If I had just three books from the New Testament to take with me on a mission trip…the three would be John’s gospel…Romans…and Hebrews.
John’s gospel portrays Jesus as the Son of God…he wrote so that his readers might “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” so that they may have life in His name (John 20:31).
What’s more important to bring to a lost people than sharing the concept of eternal life?
John used a variety of techniques to communicate this to his readers including the famous “I am” statements, in which Jesus spoke of Himself as the divine Son of God that sets Him apart from any other man who ever lived.
With regards to the book of Hebrews…perhaps nowhere in the New Testament does the Old Testament come into focus more than in the Book of Hebrews… it is a book deeply rooted in the Old Testament…emphasizing:
…the superiority of Jesus and the new covenant over Moses and the old covenant.
…establishing Jesus as the Person who created the world
…as the Person who is the exact representation of God
…as the only Person able to make purification for sin
…and as the only Person qualified to sit at the right hand of God.
People know God because God has chosen to communicate with them…God spoke through two eras…first—He spoke to our fathers the prophets—secondly —He spoke to us by His Son—that is how we separate the Old and New Testaments.
I have already preached an extensive study on John and Hebrews…this morning I’m going to begin a study in the book of Romans.
The Book of Romans is broken into two parts. It is a blueprint for Christians on —what to believe and—how to behave.
For this reason, it is often one of the very first books that new believers read when they start to study the Bible.
The importance of that is what I talk about extensively…you cannot just believe John 3:16 and be confident that you are saved …it also includes how to behave because living a lifestyle of disobedience is an enemy of your destiny.
Disobedience to God prevents God from being in control of His plan and purpose for your life…to disobey God is to be disconnected from that destiny.
The Book of Romans has been called one of the greatest dissertations of fundamental Christian doctrine ever written…that idea is revealed in the opening verses of Romans 1.
Beginning in the first seven verses…which is one long difficult sentence in the Greek…Paul states the gospel was promised beforehand through God’s prophets …to eliminate any suggestion that Paul just make things up.
It wasn’t Paul’s idea…rather…it comes to us right out of the Old Testament which is referred to as the ‘Holy Scriptures.’
Concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David…who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead [Romans 1:3-4]
He begins by showing the dual nature of Christ…He was both man and God… both divine and human.
His genealogy as a son of Abraham is established in Matthew’s gospel where Matthew lists Jesus’ ancestry beginning with Abraham going forward to Jesus to establish that He was from Jewish descendants.
Luke in his gospel lists Jesus’ ancestry beginning with Mary’s blood relatives and going backward all the way to Adam…to establish that Jesus is the Son of God.
Without establishing Jesus as God’s Son…Jesus wouldn’t be of any more importance than any other man who ever lived…that’s what separates Christianity from every other religion in the world.
Every founder of every religion in the world is buried somewhere…you can go see their graves…BUT…Jesus the founder of the Christian faith is God’s Son… there is no grave…all the O. T. prophets’ writings centered on that fact.
That’s why I have always had problems with the idea of atheism…4% of American adults say they are atheists…up from 2% in 2009…with the number being much higher in European countries than in the U.S.
The literal definition of “atheist” is “a person who doesn’t believe in the existence of a god or any gods…the vast majority of U.S. atheists fit this description…81% say they do not believe in God or a higher power or in a spiritual force of any kind. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/06/10-facts-about-atheists/
Here’s something that is noteworthy…in the U.S., atheists are mostly men (68%) ….who are relatively young…more likely to be white (78%) …and highly educated.
I don’t understand that…Why Don’t People Believe in God or don’t go to church…apparently there are lots of reasons…I refer to them as excuses:
1. Growing up in a Faithless Family
32% of atheists said they grew up in a home with parents who didn’t believe in God…again…do I need to emphasis the importance of AWANA…of having your children…your grandchildren in church?
2. Stopped Believing in Religious Teachings
Now here’s the other side of that coin…32% are atheists because they never went to church…over 60% of atheists were raised in church-going homes but, at some point, lost their faith. Why? I suspect they were never told why we believe, but only told to believe. They weren’t led to make their faith their own.
3. Experiences at College
People who lose their faith often do so in college. Why? It could be from exposure to people who believe other things or a professor who mocks and attacked faith in God…leaving the person who grew up in the church confused and wondering if they were silly for ever believing.
4. Intellectual Challenges
When faced with unanswerable questions:
…is the Bible true
…doubt the authenticity of the Bible
…did the resurrection of Jesus really happen
…can it be proven
…if Godisloving,why is there so much evil in the world?
…if God created the world in six days, what about evolution and dinosaurs?
…why would a good God send people to hell?
…why doesn’t God just reveal Himself…then we could believe.
When a person can’t find answers, they can easily turn away from their faith.
5. Emotional challenges
Emotional challenges can be as big a deterrent to believing as intellectual reasons:
…God didn’t answer an important prayer or rescue them from the consequences of a bad decision.
…They may have been hurt by a church or turned off by hypocritical Christians.
6. Wanting Moral Independence
People wanting to keep doing what they were doing without God interfering…
not wanting to give God the moral authority over their lives.
7. Issues about sex
Surveys tell us that 19% of people who have walked away from the church said sexual abuse acts committed by clergy were a significant reason why they left.
29% (and 39% of those raised Catholic) said they left the church because of negative teachings and treatment of gay and lesbian people…because they want to be loving people, and believe Christians are too mean and judgmental.
8. Politics
People rejecting the church because of a belief that Christians are too into politics…people are staying away from the church because of politics, but they’re also leaving church because of politics…14% of American Christians left their churches as a result of the 2016 elections.
I am sure there are many more…I’m not going to waste our time going on listing them…I would suggest that in every one of those cases …reasons…excuses … people use to stay out of church…a large majority of those people have never even read the Bible.
I’m not talking about reading an occasional verse or two…I’m not even talking about studying the Bible…I’m talking about just sitting down and reading the Bible…because as we go through the book of Romans every one of those reasons…or excuses will be addressed…no wonder Paul says they are without excuse.
That is why the first couple things Paul does is ONE…to establish his position as an apostle and SECOND…to validate the authenticity of Scripture:
Verse 1 – “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God.”
Paul discloses three important things about himself in regard to his ministry:
(1) His position as a servant of Christ
(2) His authority as an apostle of Christ
(3) His power in being set apart for the Gospel of Christ.
Why does Paul disclose these qualifications about himself?
Paul is pointing out the fact that his position as an apostle was something, he did not volunteer for…he was not elected to…nor was it of his own doing…he was divinely called by Christ Himself.
This goes along with my Christmas Eve sermon…here’s the Readers’ Digest version…throughout the Bible you’ll find people whose lives were altered… were changed forever…and God did it without even asking them.
Jesus never asked the 12 apostles if they wanted to be His disciples…He told them they were going to be.
God has a plan and purpose for every person… God’s plan for our lives isn’t always an easy one…it’s something He planned before you were ever born… and He never consulted with you on what He wanted you to do.
What makes the apostles special is they were personally chosen by Christ and commissioned to proclaim authoritatively God’s Word through direct revelation.
Paul uses the word “bondservant” to describe himself…in 1st century Rome there were different kinds of slaves:
…might include prisoners of war
…might include selling your children into slavery
…selling yourself into slavery
…owners could free their slaves…or you could buy yourself out of slavery
Paul defined himself as a bondservant…in 1st century Rome a bondservant was one who completely belonged to his owner and had no freedom to leave…Paul is saying that is my relationship with Jesus.
Paul is saying as a bondservant I don’t get to do what I want to do…I don’t get to say what I want to say…it’s like what God told Ezekiel when He sent him to preach repentance to Israel…God told Him …‘go to the house of Israel and speak My words to them’ [Ez. 3:4]
This is why Paul’s writings can be considered inspired…representing the thoughts of God without error.
SECOND…Paul sets out to validate the authenticity of Scripture by stating God’s promise to prophets.
Verse 2 – He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures
Again…goes back to what I previously said about the Bible…just taking a cursory look at the Bible…the Christian Bible was written over a period of about 1,500 years by more than forty different human authors…God doesn’t just confine His revelation to one man but reveals Himself throughout the ages to a multitude of different people.
The Old Testament records hundreds of prophecies about the promised Messiah. There is nothing vague or general about these prophecies, they are exact…unlike Nostradamus whose predictions are extremely vague…that’s why all his predictions don’t refer to exact dates or to specific people because they’re based on astrological movements.
Paul begins his letter with a brief, yet accurate account of who Jesus was by making reference to God’s prophets and the Holy Scriptures regarding the promised coming of the Messiah.
If you were to study the prophecies from the Old Testament it’s easy to see the preciseness of these prophecies regarding the specific details concerning Jesus’ birth…His family…His life…His death…and His resurrection.
A cursory review of these prophecies will confirm the impossibility of all the numerous authors who wrote the Bible during the hundreds of years before Christ’s birth to predict with exact accuracy the entire specific details of His life.
Psalms 16:10 – You will not allow Your Faithful One to see decay.
Exodus 12:46 – you may not break any of its bones.
Zechariah 9:9 – your King is coming to you…riding on a donkey
Isaiah 53 v.5 – He was pierced because of our transgressions…v.12 – He bore the sin of many.”
Micah 5:2 –Bethlehem…you are small…one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for Me …His origin …is from eternity.”
The guys that wrote these prophecies didn’t know each other…they didn’t sit down and compare notes…or make sure everyone was in agreement…unlike what Joseph Smit did when he and some friends wrote the book of Mormon.
Even unbelievers have to admit to some supernatural force that could define a single person’s life with that exactness…for Christians that supernatural force is God and the book that records all those events is God’s inspired Word the Bible.
With respect to the New Testament…there are nearly 5,700 manuscripts of the New Testament dating from the second century to the fifteenth century.
There are over 24,000 bits and pieces of the New Testament in existence today …in all those manuscripts and portions of texts there is not variation in any of the manuscripts that has the slightest doctrinal change from the original writings.
That’s important to establish…because too often theline of thought regarding the corruption of the Bible is that there are changes that have been made…with some cults even believing the Bible has been tampered with.
It’s of paramount importance to establish the preciseness of the Bible…that it is without error when pertaining to everything doctrinal…if we are to trust the Bible as God’s Word, we must have an acceptance regarding the creditability of the Bible.
As Christians we believe the Bible provides something that is not available in any other book in the world.
…it is only in the Bible that I can learn firsthand who God is and what He values.
…it is only in the Bible that I see a God reaching down to sinners out of love and compassion.
…only the Bible reveals a God who is truly concerned about me as an individual.
…it is only in the Bible that God truly reveals Himself.
So, before we begin our study of Romans it’s important that we establish two things:
…FIRST…the credibility of the people writing the Bible…if we are going to take anything Paul writes as authoritative we must have confidence that it is truthful and reliable.
…SECOND that the people who wrote the Bible were inspired by the Holy Spirit and not giving us their own opinions.
It is my hope that as we continue on over the next months in Romans that you realize what I regularly preach about…that salvation is not the endpoint of our lives of faith…John 3:16 is the starting point.
We are being continually refined and made righteous by the Holy Spirit as we follow Jesus…our redemption is made possible by the grace of God… that should spur us on to a life spent in pursuit of Jesus.