over again, tolelege, tolelege, which means in Latin, take up and read, take up and read. And Finally, he saw a scroll sitting next to his friend. And that scroll was the book of Romans. And he picked it up.

But burning in his soul at that time was the fever heat of the judgment of God. He had had a child out of wedlock. He was living a licentious life. And he kept hearing, Toler leggo, Toler legge, take up and read, take up and read. He picked it up and he read.

And he opened to Romans 13, 13 and 14, which says, let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, which is what he had been doing. Not in lewdness and lust, not in strife or in envy, because that's exactly what the pattern of his life was But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh To fulfill his lusts and he says that when he read that he couldn't even finish The sentence and he knew that he was saved, that Jesus Christ had wiped away all of his sins, even in the midst of his sinfulness as a young man. He says, Clear light flooded my heart, and all the darkness of doubt washed away." He told his mother, who had been praying for him, that her prayers had been answered. One verse, one single verse in the book of Romans, and he couldn't even finish the verse before he was saved. Think about the power of God in these words that are before us now.

Fast forward 1200 years to Germany. In a monastery in Germany, we find an Augustinian monk, an Augustinian monk, isn't that interesting, by the name of Martin Luther. He is a professor there at the University of Wittenberg. Martin Luther was not in bondage to licentiousness. Martin Luther was in bondage to heartless legalism, to trying to shine himself up in every way he could.

And he became very serious about the Church. One night there was a very threatening storm about thunder and terrible lightning, and he went into a monastery and he prayed to St. Anne, and he became a monk. And he began to work out his salvation with the excellence that discipline can supply from all of his own good works. If anyone could have entered the kingdom of heaven through monkery, through discipline, through being the right kind of person, it was Martin Luther.

He was supremely disciplined then and he was all through his life, but it didn't get him anywhere with God. He worked, he struggled, and he grew to hate the words of God. He hated the word righteousness, which is one of the words that is in the book of Romans. And he read the words in Romans 1, 16 and 17. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed.

The just will live by faith." He hated the word righteousness of God until this one moment when he read this one verse, Romans 1.16, that he was saved. One verse, One verse out of the book of Romans and off goes the Reformation. Around a hundred years later when he was in prison, John Bunyan used the book of Romans as the basis for the storytelling that he did in Pilgrim's Progress. Fast forward another hundred years and we find the very serious minded John Wesley who without assurance of salvation, a religious boy, a good boy, wanting to do all the right things but he knew it was completely lifeless, that there was no heart or soul in it at all. He came to a meeting in Aldersgate, which was a Bible study in the book of Romans.

He did not want to go. Have you ever not, were any of you saved by going somewhere where you did not want to go, you did not want to go to that service, you did not want to talk to that person, but God had other plans and you ended up there anyway, reluctantly. That was John Wesley. And they were reading, they were reading there in that Bible study in Aldersgate Martin Luther's preface to the book of Romans. And they came upon Romans 8, 1-4.

There is therefore now no condemnation. For those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. And he says that his heart was just immediately and strangely warmed and he was saved. One verse in the book of Romans. Think of what one verse in the book of Romans can do to change the course of history, to change the course of a family, to change the course of an individual.

This is the power of God unto salvation. This book has been used mightily in history. And Who knows what can happen when we read it? Who knows what God might be able to do in our hearts in letting our eyes rest on these words and then taking them into our souls and savoring them and turning them around over and over again for the help that we so desperately need. Well, if you have an outline before you, you can see where we're going here this morning in this introduction.

We're not going to camp in any one place in the book of Romans. We're going to talk about it generally, as we have been. There are two aspects of the heart of the matter in Romans that I want us to see before we begin this journey. And the first aspect of this is that Romans starts out with what I'm going to call the cosmic crime and the great exchange that this crime has accomplished. This crime of rebellion against God, this crime of sin that is deep within our souls, is the beginning point of the book of Romans.

And this, in chapter 1, so, sets the stage for the rest of what will be handled in the rest of the book. There's a stating of the problem, this great crime, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all those who practice ungodliness and unrighteousness because of sin. The great crime of the universe is that professing to be wise, we still reject God. Even though God has made it apparent that there is a mighty King in Heaven, we reject Him and we resist Him. And that leads us to exchange the glory of God for the lie.

And, you know, we are sinners by nature. And we are sinners before we are justified, and then we continue to be sinners after we are justified. We realize that we are sinners and repent, and we are justified by faith. And then sin is still alive in us, and we struggle with it. And the same God who helped us be free judicially from our sins begins to sanctify us through the work of his spirit But we exchange the glory of God for a lie.

That's the problem. The problem with the whole world is that there is a God in heaven. He created the heavens and the earth, and His creatures that he made in his image despise him. They reject him. They exchange the glory of God for a lie.

They'll exchange anything. They'll exchange an interesting movie or a silly song for the glory of God. That's what they'll do. It's absolutely amazing. And this is our problem.

There are two exchanges in chapter one. There's the exchanging of the glory of God for images, for copies, for silly things. That's the idea. Don't just think of wooden idols now here. We're talking about images that we love, images that we have joy in.

That's what this is about. This is not about some ancient tribal religion where people are dancing around fires. No. This is about the problem of the human heart to take the beauty and the glory of God and exchange it for silly copies, silly things in the world that are popular at that moment. And then the second exchange is the exchange of the glory of God expressed in sexuality and exchanging it for the lie.

So those are the two exchanges. You know, The focus of the first part of Romans is sinful mankind. What do you do with sinful mankind? How do you think about the sinful world that we live in? How do you think about your own sins?

Romans helps us unpack all that and to understand it better. Now, sins, defiling work in the world is a terrible thing because it causes so many problems. It destroys marriages. It casts people into depression. It causes suicides and abortions and hatreds and all kinds of...

It creates every kind of evil. And it's easy for us to look at the features of sin in the world, the results of it, and hate that. But what God hates is the human heart that spits in His face. That's the problem in the world, is that man spits in the face of God, and instead of glorifying Him and acknowledging Him as God, they get their eyes only on this world. That's the cosmic, that is the cosmic rebellion that is in the world today and is in our hearts.

I say cosmic because how silly it is to think that the creature would look at Almighty God who created all there is. Can you imagine that? The God who created all the galaxies, the God who created this earth, the God who created a fly. We are spitting in his face. That's cosmic treason.

That is treason against the God of the cosmos. This almighty God. It's madness. You know, think of what that would be like. It would be like one man trying to take on a million armed men.

It would be madness. It's insanity. And it's that same kind of insanity that's brought out. In one way, The beginning of the book of Romans speaks of man's total insanity and his only hope to be rescued by the grace of God. So that's the beginning of it.

The second aspect of the heart of the matter in Romans is this. And that is, it's the hope that Paul boasts of. Paul's constantly boasting in the hope of the gospel. Romans is a letter that's full of hope. This hit me yesterday.

We were on the way back from Colorado on the airplane, and I was asking all of us to read the Book of Romans and then to make some comments and think about it, and then we talked about it. So we got into Raleigh-Durham Airport. We're sitting in the baggage area waiting for our bags, and I asked, I said, Claudia, tell me, what is your, do you have anything to say about what you read in the book of Romans? And she said, she said, Papa, there's a lot, there's a lot of hope in the book of Romans. And that is absolutely true.

The book of Romans, from one page to the next, casts a vision of hope. It should fill our hearts with hope. I really pray that God would fill our hearts with more hope than we've ever had as a result of this study, because on every page there's a new hope there. But you know, it's a realistic hope. It's not an immature, effusive, silly kind of a hope that has no basis in anything.

Because it deals with the real problem in the heart. And then it takes the heart to a level of hope that can sustain it. And so it's hopeful because it deals with the problem that you and I have always had and still have today. And that is sin. Sin is the central problem of my life.

Sin is the central problem in my home. Sin is the central problem in my marriage. Sin is the central problem in my thoughts and my meditations. It's the biggest problem. Sin is the biggest problem in this Church today.

There's nothing bigger than the sinfulness in our hearts to grapple with as far as what's problematic in this Church is my sins and your sins as they work their way out through our tongues and through our lifestyles and everything like that. Sin is the President of the United States' biggest problem as well. And this is about dealing hope toward the biggest problem that our country has, and that our church has, and that I have, and that each one of us has together as members of the Body of Christ. Chapter 5 takes us to really soaring heights regarding hope. Chapter 5, verse 1, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through Him also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. So in the midst of our sins, we're actually standing in grace. It's like there's this, it's like a spring shower of grace. Have you ever walked in the rain, in a beautiful spring rain and got absolutely soaked. I love that picture for this grace in which we stand.

It's as refreshing and happy as it possibly could be. And he says there in And he says there in 5, that we're standing in this grace and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And that hope doesn't disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. So, it's a picture of the hope of the glory of God in us.

What is the hope of the glory of God? Well, when we get there, we'll speak of it in detail, but I'll just give you a thumbnail sketch of it. You are the hope of the glory of God. Isn't that amazing? God has hope in His people because He has poured His grace upon them.

So this is about hope, And I just pray that God would fill us with hope in the midst of all this. One thing we need to understand about the book of Romans is that there are two really, really big ticket items here. One is justification. That's a judicial act. You are justified.

It's done. You know, I was talking to a man recently who had, who had just, who wanted to buy a house, but he had to sell his house to buy his new house. So he had to wait for that house to close and the funds to flow into his bank account so that he could buy another house. And so he waited and he waited and and finally when when the when the transaction cleared and the money flowed into his account, he was whooping and hollering because it was there. The money was there.

That's exactly what justification does. The money's there. The money's been thrown into the account. It's more than you'll ever need. It exceeds all of your sins and all of your guilt, all of your past sins, your present and your future sins.

The account of grace is massive. It's a shower of grace in which you stand, and it is a judicial justification, just like a judge slams the gavel down and says, not guilty. And so we should have hope. And then the other item is sanctification, And that's ongoing. There's justification, which is judicial and final.

And then there's sanctification, which is continuous. My prayer for us is that we would just feel the impact of the gift of justification, that we just soak in it like in that rain, that we would relish it, that we would just love our justification. This hymn that we sang, Not What My Hands Have Done, is why we're singing that hymn. Because it has such a beautiful language for judicial justification. And who did it?

Who accomplished it? That's not because I feel justified. It's not because I fulfill everything that I know I should do, but it's because of an act of God. That's judicial justification. The deal has been done.

The money has filled the account and there's no need for any more for all of your life. Isn't that amazing? Not like Martin Luther had to continue to do penances and all this kind of, not like the others who had to buy indulgences and do whatever they had to do to be saved. No. This is judicial salvation.

Now, there are five points to consider When you survey the content of the book of Romans, this is not exhaustive, but these are five things I wanted to throw out. First of all, there are key words and phrases throughout the book. I'm just going to give you a list of some of those words. There's six of them that are really critical for understanding the book of Romans. Law, there's a lot about the law in the book of Romans.

Sin, there's a lot about sin. Justification or justified. Grace, faith, righteousness, those are the massive pillar words that are in the book of Romans. And we will go deeply into each one of them over the next several months. Secondly, another point to consider are the antitheses that you see in the book of Romans.

I'll give you two right now. There's faith not works. Faith not works. Those are antithetical, but they're also related, and we'll get into that. In one way, the book of Romans illustrates faith and works.

Chapters 1 through 11, justification by faith. Chapters 12 through 16, how that faith works itself out. It's faith and works. It's really a repeat of the logic of James when he talks about the interplay between faith and works. There's no contradiction at all in it.

It's very clear. They're just, they are both players in the game. Then there's the spirit, not the flesh. The spirit, not the flesh. The book of Romans can help you understand whether you are ever living in the flesh of the spirit.

It'll give you words to explain your behavior and your thoughts to help you know whether it is God or the devil at work in your heart. And Romans gives us that. It gives us the antithesis of the flesh and the spirit. We are never straddling kingdoms, ever. We are either living in the light or the darkness.

There's just no other way. And we see the antithesis here in the book of Romans. Then also we see the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. There's a rich doctrine of the Holy Spirit here. The Holy Spirit imparts life.

We'll learn that in chapter 8. The Holy Spirit sets us free. We'll learn that in chapter 6. He makes us sons. He intercedes for us.

He sanctifies us. He reveals the will of God to us, He was given for the preservation and the blessing of the human race, He reveals sin and He's given for guidance. That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the book of Romans. Ah, yes. Oh, and the people you will meet in the book of Romans.

Oh, the amazing individuals who are placed in our way to help us understand all these things. There's Abraham. Abraham figures large in the whole logic of the book of Romans. Abraham believed God, And it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Here's what's fascinating about Abraham.

Abraham was declared righteous before God, before he was circumcised. He was declared righteous before he kept the law. He was saved by grace. He was saved by grace the same way that every Old Testament saint was saved, and every person has ever been saved, world without end. He was saved by the grace of God.

We run in, and so he has nothing to boast about, because he was reckoned to be righteous by Almighty God. We run into David. David is quoted here in Romans 4, 7. Blessed is the man whom God imputes righteousness. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man whom the Lord shall not impute sin." Here we have the doctrine of imputed righteousness. David knew it. David received imputed righteousness. He wasn't made righteous because of his righteous life. He was made righteous by the judicial imputation of righteousness by God.

So here's a word all you children need to learn, to impute or imputation. Everybody needs to understand the meaning of that word as we go through Romans. We bump into Adam. So there's Abraham, there's David, there's Adam. Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.

By one man's offense, many died, and much more, by the grace of one man, many were given life. So we run into Adam who is put before us as the first, we have the first Adam, Adam, and then we have the second Adam, Christ, and they are symbolic of one another. Through one's man's offense came judgment, even so. Through one man's righteous act, there was justification to life. We also run into Sarah, Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau.

And they come into the story to help us understand the doctrine of election and the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Romans 9, 9-13 explains it. And the phrase that, after speaking of these saints, Sarah, Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau, he explains why they're there in the text. That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him who calls." You think about the sins and the difficulties in those families. Does your family have any problems?

Well these families had problems, but they had one thing going for them, and that is they were justified by the grace of God, and they were made righteous in the same way that David was, in the same way that Abraham was. Didn't we run into Pharaoh? Not only do we get Abraham and David and Sarah and Jacob and Esau and Adam, but we get Pharaoh. And we learn about the doctrine of sovereignty of God from Pharaoh. And in 9.15 we read, so then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs But on God who shows mercy for the scripture says to the Pharaoh Of course, this is the Pharaoh in Egypt For this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.

Therefore he has mercy on who he would have mercy, and he hardens those he hardens." So Pharaoh is used to explain the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in salvation. And so we'll discuss that as well in chapters 9 through 11. Then we run into the Friends of Paul, one of the most delightful sections to me in the New Testament, full of the language of love. In chapter 16, Paul speaks so glowingly and wonderfully of Phoebe and a number of other women in the Church and some of the other brothers that were there in the Roman Church. He says, I commend you to Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the Church in Sentria, that you may receive her in the Lord.

You'll just notice the language of tenderness, of desire, longing to be with these brothers there. He says, greet Amphlius, my beloved. He says, my beloved in the Lord. And then the book ends with those who caused divisions and offenses in the Church, 16, 17 through 20. Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them." So those are the people that we meet.

Abraham, David, Adam, Sarah, Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau, Pharaoh, the friends of Paul, and those who caused divisions in the churches. A number of individuals are cited, and there's much to learn there. Now, there are five prominent messages, or there are, no, number five, there are prominent messages throughout the book, and it is the word justification that summarizes the whole book. God justifies sinners. But even more than that, He justifies all kinds of sinners.

The heart of the book of Romans is what do you do with your sin. That is the heart of it. Many of you are familiar with the Roman road, that evangelistic tool. It's been used by many to share the gospel with their friends. The Roman road is a beautiful, tripping through Romans to help explain the gospel.

The Roman Road, Romans 3.23, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 6.23, The wages of sin is a death. Romans 6.23b, But The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5-8, but God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 10-13, whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 10.9, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation." So I don't know if anybody in this room needed to hear that today because they have not been saved yet. But it's possible. My prayer is that God would use these words just to open our hearts if there are any unsaved children or adults among us or anyone. But this is the Roman road, and it's the road to salvation.

So, Man is sinful and God is righteous. That's the point of the book of Romans. Now, we're going to walk through the book of Romans rather quickly. And so I'd like to give you, you know, an idea and you have it before you what the outline of this book looks like. There are a number of ways you can outline it.

This is, this is kind of what we're starting with. It'll be interesting to see if we finish with the exact same outline. I can see some ways that we can tweak this outline, but this could actually be about an 80-point outline. So I made it a six-point outline. First of all, like I said before, the book sorts out pretty much in two sections.

Chapters 1 through 11. What do you do with sinful mankind? What do you do? How do you understand sin at work in the world? And what can be done about it?

Justification by faith is what can be done about it. And then the second half, or the second part of the book from chapters 12 through 16, give you how faith works itself out in all kinds of different contexts. Okay, so that's the big picture. Now let's dive in a little bit. I have six questions that each one of these sections answers.

And of course, you know, I've really tried to reduce a lot of things into short statements, which doesn't get everything. But that's the purpose of an outline anyway. So part one, chapters one through four, why do we need justification? And how are we justified? Well, we need justification because we've exchanged the glory of God for a lie.

That's why we need justification. And how are we justified? By the removal of wrath through the propitiation of sin. That's how we're justified. The wrath of God is toward us, But it is satisfied.

The anger is quelled. And so God is not mad at you after He justifies you. He's at work sanctifying you. But He's taking care of your greatest problem in all of life. And in this section we come to what, it was interesting, a number of people called this, what I'm going to talk about right now, is the theological center of the Bible.

Okay, are you ready for the theological center of the Bible? When my son David and I were out in Colorado, we were driving around Colorado listening to Romans on CD and reading it and we listened to several sermons on the book. But it was interesting that that that two or three of the guys said that this was the theological center of the Bible. So here you go, Romans 3, 20-26. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight.

For by the law is the knowledge of sin, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Does that sound like the theological center of the Bible to you? It does to me. It seems to just bring everything together in a compact statement of the kind intentions of the will of God for sinners in the world. So this first section touches, answers that question.

The second is in Chapter 5, how does justification guarantee final salvation? And Here in Chapter 5 are some of the most beautiful terms, tender terms, of God's treatment of us. And there is the hope of salvation. There is rejoicing in the hope of salvation. If we're not rejoicing in the hope of our salvation, then let's just stir it up.

Let's really stir it up here in the book of Romans. And maybe the joy in your salvation is low. Well, that's not the end of the world. We can stir it, and that's what the book of Romans will help to do. We are justified by this free gift.

Through one man's offense, sin came to us, but one man's righteousness took it away. And not only do we have salvation now, but God, God will finish. We stand in this grace. We stand in it until the day we're taken home. That's the hope, the glory of God.

And then the third question that Romans answers is, how should a justified person wrestle with ongoing sin? That's chapters 6 through 8. How do you, you know, if you're not, If you're not wrestling with sin, you're not a Christian. If you don't have a conscience that condemns you, then you're seared and you may not really actually be a believer. I've run into people who say, I'm struggling with sin, therefore I'm not a Christian.

Well that's completely opposite to the Gospel. If you're struggling with sin, then you're doing business with God. And that's what these chapters are all about. If you're not battling with your body, to present your body as a living sacrifice, then you should pray and ask God to fill your heart. Chapter 6 is about sanctification.

Chapter 7 is about dealing with the ravages of this sinful body. Paul cries out, who will deliver me from this body of death? Because his body, the members of his body are always rising up to sin. His mouth, his heart, everything. And then chapter 8 is the power of God.

It's the answer to it all. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And that's the culmination of it all. Are you weary? Are you weary of your sins and the way that it's affecting you?

Well, Romans 6-8 tells us how to deal with that. And then we move to the next section, chapters 9-11. What is the doctrine of election all about? That's the question that that answers. What is the doctrine of election all about?

What does the sovereignty of God have to do with salvation? What about the Jews? What does it mean in chapter 9, where Paul says, or when Paul quotes the Lord, I will have mercy on those to whom I have mercy? What does that mean? What does it mean that God hardens people's hearts so that they will not be saved.

And we'll learn about Israel and God's hand on Israel and his sovereignty in salvation. And then number five, chapters 12 through 15, or how should a justified person live in relationships. This passage is, or this section, is all about relationships and how you deal with them. It has to do with how do you get along with friends? How do you get along with, what do you do with enemies?

What do you do with the government? Romans 13. What do you do with weak believers and strong believers? We'll try to sort that whole issue out when we get there. But it's about how a justified person lives their daily life in this world with people and it begins, it begins with presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice.

That's where it all begins. It depends on what you present your body to. That makes all the difference in the world for what your relationships are going to be like. The Church is all about relationships. And so there's this long section about how to handle the tensions of relationships, differences of opinion, liberty and legalism.

And all those questions are brought up here. The weaker brother, the stronger brother. You know, Why you should do this and why you shouldn't do that in the church. Because it has effect on people. We are people.

We're not just a group of cattle that come in here and leave. We're people that have relationships. And Sometimes when people are in relationships, they offend one another for different reasons. Romans 12 through 16 give us a lot of answers about what to do if you're offended, what to do if someone curses you, what you're supposed to do when someone attacks you. And it's all there in this passage here.

And also in the midst of it all, there's this acknowledgement of the transformation that's happening. Our minds are being renewed. So we might not conduct all of our relationships perfectly every day, but there is a renewal going on. It starts in the mind, the way we think about one another, and then it works out in the way that we operate in everyday life with one another. There is just so much here, all the way from the fact that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to the fact that all of us have different capacities and abilities to accept or engage in different things.

At the end of it though, the key for all of us is to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So why? Why are we doing this? Why do we love one other?

Here's why. So that we would prove God to be true, that we would glorify Him, that everything that we would do would prove that He is God. That when I bless my brother who cursed me, I'm proving that God is true, that God is love. That When I don't take my own revenge, but I leave vengeance to the Lord, then I prove that God is true. Because we are here to prove God to be true.

Let's just say in your sanctification process, let's just say in your love for your wife, let's say you could go from a 6 to a 7, or a 6 to an 8 in love for your wife. Your sanctification process would be rising up And you would actually go from a 6 to a 7, maybe an 8 like that. But the scale is 5 billion, because the scale is God's righteousness. How do you get there? How are you going to get there in love?

Well, here's the truth. You will never get there. Why? Why all the sanctification? Why should we love one another?

Not so we get better for ourselves, not so we can say, yes, I finally conquered that area of life, because that will never happen. We do it so that we would prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Our lives are a proving ground for the glory of God. It's not a proving ground for us. It's not to get ourselves together so that we can have a nice family or a nice ethical business or something like that.

It has nothing to do with that. It's not about us at all. It's about the glory of God. Our whole church, everything we do here, it has no other purpose except that we would prove what is good, what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. This is a proving ground for God, not us.

And that's the logic that we find in that section. Then we get to chapter 16, and you see what love in relationships produced in the church. I love this section. I cannot wait to get to this section. I certainly hope that Jason Dome or Dan Horn or some of these other guys are not going to preach on chapter 16.

Because I really want to be here for chapter 16. It's just beautiful. Here's what you see. The demonstrations of love in the church. And the way, you know what, it's about the way people feel about each other.

It's about feelings, okay? It really is. It's about how your heart hurts when you don't see someone, or you wish you could be home with them, or something like that. It's about missing, It's about missing people. That's what love in the church is partly about.

Yeah, it is about the way we treat one another. But in chapter 16, you learn that you have feelings for one another, and that you want to be together. You want to hear their voices, and you want to see their faces, and you want to be with them. You want to weep with them. You want to rejoice with them.

So, chapter 16 just displays all of that and you we meet these interesting people you know in the Roman Church you know from from Phoebe to Narcissus. You know you have all these you know Greco-Roman names these people that came out of idolatry, they had all these strange practices and they probably looked funny when they came into the church and all kinds of stuff like that because they were just Greeks and Romans, that's all they were. But they were justified by the grace of God. So, the book of Romans takes us from our greatest problem, sin, lifts us up on the heights through the Judge who rules and justified us by faith, who takes us then and He sanctifies us by the Spirit. If you mortify the flesh, if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.

And that's what Romans is all about. It's about real life. Living large in the presence of God according to the sanctifying work that he does in the church. And so it's a beautiful, beautiful work for us to go through. Now my last point is this.

There's an opportunity here. There's an opportunity to capture or an opportunity to lose. So here's, now I'm going to give, I'm going to try to give a really, really urgent appeal. Okay, are you ready? Like I want to be as passionate and urgent about this as I possibly can.

And it's this. Don't miss this opportunity. We're only going to be here for maybe nine or ten months and then that's it. Okay? Get it.

Read it. Read it in your homes. Read it a lot. Glory in the words. The words in this book are so wonderful.

And the words that are in this book can carry you through any problem you'll ever face. Do you understand that? Whatever is going to happen in the future, these words can lift you on wings like eagles. Don't miss them. Please don't miss them.

We will be memorizing together three chapters of this book over the next period. Chapter 1, chapter 8, and chapter 12. Okay? We're gonna memorize those three chapters. They're pivotal in the book.

But I'm going to actually throw out an even greater challenge than that. William Tyndale, in the prologue of this 1534 edition of his English New Testament, made an urgent appeal specifically to men, specifically to the fathers in the Church, the men of the Church. He speaks so directly to them in the prologue, and I'm going to read to you what he said. Because his urgency is... I thought I had urgency for this, but his urgency far exceeds mine.

So I want you to get something beyond my own. And here's what he said. I think it neat that every Christian man not only know it by rote and without the book. Notice that? Every man ought to know it by rote, without the book.

So I'm just going to stand as if I was Tyndale himself. Every man needs to know this book by rote. Would you? Could you take up this challenge? Would you memorize the book of Romans?

Is it possible? Tyndale, who was burnt at the stake, believed that every man should know it by rote. But also exercise himself therein ever more continually, as with the daily bread of the soul." You notice the language? "'Exercise himself ever more continually as with the daily bread of the soul.'" So make it like your food. How regularly do you eat?

Eat this book like that. Okay, that's what he's saying. And with it, no man verily can read it too often or study it too well. For the more it is studied, the easier it is, the more it is chewed, the pleasanter it is." Don't you like that? The more it is chewed, the pleasanter it is.

Now, he took a word that we don't even use. The pleasanter it is. And then he says, And the more groundly it is searched, the preciouser things that are found in it, so great treasure of spiritual things lieth hidden within. And then later on in the prologue he says this, and I'll close with it, Wherefore let every man without exception exercise himself therein diligently, and record it night and day continually until he be full acquainted therewith. So that's the challenge.

Just saturate, let's just be saturated in the words that are here. Let's commit them to memory. Let's walk around with them singing in our hearts and taking us through this life that God has put us in. This is the power of God that Paul is not ashamed of. And he argues for it with beauty and effectiveness, that the Gospel is the most beautiful news ever.

And at the end of the letter, he says triumphantly, he says, now to him who is able to establish you according to my Gospel. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel. Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel. And that's what I trust God will do with us. That He will establish us through the gospel, in the gospel, by the gospel.

That we would be such a gospel saturated people, so filled up with the knowledge of the love of God in justification and sanctification, so filled with love for one another in the process, actually reflecting His love as He renews our minds, that we would be established by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that that would be the chief mark of our lives individually and our lives together in this Church. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you for the cross. We thank you for the blood, for righteousness, which is by faith.

I thank you for the law, which has condemned us and convicted us and the Lord Jesus Christ who has raised us up to new life and justified us by His blood and satisfied your great anger toward us in our sins through the propitiation by Jesus Christ. Amen.