Sermon Book: Romans

Sermon transcript

We’ll be reading two passages this afternoon, from the first chapter and from the last chapter. So I ask you to turn with me to Romans chapter 1, and there we’ll read verses 1 through 15, actually. It says 1 to 7 in your bulletins. I’m going to read through verse 15.

Give your attention, for this is the Word of God, the inspired and infallible Word of the true and the living God, our God. Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for his name’s sake, among whom you also are the call of Jesus Christ. To all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of his Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making requests, if perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.

For I long to see you, so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established. That is, that I may be encouraged together with you, while among you, each of us by the other spades, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you, and have been prevented so far, so that I may obtain some truth among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” And we end the reading of God’s word momentarily there at Romans 1 verse 15. And then I ask you to turn with me over to chapter 16, the last chapter, which we’ll read in its entirety. Again, hear the word of God.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church, which is at Cyntria, that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you, for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well. Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. who for my life risk their own necks, to whom not only do I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Also greet the church that is in their house.

Greet Eponidas, my beloved, who is the first convert to Christ from Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Adronicus and Junius, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles. who also were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urmanus, my fellow worker in Christ, and Stachys, my beloved. Greet Apellas, the approved in Christ.

Greet those who are of the household of Aristopoulos. Greet Herodian, my kinsman. Greet those of the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord. Greek, Trithina and Triphosa, workers in the Lord. Greek, Persis, the beloved who has worked hard in the Lord. Greek, Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, also his mother and mine. Greek, Asyntratus, Phlaicon, Hermes, Petrobus, Hermas, and the brethren with them. Greek, Phlogos and Julia, and his sister in Olympus, and all the saints who are with them.

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Jesus Christ, but of their own appetites. and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. For the report of your obedience has reached to all. Therefore, I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you, and so do Lucius and Jason and so on. I, Tertius, who write this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, greets you. And Cortes, the brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Amen. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the Eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith. To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.”

Thus ends the reading of God’s inspired Word. Will you pray with me? Father, as we hear the words of the beloved Apostle Paul, as he speaks to us these words of encouragement and comfort, as he greets the Church in the name of Jesus and offers that blessing which can only be found in Christ, we ask once again, Lord, that the Spirit who inspired the writing of these words would now be here to interpret and apply them to each one of us, that we might be built up in the most holy faith. and that we would bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, Father, in response to the Word of God as it is offered to us. We are thankful for the written Word, and we ask that your blessing would be upon the preached Word today, both the preacher and those who receive the preaching, that together we may grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear our prayers and supplications, and may you bless us greatly from heaven. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Beloved, we conclude this afternoon a sermon series through the Epistles of the Romans that we began on July 15, 2018, more than two years ago. We entitle today’s message, The Gospel of God and Obedience of Faith, subtitled Apostolic Greetings and Brotherly Affection. And so I do begin our sermon time this morning, or this afternoon, with this word. I address you as those beloved, beloved of God, beloved by your retired pastor, and I address you as those beloved and remind you that we are gathered here this afternoon, first and foremost, to worship and to commune with the true and the living God, that God who, in the beginning, created man, male and female, after his own image.

As you know, that first man, Adam, as Paul tells us in the pages of Romans, that first man sinned, and sin entered the world, and death through sin spread to all men. We fell in the first man, the first Adam. But then, as the Gospel of Jesus Christ so gloriously makes known, but then, in the fullness of the time, God sent His eternally begotten Son, the second Adam. to redeem a people for himself, to redeem them from the bondage of sin and from death. He who is the anointed Son of God, the Messianic Son of Man, the very Word of God, became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. He who is the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Through the gospel that we preach, then, God is gathering to himself a people, a people to worship him in spirit and in truth. The living and true God, our triune creator, has instituted the worship of himself by all people everywhere. Because man’s chief end is to glorify God and fully to enjoy him forever, all of life is to be worshipful. Nevertheless, worship itself consists primarily in specific acts of communion with God. Only those people whose hearts have been made new through God’s grace by the work of the Holy Spirit can worship God. And in saying that, we are again reminded of our chief end—to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

In fact, the aim of evangelism—the preaching of the good news of Jesus Christ—is to The aim of evangelism has as its purpose to gather a people from every nation, tribe, and tongue to worship. Again, we say Jesus came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

The Book of Romans is a letter written by an apostle once sent by Jesus Christ. This letter was written through divine inspiration and sent to those beloved of God in Rome A people called as saints. So here we have sixteen chapters of divine revelation, good news, laying out, as it were, the most comprehensive and systematic statements of the Christian faith to be found anywhere in the Bible. Written in the genre of a letter, Paul opens his epistle of Romans in chapter one in typical letter fashion, with a greeting. A rather lengthy reading to the Church at Rome, verses 1 to 15, that we took time to read this morning, this afternoon, in which Paul identifies and addresses himself to his readership.

He begins, you note, by referring to himself as, quote, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, verse 1 of chapter 1. Paul elaborates on the meaning and content of the gospel then there in that first chapter in verses two to four, saying that the gospel is that which God promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning His Son who was descended from David according to the flesh 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. Here, Paul indicates that the gospel was something promised in the Old Testament.

It was not something completely unrelated to what had gone before. Paul consciously, in light of that gospel, views his life as completely dedicated to declaring that good news. His life and calling have been shaped by that good news. It defines who he is and what he does. It is not merely Paul’s presupposition, it is his precondition out of which he lives and moves and has his being. It is who he is, it is what he does.

We remember Saul’s encounter with the risen Lord Jesus on the roads of Damascus, how that event had changed everything for him. When the Apostle Paul was on trial in Jerusalem before King Agrippa, Paul reviewed that dramatic encounter with Jesus there. In that text, Acts 26, 12-20, Paul says, As I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priest, at midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goats. And I said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet.

For this purpose, I have appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness, not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you, rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and the inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.

So, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly mission. but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem, and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God for forming deeds appropriate to repentance.

Paul says he, I’m undermining here, Paul says he did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision. In other words, he was obedient to the heavenly vision. In response to the call of Jesus, Paul’s life and ministry was lived out as an obedience of faith. As Paul would himself say elsewhere, he believed and therefore did he speak, including 2 Corinthians 4, verse 13. I believe, therefore I spoke.

As he tells the Philippians, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain, Philippians 1.21. But if I am to live on in the flesh, Paul says, That will mean fruitful labor for me, and I do not know which to choose.” Philippians 1, 21-22. Similarly, in Galatians 2, 20-21, Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly.

Nothing is the same for Paul now that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had come and had set him apart as his chosen instrument to bear Christ’s name before the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. So says Acts chapter 9 verses 15 to 16. To him it was given by Jesus to suffer much for Christ’s name’s sake. Such was the life-changing, new, life-defining gospel of Jesus Christ for Paul. The gospel that had so changed Paul concerns Jesus Christ, of course.

This Jesus was descended from David, and he is the all-awaited Messiah, 2 Timothy 2, verse 8. He was declared to be the Son of God in power, Paul writes in the first chapter of Romans, but Paul is claiming from the outset is that the eternal Son of God, who entered into human experience as the promised Messiah, was appointed on the basis of his resurrection from the dead to a new and more powerful position in relation to the world. Paul is referring here to Christ’s exaltation, his exaltation to the right hand of God the Father, an exaltation which followed his bitter Humiliation, suffering, and death on the cross, that subsequent exaltation of Jesus Christ in resurrection power, is the sum and substance of the gospel which Paul sets forth in this glorious epistle to the Romans. The gospel which Paul affirms is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Paul understood that it was through the resurrected and exalted Christ that he was called as an apostle and was set apart for the gospel of God to bring about what he calls in Romans 1 verse 5, I underscore it, the obedience of faith.

He was set apart for the gospel of God to bring about the obedience of faith, Romans 1 verse 5. And as many as the Lord our God would call to himself, citation from Acts 2 verse 39. We will see that phrase, obedience of faith, again at the very end of the epistle in the portion that we read in Romans chapter 16.

I’m referring specifically to Romans chapter 16 verse 26, look at it, that is found in Paul’s closing ascription of glory to God, comparing Romans 1-5 with Romans 16-26 in chapter 16 verses 25-27. hear the inscription of Paul’s glory to God. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the Eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to, quote, obedience of faith. to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.” So ends the book of Romans.

Paul’s ambition, we see in this, as an apostle, from the beginning of the epistle to the end, from the beginning of his ministry to the end, was to bring about what he calls here the obedience of faith, hence our sermon title, and that obedience of faith brought about through the preaching of the gospel So it is under divine inspiration that he sets out in the course of this beloved epistle to present in a rich and comprehensive way the gospel which he preaches, calling forth repentance and the obedience of faith from those who believe this message that he writes.

Following his opening greeting in chapter 1, verses 1-7, Paul expresses thanksgiving for the church at Rome. and his earnest desire to visit them, to minister to them. He declares that he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome. And then he explains why he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome. He says so.

Chapter 1, verses 15 to 17, he says, Why I’m eager to preach it is I’m 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, that is, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, that the righteous man shall live by faith.” Verses 16-17, we close from that first chapter. The gospel, the good news concerning Jesus Christ, which to the world appears to be weak and foolish, is the manifestation of the very power of God directed toward the salvation of man. This gospel reveals the righteousness of God.

Romans is Paul’s fullest, most comprehensive statement of the gospel. Paul devotes the first main section of this epistle to the very heart of the gospel, namely the righteousness from God and justification by faith, and from there Paul proceeds to discuss sanctification and the assurance that is provided by the gospel. of the book, chapter 9-11, Paul defends the Gospel by addressing the problem of Israel’s generally negative response in rejecting the Gospel. How many Jews in that first century rejected the call of the Gospel? By rejecting Jesus as Christ. Even so, God’s purposes still stand, as Jews and Gentiles are still being shown mercy.

Then, in Romans, chapter 12-14, As you can see, we’re doing something of a summation of the book in this final sermon of the series. In chapters 12 and 14, Paul turns to the transforming power of the Gospel in the Christian life as we are to live it as a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable to Him. In closing the epistle, in chapters 15 and 16, the Apostle tells us that the Gospel impels to proclaim Christ where Christ has not yet been named, as he announces to the Romans his travel plans in fulfillment of the Drapastolic gospel ministry.

He views his ministry in terms of the Old Testament prophetic message that predicted the inclusion of the Gentiles and the nations in the powerful outworking of God’s eternal kingdom. Paul acknowledges that according to Isaiah, chapter 52, verses 13-15, the nations and kings who have not heard Yahweh’s word will now see in amazement the exaltation of Yahweh’s suffering servant, and the fulfillment of the promise, that is, the good news the gospel would be proclaimed, a good news that would be proclaimed that calls for faith. over against the unbelief encountered within Israel. This was all predicted and prophesied. That exalted servant, says Isaiah, will sprinkle many nations. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, sees his own ministry, then, as an instrument in the fulfillment of that promise wherein Christ would sprinkle the nations and gather the people from the nations. Paul’s own ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles is seen by the apostle himself as fulfillment or partial fulfillment of that very thing. The gospel that he preaches is the power of God unto salvation to them that believe.

The apostle says here he did not want to build on the foundation of another. Paul’s epistles to the Romans contains a closing section that is longer than the closing found in most of his other letters. First Paul informs the Romans of his ministry and of his plans to visit Rome.

He then includes a list of personal greetings that we have read here at the end in chapter 16, which we will but briefly consider this afternoon. Notice, if you will, however, the remarkable way in which this epistle begins and ends. It begins with apostolic greetings, it ends with apostolic greetings. The greetings in chapter 16 begin with a commendation of the letter carrier.

Our sister Phoebe, he calls her, who is both a deacon, that is, a server of the Church in Sincrea, and a patron of Paul and of the Church. Quite possibly, Phoebe has other matters of business to attend to in Rome as well. Paul’s words are intended to secure her reception by the Church in Rome, to which she otherwise appears to have been unknown.

The lengthy list of greetings to members of the Roman house churches serves to show the extensive personal contacts that Paul already enjoys with Rome before he ever visited there. Paul clearly intends to send the message that he knows and is concerned about for many members of the church, and he does so with deep brotherly affection. He rejoices in the obedience of the believers found there in Rome. His familiarity with so many members and contacts among the Roman churches is truly remarkable, especially in a day, consider it, when there were no telephones, let alone cell phones, no Facebook, no e-mail, just word of mouth and hand-delivered letters, and he knew the people who lived there. Surely such a list of greetings would have been exceptional in a letter written to a church with which Paul was very well acquainted.

But in a letter written to a distant church in which he was personally unknown, Paul no doubt sent greetings in these closing verses of chapter 16 to friends whom he had met elsewhere in the course of his apostolic ministry, and who were now residents in Rome. After all, we know the saying, all roads lead to Rome. It is not surprising that many people whom Paul had come to know in other places should in the meantime have made their way to the city of Rome.

We note in particular among the list of friends and others’ names, the good friends and fellow campmakers, Priscilla and Apollo, who had been compelled by Claudius, the emperor’s edict in A.D. 49, that had expelled all Jews from Rome. Paul met them, stayed with them, and worked with them in Corinth. You can read about that in Acts, Chapter 18. You might recall, too, that they were quite influential in the progress of Apollos as a minister of the Word.

As we reflect on Paul’s acquaintance with the many persons that are named in Romans 16, and his affection for them, we must remember that the Church is one, bound together in the unity of the Holy Spirit, sharing together the sufferings for the name of Christ as Christ’s Church in the world. but not of the world. And remember, too, as we hear Paul naming name after name, that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd knows his sheep by name, and his sheep know him, and they follow him in the obedience of faith.

In his eagerness to preach the gospel in Rome, remember that Paul will arrive there under arrest and bound in chains. But so be it. Paul is not ashamed of the gospel of God. He was determined to be obedient to his calling, even unto death. The obedience of faith was seen in Paul.

He speaks of it in returns of his ministry, and he calls us to it in the course of his letters and writings in the New Testament that we receive as our own. As we consider the words of Paul to us, Consider your calling, beloved. Call to be saints, holy ones, God’s holy ones. And He calls us through His Word, let us walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called.

In the obedience of faith, I put it, in accordance with the gospel that has been preached to us, let us be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, demonstrating brotherly affection and love one for another. Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, neither should you or I be ashamed of the gospel. As we live out our calling, as those called to be holy and fulfill that vocation that God has particularly given to each one, male and female, every member of the body of Christ, walking together, let us be diligent to maintain the obedience of faith, responding to the gospel.

And as we do that, here are these words of greeting. that the Apostle Paul sends to us, and I underscore these words to you, beloved, that God will soon crush Satan under your feet. Chapter 16, verse 20. God will soon crush Satan under your feet. The destruction of Satan has already begun, but it will not be completed until the final judgment. Elsewhere, the author of Hebrews speaks of Christ’s death, destroying the devil. I’m thinking of Hebrews 2. But the devil was not completely defeated until the last day, when Christ returns in glory.” Revelation 20, verse 10. Appropriately, considering the glorious nature of the subject of this letter, Paul closes Romans with a doxology of praise to God. Romans 16, verses 25 to 27, and I will offer that doxology for you now.

Join with me. Now, to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, that now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the Eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith. To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever and ever.” Amen. Let’s pray together. Father, we do thank you for the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ and the call that is upon our lives to be identified with Jesus also.

To live is Christ, to die is gain. We have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. So that the life that we live, we live for your glory, for your praise and honor. by the grace of the Spirit which you have given to us, as we walk and live in the obedience of faith, as we see the obedience of faith lived out in the life of the Apostle, as he patterned himself after his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, so may we too imitate Paul as we would imitate our Savior in the manner in which we conduct ourselves. Obedient even unto death, to the glory and praise of our God, knowing that our enemy Satan and even death itself will be destroyed through the power of Jesus Christ our Savior. Grant us his grace today. Bless us each one in the knowledge of Jesus. Hear our prayers and thanks we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Sermon transcript

Speaking of God’s Holy Word, as I invite you to open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15, we’ll begin reading at verse 13. We’ll read through the end of the chapter, verse 33. Give your attention, for this is the Word of God. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able also to admonish one another. But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest to the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in Christ Jesus, I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God.

For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed. In the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and round about, as far as the Lyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man’s foundation. But as it is written, they who had no news of him shall see. and they who have not heard shall understand.

For this reason I have often been prevented from coming to you. But now, with no further place for me in these regions, and since I have had for many years a longing to come to you whenever I go to Spain, for I hope to see you in passing, and to be helped on my way there by you when I have first enjoyed your company for a while.

But now I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make the contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things. Therefore, when I have finished this and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain.

I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to scribe together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints. so that I may come to you in joy by the will of God and find refreshing rest in your company. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Let’s pray together.

Father, we thank you for your inspired word, and we are thankful, Father, for the spirit that moved the Apostle to write such words as these for our instruction. We pray that even today, Father, That spirit who moved the Apostle to write would be the spirit who opens to our understanding and to our blessing this portion of your Holy Word. Therefore, we do ask, Father, that in the reading and hearing, the preaching and the receiving of the preaching, Father, today, Christ would be wonderfully accured by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, working faith, love, joy, peace in our hearts and minds that we might conduct ourselves as we ought, as the people of God in the world. We ask that your power and blessing would be upon the servant who speaks these words today, and may those who hear the word receive it with joy, store it up in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their day-to-day living and in their prayers as well. We ask all these things together in the name and in the spirit of Christ. For his glory we ask him. Amen.

Paul’s epistle to the Romans is a tightly structured argument from beginning to end. That structure itself reveals that it is all about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul makes that his theme from the beginning of the letter to the very end of the letter.

I’m going to offer to you this morning, by way of review and refreshment, something of an outline of the Book of Romans, if you would. And so I’m going to divide it for you into six parts. Part one, we might call the opening of the epistle. It is contained in chapter one. And then the opening of the epistle, Paul declares, So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

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 to faith as it is written, but the righteous man 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 that which is known about God is evident within them, for God has made it evident to them.”

And from there in the opening, Paul proceeds then to discuss the In part two, the Gospel itself, the summation of the Gospel in the righteousness of God and justification by faith, and we find this in chapters 3 through 5. And from there, Paul proceeds in the next part, in chapters 5 through 8, 6 through 8 rather, to discuss the sanctification that comes through the power of the Gospel. and the assurance that is provided by the gospel. That’s the end of part 3. Part 4, found in chapters 9 through 11, Paul defends the gospel there, and he defends the gospel by addressing the problem, a very real problem, of Israel’s general neglect and rejection of the gospel that Paul is preaching, as they have rejected Jesus himself as the Christ. Even so, Paul will say, God’s purposes still stand as Jews and Gentiles are still being shown mercy through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then in the fifth part of the book, chapters 12 to 14, beginning in chapter 12, Paul turns to the transforming power of the gospel in the Christian life.

I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, you remember those words as chapter 12 begins. the transforming power of the gospel. And then, in closing, in chapters 15 and 16 that we open today, what I’ll call here part six, the Apostle Paul tells us that it is the gospel that impels him still to proclaim Christ, where Christ has not been named, as he announces his travel plans that will take him to Rome and then hopefully on to Spain. even as Paul is in the midst, at this point, on his way to Jerusalem on trial.

He’s carrying a gift from the churches of Achaia and Macedonia, you recall. Gentile believers offering material encouragement to their Jewish brothers in Jerusalem. And you will remember that Paul will go to Jerusalem in chains. There he will be placed on trial and stand before his accusers in situation after situation, before Felix and Festus, appealing to Rome and finally will reach Rome, reaching Rome not by way of simple travel plans but by way of a prisoner on appeal before the high court of the law of the land of Caesar.

Paul writes to these Romans saying that he, hoping that they will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is all part of his closing section, chapters 15 and 16. We’re dealing with chapter 15 in particular today. Paul writes to these Roman Christians saying of them, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge. enable also to admonish one another.

What I’m going to ask that you do in this section is look at our beginning verse and our final verse of our text today. First of all, verse 13. What we find is that our passage begins and ends with benediction. Look at the first in verse 13. The benediction. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” That’s a benediction. Look at the closing verse of our chapter. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

In the first passage, verse 13, God is described as the God of hope. In the last verse, He is the God of peace. And He is the God of hope and the God of peace, one and the same God. He is the God of the Gospel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The power of God unto salvation, the power of God unto hope, the power of God unto peace, the power of God unto joy.

We could go right down the list of the fruits of the Spirit, could we not? And say that all is the fruit of the powerful Gospel that Paul preaches and that has so shaped this epistle that we have summarized for you here today. Thinking of Paul, eager to come to Rome to preach the word of God there. are his in fulfillment of his apostolic gospel ministry.”

We note that Paul views his ministry in terms of the Old Testament prophetic message concerning the inclusion of the Gentiles and the nations in the powerful outworking of God’s kingdom. Paul acknowledges that according to Isaiah 52, verses 13-15, the nations and kings who have not heard Yahweh’s word We’ll now see in amazement the exaltation of Yahweh’s suffering servant in fulfillment of the promise that good news, the gospel, would be proclaimed, the gospel that calls for faith over against the unbelief encountered even within Israel. That exalted servant spoken of in Isaiah 52 will, as it says there, sprinkle many nations. The apostle to the Gentiles Paul sees his own ministry as an instrument in the fulfillment of that promise that kings and nations would hear the word of God, would hear the message of the exalted servant of God, that one who would sprinkle the nations. The gospel that Paul preaches is the power of God unto salvation to them that believe. The apostle says here, he does not want to build upon the foundation of another. He wants to preach to a people who have not yet heard, and so that has defined his ministry as an apostle.

Here in Romans 15, as elsewhere in Paul’s letter, the language of building that he speaks about, about not building upon someone else’s work, the language of building suggests temple imagery. Indeed, Paul sees himself about the business of building the eschatological temple of the Lord. That temple is being constructed out of human beings, Jews and Gentiles alike, among whom God himself now dwells in their midst. Those who believe are not merely offerings, they are also, individually and corporately, God’s temple. Look at verse 21. They who have no news of him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand.”

This in itself is a citation from Isaiah chapter 52 verse 15. The gospel goes forward with power. You ought to see, reading as we have this morning, how our passage began and ended with benediction in accordance with the substance and power of the gospel itself. Look at verse 13 one more time. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing the word of the gospel so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. And concerning you, my brethren, I myself am also convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to admonish one another. And then we look at the last verse. Romans 15, 33, now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Notice how Paul identifies the God of the gospel. First as the God of hope, and second as the God of peace. This is consistent with the gospel itself, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first, and also to the Greek. These are not mere words, beloved. The God of hope, the God of peace. But remember Paul’s earlier words where he said at the beginning, 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, that is, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The Word of the Gospel has power to save and to transform, such as the benedictions of God to everyone who believes. In Romans 15, verse 14, the Apostle very quickly assures the Romans that he addresses them—notice very carefully verse 14—he addresses them as saints, as saints of God.

What prompted him to write to them was not a concern to critically scrutinize them and their standing as Christians. When Paul wrote this letter, he was probably in Corinth on his third missionary journey. His work in the eastern Mediterranean was almost finished, and he greatly desired to visit the church in Rome. At this time, however, he could not go to Rome, so he sent a letter there, intending to visit Rome while en route on a mission to Spain. This letter was intended to serve as a theological introduction to that hoped-for personal ministry that he might have among them. He is careful not to diminish their freedom, nor did he bind them to himself in any particular way. He based the association of the brethren with one another upon faith, whereby everyone yielded his neighbor to the Lord’s leadership without worry.”

This reflects chapter 14, verse 4. It is the Lord Jesus who reigns over all. Paul is not trying to rule over them in some way. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who reigns. It is Jesus Christ, after all, who lived and died and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God, occupied by Christ himself, and to him we must give an account. Each of us will give an account of himself to God when we stand before Jesus. the Resurrected Christ.

Concerning the Roman Christians whom Paul addresses here as my brethren, he is himself convinced that they are full of goodness, that they are filled with all knowledge, that they are able to admonish one another. Nevertheless, Paul has written to them very boldly at some points so as to remind them, again, because of the grace that was given to him as an apostle. and that grace given to him from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest of the gospel of God, so that his offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

He does not lord his apostleship over them. He speaks rather matter-of-factly about his own work and service. At the time of the writing of this letter, he was on his way to Jerusalem. Bearing a gift for the Jewish Christians, selected from among the saints in Macedonia and Achaia, Gentile Christians offering aid to their poor Jewish Christian brothers.

Paul longed to visit Rome and to minister to the saints there, but thus far he had been prevented. But he would go to Rome. He would go to Rome as a prisoner. He would go to Rome as one bound in chains. For the sake of the gospel, he would go to Rome. The Lord willed it to be so. As a prisoner bound in chains, he would go to Rome.

In Jerusalem, Paul would be bound by the Jews, dragged out of the temple, and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles. Paul would be tried first before the governor Felis in Caesarea, then Felis’ successor Pontius Festus, and then before King Agrippa, and finally on appeal to Caesar in Rome, not to mention the tremendous shipwreck on the way to Rome. But for now, Paul has written a letter.

He writes to the church, the church full of goodness, the church filled with all knowledge, the church quite capable of admonishing one another. He addresses Christians. He addresses saints. Hence, we read this letter from the perspective that he reminds them by reiterating what they have already come to know. And it is his own apostleship that motivates him to this end. Christ has set him aside to work among the nations. He does not work, that is, Paul does not work in his own interest. His work is a public ministry.

He is entrusted with a very priestly office, and the object of his priestly function is the redemptive message of God, that is, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. to the nations, but to faith in Jesus, become an offering. They themselves are the offering presented to God through the message. For the believer is set apart unto God and presents his body as a living sacrifice that has become God’s property. They are pleasing to God because they were committed to Him, for their dedication to God took place through the Holy Spirit.

Since this is His function, Paul is not ashamed of the message he preaches. On the contrary, his boast is his eternal, secure possession. It is his boast in Christ, because Christ is working in him and through him, and it is in his relationship to God, not based on human opinion of him. But his boast would not be in Christ, if it were, and before God, if he now spoke of what he himself had accomplished. He would never be so bold as to speak about something if he were not convinced that it is the work of Jesus Christ through him.

The great thing that Christ is accomplishing through Paul is the obedience of the nations. Until now, they had been disobedient to God, but now they are becoming obedient because Christ is being revealed to them through this message that Paul preaches, with the result that they believe in him. Faith, however, is obedience, and those among the nations who obey God by faith are presented to God as a sanctified offering. For this purpose, Paul receives his gospel message and his work.

Paul is convinced that in the message, it is Christ himself who speaks, and likewise, in the obedience of faith, It is Christ himself, by his Spirit, who so works faith and the grace by which we are transformed. It is to Christ alone that belongs the glory and the praise now and forever, for it is his power that is at work in you, beloved, as well, to work and to will for God’s good pleasure. Now, these words, beloved, we have read and preached today are God’s word. written by an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, inspired and kept from error by the Holy Spirit himself.

Who then, I ask, am I that you should listen to me? I am a minister in the Church of Jesus Christ, a minister retired from regular service, preaching to you today at the invitation of the Session of Grace OPC. I am not an apostle. I am a fallible preacher, your retired pastor.

Again, we might ask, why should you listen to me? According to the inspired word of God in Ephesians 4, verses 11 and 12, the exalted Lord Jesus Christ, who is now ascended to his heavenly throne at the right hand of God the Father, has given gifts to men, some as ministers to the church, some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers. for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, for the work of ministry, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God through a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ himself. Now, while we await the arrival of the next regularly appointed and installed pastor of this congregation, you are given to receive the ministry of men the likes of me.

I address you, as I have often done in the past, as those beloved of God called to be saints. My concern is not a concern to critically scrutinize your standing as Christians. Rather, I would take this given opportunity to remind you who you are and what you have in Christ Jesus. I am not ashamed to remind you that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. remind you that there is none righteous in and of himself, not even one, and that we were dead in our trespasses and sins, and to remind you that God, however, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace we have indeed been saved, and he has raised us up with him. He has seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Do you believe this? This is the gospel. The Son of God became man and suffered and died in our place so that as many as will receive him and believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life. I’m not ashamed to remind you of that, my friends. In him, beloved, you have life, life eternal.

Apart from him, we perish. That’s why Jesus says to his disciples, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, and so proves to be my disciples.” in summation. Apart from Jesus, we perish, we die. We’re like the branch apart from the vine.

And so I would exhort you even today to be reminded that the gospel is a gospel of power to them that believe. It is the power of God unto salvation. It is the power that transforms. And it is a gospel of benediction. It is a gospel that speaks to you of the blessing of the God of peace, the God And that’s the God I preach to you today, the Lord Jesus Christ. So while I’m retiring, while I fumble with my papers, I’m not ashamed to stand before you for the purpose of reminding you who you are. You are indeed the saints of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You belong to Him. You’re His. He purchased you. He paid for you with His own precious blood. Apart from Him, you are nothing. You can do nothing. But in Him, you can overcome the world by faith in the Son of God. who became flesh for our redemption. And so I’ll preach Jesus to you and remind myself, why do you despair? Hope in God, for indeed, He is your redemption. He is your salvation. He is your sanctification. He is your justification. He is your glorification, beloved. And you have that in your mind and heart already, I believe it.

And therefore, I could step aside and have you admonish one another, as Paul says, But at the same time, I’m here for the purpose of reminding you to admonish one another, encourage one another, build one another up, cling steadfastly to the gospel of hope, the gospel of peace, the gospel of joy. Hold fast to that which you have heard. Continue to pray for the God to provide that pastor of his choosing to guide you into the years and months which lie ahead. Don’t grow weary of doing good. Don’t grow weary of assembling together as is the habit of some. but rather coming together, confessing together, holding fast to the good confession.

Stand firm in that hope which is yours in Christ Jesus, that hope of eternal life, that hope that will never be taken away, that hope that belongs to you because of your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord. Dan Knox has nothing to boast about here this morning. You are the boast of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I will boast in him. who loved you and gave himself for you and for me.

Let us remind one another of such things as this, holding fast to that which is our hope. And so I would, in conclusion to our message this morning, remind you of those benedictions. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able also to admonish one another. But I have preached to you briefly here this morning to remind you of these things once again, of the grace that was given to you through Christ Jesus. Now may the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Let’s pray together, shall we?

Our Father, we thank you for your word, the word of truth, that word that does not fail, the word that is powerful for the redemption and transformation of your people. And so we would cling to that word even today. And we would pray, Father, for your blessing upon us each one as we would respond in faith to the powerful gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Let us hold fast to that which has been given to us through him who loved us and gave himself for us. And we would ask, O God, if you would bless us as we conclude our service today, as we spend our time together at the lunch table, as we return for worship yet this afternoon. May you be with us. May you make yourself wonderfully known among us.

We pray these things together, giving thanks in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. For his name’s sake we pray it. Amen. And in response to the word of God, I invite you to turn in your Psalter hymnal to number 485, please. 485. Let’s stand together to sing, please. Like a river glorious in God’s perfect peace O’er all victorious in His righteousness Praising His glory over every day. Praising His glory even on the way.

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Sermon transcript

We come now to the reading of God’s inspired word as we open our Bibles to, first of all, two passages. The first passage is in the Gospel of Luke. Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, verses 68 through 79. Luke, chapter 1, verses 68 to 79. Turn there with me if you would, please.

Hear the word of God. And his father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, say, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited us and accomplished redemption for his people. And he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, his servant, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old. salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to Abraham, our father, to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, For you will go on before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give to his people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Thus far, the reading of God’s word from the gospel. Luke 1, 68-79. Now turn with me again, if you would, to the book of Romans, chapter 14. Romans, chapter 14, there we’ll read verses 1-13. Once again, give your attention, for this is the inspired Word of God. Romans 14, beginning with verse 1.

Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat. And the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him.

Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it for the Lord, and he who eats does so for the Lord, and he who gives thanks to God And he who eats not for the Lord, he does not eat and gives thanks to God.

For not one of us lives for himself and not one dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end, Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord, both of the dead and of the living.

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall give praise to God. So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. Thus far, the reading of God’s inspired word.

Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for the revelation of your son, the Lord Jesus, and we are thankful for the spirit that moved the apostles to write such words as we have read here this morning. We pray that that same spirit would now be present among us, illumining our hearts and our minds and applying to us each one that word which we have heard read. We pray for the preacher. We pray for the hearing of the preaching that together we might grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, our king. Hear us, Lord. We pray most earnestly in Jesus name. Amen.

Advent is a season observed in many Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for both the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas and for the return of Jesus at the Second Coming. The term Advent is a variant version of the Latin word Adventus, which is the translation of the Greek word in the scriptures, parousia, meaning coming. So we speak of the first and second advent, the first and the second coming of Christ. Thus have we just sung the traditional advent hymn, hymn number 293, O come, O come, Emmanuel.

That is, O come, O come, God with us. O come, O come, thou Lord of might. O come, Adonai, Kyrios, the Lord of lords. O come, King of kings. O come, thou rod of Jesse, out of the tribe of Judah, a branch from Jesse’s line. Free thine own from Satan’s tyranny, from depths of hell thy people save. O come, thou Dayspring, from on high, And cheer us by thy drawing nigh, Disperse the gloomy clouds of night. O come, thou Key of David, come, And open wide our heavenly home, Make safe the way that leads on high, And close the path to misery. O come, O come, Emmanuel.

We have already sung that Advent hymn and following the sermon, you see, we shall sing the song of Zechariah, the words which we have just read from the gospel of Luke chapter one. Perhaps this this song, this hymn is new to you, but it is set to a familiar tune with lyrics based on Luke chapter one, verses 68 to 79. It’s hymn number 294 in our text. And you may even want to turn there for a bit just now as we look at it together.

Hymn number 294, the song of Zechariah. Known as the Benedictus, it was the holy and spirit-inspired song of thanksgiving uttered by the priest Zacharias on the occasion of the naming and the circumcision of his son, John, whom we know as John the Baptist.

The canticle received its name from its first words in Latin, Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. And we see in that hymn number 294 that stanzas one and two praise God for bringing redemption and deliverance from evil and for his being true to his covenant word, a word spoken by the earlier prophets. Blessed be God, the Lord of Israel.

He has come to set us free. and a horn full of salvation he has raised from David’s seed. God has visited his people to redeem them as foretold in the promise he had spoken through his prophets of old. Stanzas three and four of him, number 294, continue this theme of redemption by a king who has come, including the portion where Zacharias addresses John directly and in particular as the forerunner whose ministry prepares the way for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, that one who would guide our feet in ways of peace. God has sworn to grant deliverance and restore us to our place, serving boldly in his presence, just and holy all our days. You, my child, words directed to John the Baptist, you, my child, will be his prophet, called and sent by God most high.

You must go before the Lord now to prepare his ways aright, guiding those who sit in darkness in the way of peace and light. We’ll sing that hymn in just a little while. So we think and we sing of the Lord’s first advent, and we are reminded that he came in fulfillment of prophecy, the long-awaited Messiah of Israel. Even so, the circumstances of his birth, his life, and especially his death on the cross would prove to be stumbling blocks for many. The many would fail to recognize Jesus as Lord in his first advent. For the word of the cross, Paul writes, is foolishness to those who are perishing.

But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. That’s 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. And then continuing with 1 Corinthians 1, 22 to 24. For indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. To Jews, a stumbling block. And to Gentiles, foolishness.

But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God, Paul writes, though the many fail to recognize Jesus as Lord in his first advent, John’s gospel tells us. But as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” John 1, verses 12 and 13. As the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans 10, verses 8 and 9, the word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we are preaching. That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, underscore that word Lord, Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, You will be saved. In the Gospel of John, chapter seven and eight are dominated by the growing conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities.

As Jesus teaches in the temple, the people debate his identity among themselves. Some oppose him, but others believe. Jesus himself tells the people, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Jesus’s words, you know, cause division among the people. As some are saying, he is the Christ, while others mock the very idea. Jesus declares to them, I am the light of the world.

He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. As one commentator makes clear, It should not be overlooked that in these very sayings, Jesus presents himself to the people as Messiah and offers them the blessings associated with the messianic age, but in terms quite different from those of popular messianic ideas of the time. The dispute concerning the identity of Jesus comes to a head in John chapter eight, when Jesus tells the Jewish people that the truth will set them free. Chapter eight of John, verse thirty, thirty one, thirty one, thirty two.

They tell him in response that they are the children of Abraham and have never been enslaved. Jesus responds by saying everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son does remain forever. And Jesus then adds, and so if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. That is, Son with a capital S. And he tells them that they, that is the Jews, are doing the work of their father. When they say that Abraham is their father, Jesus says that cannot be, because they do not do the works of Abraham. Instead, they are of their father, the devil.

The people protest, but Jesus said, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste of death. At this, the people turn sarcastic, saying that Abraham is dead, and asking Jesus if he thinks that he is greater than Abraham. Jesus tells them that Abraham rejoiced to see his day. When the Jews ask him if he is claiming to have seen Abraham, Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

At this, you know, the Jews pick up stones to throw at him, but Jesus escapes. They pick up stones because Jesus, by referring to himself as I am, has identified himself as God. And the people of Israel are at a crossroads. Is Jesus the Christ or isn’t he?

He who has come into the world to bring messianic light and life to as many as will receive him. The coming of the light brings salvation over against the darkness and the surety of judgment yet to come. Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again. Yes, Jesus is our Lord, the one Lord of all, and he is coming again. The Lord Jesus Christ is coming again. There is a second advent.

A multitude of biblical texts testify to this, and we will indeed take time this morning to quote several of those biblical texts pointing to the second advent. Some may want to jot the references down. I’d be happy to duplicate them and send them to you. So if you don’t care to write them down, just listen carefully. We begin with a series of texts pointing us to the second advent of Jesus. Hebrews 10 verse 37 says for yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay.

Revelation 1 verse 4, John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne. In Acts 17, verses 30 and 31, Paul preaches in Athens. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this, he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

Acts 1, verses 10 and 11. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, Behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. We also remember the words of Jesus in John 14 verses 1 to 3.

Before going to the cross, Jesus tells his disciples, Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. Hebrews 9, verse 28. So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Hebrews 9, 28. Jesus says in John 6, verses 39, 40.

And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on that last day. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on that last day.

Revelation 1 7. Behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him and all tribes of the earth will on account of him mourn on account of him. Even so, Amen. Matthew writing in the gospel for as the chapter 24 verse 27, for as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the son of man.

Matthew 16, 27, for the son of man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Similarly, Paul says, First Thessalonians 4, 16, 17, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command. with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

First Peter. 3.10 says, But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Again, Matthew’s Gospel 24. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, and even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. In Matthew 24, extended passage about the Second Coming.

Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age? And Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray.

For many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.

And the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. And then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels in a loud trumpet call. And they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to another.

Therefore, stay awake, says Matthew. Jesus in Matthew, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Watch yourself, lest your hearts, Luke says, But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.

For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all of these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. For Jesus himself declares in Revelation 22, verse 12, Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay everyone for what he has done. Titus, Paul writes, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In Colossians 3, 4, when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

First Thessalonians 5.23.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. First John 2. And now little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 7, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Therefore, 1 Corinthians 4 verse 5 says, do not pronounce judgment before the time before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each will receive his commendation from God.

James adds. Chapter five. Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. Yes, Jesus Christ, the Lord, has come, beloved. And yes, Jesus Christ, the Lord, our Lord, is coming again. In his first advent, the Lord came to establish his kingdom and to set his people free.

Our Westminster Confession of Faith in Chapter 20, entitled Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience, our confession speaks of that liberty which Christ has secured for his people at his first coming.

The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law, and in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan and dominion of sin, from the evil of afflictions, that is, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation. and also in their free access to God and in their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and a willing mind, all which were common also to believers under the law. But under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace and in fuller communications of the free spirit of God than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. Related to this liberty that belongs to Christians now is that liberty of conscience that binds each and every Christian to Jesus Christ alone as Lord. Confession of Faith, Chapter 20, Paragraph 2 reads, God alone is Lord of the conscience and hath left it free from the doctrines, the commandments of men, which are in any anything contrary to his word or decided if matters of faith or worship so that to believe such doctrines or to obey such commands out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience, and the requiring of an implicit faith and an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.

In the light of his first coming, then, and with the eye of faith looking for his coming again, how shall we Christians live in the interim To repeat 1 John 2, 28 and now little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

And also the words of James 5 again, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brother, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. Or even more simply put, brothers, let us love one another while we’re waiting for Jesus to come again. We remember the Apostle Paul’s therefore plea of Romans chapter 12, verse one. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Paul calls upon believers to humbly serve one another using whatever specific gifts God has given you.

We are to demonstrate the genuine love, joy and hope that have been secured for us by the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is writing under the conviction that Jesus has inaugurated the end time. He did not know, however, exactly when the final consummation of the last days would come. That is when Jesus Christ would come again. The text we have read this morning, Romans 14, then is a plea for Christian unity.

In light of the coming of Christ, Paul urges believers who confess the Lord Jesus Christ not to judge one another over secondary matters such as food and the observance of certain days rather than passing judgment on one another. Believers should go out of their way to avoid putting stumbling blocks in the path of their brothers in Christ Jesus. Following the example of Jesus Christ, Believers should seek to build up their neighbor rather than pleasing themselves.

After all, Christ is Lord over all. Christ’s Lordship comprehends and grasps the life of every believer, the strong and the weak, decisively and completely. Christ alone is the Lord of the conscience, and each believer, be he strong or weak, must answer to him. None of us lives or dies for ourself, Paul says. If we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. Chapter 14 of Romans 7 and 8.

Before him, that is before the Christ, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. In all things, Christians are to put others before themselves. In so doing, and looking to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul writes, Peter writes, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. As Peter also affirmed, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Jesus. Says he who testifies to these things says, yes, I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen. Let’s pray together. Our father, we pray that we would live in the light of the fact that Christ has already come to set us free from the bondage of sin and death and that we are free, both the strong and the weak. Jew and the Greek. Male and female, we are one in Christ Jesus. We have one Lord over all, and to him we owe allegiance.

And let it be then that we not judge one another, condemning one another, but rather building one another up, putting others ahead of ourselves as we live in the light of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose glorious and precious name we pray, giving thanks. Amen. I would ask you then to turn with me to the Song of Zechariah, hymn number 294, please.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

Sermon transcript

Let us prepare now for the reading of God’s holy word as we open our Bibles together to Romans chapter 12, beginning with verse 1. We’ll read through verse 21. Once again, open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 12, 1 through 21. Beloved, now give your attention, for this is the inspired and infallible word of the living God. Amen. Romans 12.

Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly.

If prophecy according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness, Let love be without hypocrisy.

Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink, for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Let’s pray together. Our Father and God, we thank you for your holy inspired scriptures. And we pray that that same spirit that moved the Apostle Paul to write these precious words would now be the spirit who leads and guides us into a right understanding of these words, imprinting them deeply upon each of our hearts and minds. that we might rise up as your people to honor you with our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. Indeed, that we might present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to our God, which is our reasonable service of worship and is acceptable in your sight. We ask, Father, that you would guide us even tonight. May you be with the one who preaches and those who hear and receive the preaching, that together we might grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. that one in whose name we pray together, giving thanks.

Amen. In view of all that God has accomplished for his people through his inscrutable wisdom In demonstration of His mercy in Christ Jesus for both Jews and Gentiles, we ask, how then shall His people live? And the answer, they should present themselves to God as a, quote, living sacrifice, unquote, consecrated as holy to Him. The repeated sacrifices of rams and bulls and goats and such have been rendered forever obsolete by Jesus Christ’s self-offering once and for all on the cross of Calvary. But there is always room for the worship rendered by obedient hearts.

Instead of living by the standards of a world that is in rebellion and in sinful disobedience to God, Believers are exhorted by the gospel to nurture the renewing of their minds by the power of the Holy Spirit, transforming their lives then into conformity with God’s holy will. Let us together wholeheartedly remember that doctrine is never taught in the Bible simply that it might be known in our brains. Rather, doctrine is taught in order that it may be translated into practice Jesus himself says in the Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 17, if you know these things, you are blessed if you do them, Jesus says. Likewise, James in chapter 1, verse 22 of his epistle says, but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

Hence, does the Apostle Paul repeatedly follow up an exposition of his doctrine with an ethical exhortation. Exposition and exhortation go together, oftentimes linked together, as we see here tonight in Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Exposition and exhortation linked together by the very word, therefore. Indeed, Paul has been called a therefore theologian. Someone has once said that when we see the word or adverb therefore in Paul’s writings, we do well to find out what it’s there for.

Here in Romans chapter 12 and verse 1, the therefore ought to be seen as taking into account the whole of Paul’s exposition of the gospel as revealed in chapters 1 through 11 of the book of Romans, and especially in these latter paragraphs, his description of the outworking of the promise of Israel’s salvation.

As mercy is shown to all believers are shown that with Christ’s death and his resurrection life in the power of his Holy Spirit, Christ separates the believers from their sin. They are also shown that they are to establish their own community as the Church of Jesus Christ. A community that has been freed from arrogance and hatred as the believers are set apart as saints, as holy ones, called to be holy in thought, in word, and in deed.

In Romans 6, verses 12 through 13, Paul said, quote, Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. But he says, present yourselves to God as of those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. The same Greek word that was used there in chapter 6, translated there as present or presenting, that same word appears again here in Romans 12, verse 1, where Paul says, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

The new order ushered in by Jesus Christ has its sacrifices, which do not consist in the ancient animal sacrifices of lambs and bulls and goats, but it is the sacrifice of our lives, the giving of our bodies in reverence and holiness to God. Co-commentators Greg Beal and Donald Carson point out The call to present our bodies to God as a sacrifice flows out of the creator’s right over us and constitutes a very reversal of God’s judgment on our idolatry. The apostles appeal that we present our bodies as a sacrifice, especially recalls the prescribed Old Testament sacrifices of thanksgiving, such as were commanded in Leviticus chapters one and two. and referred to again and again, such as in Psalm 27, verse 6, for example, sacrifices of thanksgiving. This sacrifice is not surrendered to God of that which is by right ours. Rather, it is the yielding of the whole of our bodily life in thanksgiving to our creator, our creator, who has not only made us and formed us, but who has also given himself for us and to us in his son, Christ Jesus. This sacrifice then, presenting our bodies to God, is the mere opening of our life to the embrace of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

The concept of surrender of bodily life as a sacrifice, a sacrifice which transcends and supplants any offering of grain or animals, such as the Old Testament code contained, this sacrifice has its roots in the prophets and in the Psalms. See, for example, Psalm 40, verses 6 through 8, which is quoted again in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5 through 8, which says, sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired. My ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Then I said, behold, I come in the scroll of the book. It is written of me. I delight to do your will. Oh, my God, your law is within my heart. These are words obviously fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but also fulfilled in redemption in those who are joined to Christ by faith. We have come to do the will of our Heavenly Father.

Paul now spells out the details of the surrender of our bodily life to God here in Romans 12. First of all, and particularly within the community of believers, look at chapter 12, verse 5. the community of believers, the body of Christ, the church. In this living and holy sacrifice we are to offer, Paul calls upon believers to humbly serve one another using whatever specific gifts God has given them to do so. We see this in this whole section, chapter 12, verses 3 through 8.

This is extremely important. Earlier in Romans chapter 7 verse 24, you remember Paul had cried out in anguish, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? To which he himself replies, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus Christ our Lord has delivered him from this body of death. So then Paul says, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh the law of sin.

Believers then, individually and collectively, have been set free from the body of this death and have been joined as many members into the one body of Jesus Christ. Together then, believers are to present their bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is their spiritual service of worship. Together, believers are to do what is good and acceptable and perfect, and so prove together what the will of God is. Believers not only are to govern their own individual bodies and to guard their own nature against their environment, the environment of this present evil age, But believers are now linked with one another also as a heavenly kingdom community, and their action together is derived from their association with one another.

Only in our relationship with others does the possibility of this activity arise. so that the closer our fellowship, the richer and the more effective the work with which we are graced will become. As our Westminster Confession of Faith puts it, as it speaks of the communion of saints in chapter 26 of the Confession, quote, all saints that are united to Jesus Christ their head by his spirit and by faith have fellowship with him in his graces, in his sufferings, death, resurrection and glory. And being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and the outward man. Saints, by profession, are bound to maintain a holy fellowship one with another and a communion in the worship of God and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification, as also in relieving each other in outward things according to their several abilities and necessities.

Which communion, as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. We see then here how important and how necessary is the visible church, the house and family of God, which is our confession says, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. Beloved, I would make a point here to remind you how much we need one another and the gifts that each other has to offer. As we experience the trials associated with waiting for a new pastor, Most especially, we need to remain devoted to one another in the body of Christ and to spur each other on to love and to good deeds, being mindful of one another, bearing one another’s burdens, but especially being mindful of the weak and the needy who are among us.

Let it be said in this light that diversity, not uniformity, is the mark of God’s handiwork. Jews, Greeks, slaves, free men, Male and female are all one in Christ Jesus. Here then in the body of Christ are many men and women. Men and women with the most diverse kinds of parentage, environment, temperament, and capacity. Not only so, but since they became Christians, they have been endowed by God with a great variety of spiritual gifts as well.

Gifts which include such things as we see here in Romans 12, serving, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, showing mercy, and others besides. To illustrate what he means, Paul uses the figure of a human body. Look at chapter 12, verse 4. A figure that he has already used elsewhere in scripture in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 through 27.

Each part of the body has its own distinctive work to do. Yet in a healthy body, all the parts function harmoniously and interdependently for the good of the whole body. So should it be in the church, especially should it be in the church of Jesus Christ, which is the body of Christ. And Paul does not exclude himself from this, for he begins in chapter 12, verse three, with the words. For through the grace given to me, he says, as an apostle, obviously, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Many diverse parts to the body, each with its own role and its own function. Yet because of and by means of that diversity, all can cooperate for the good of the whole body. Whatever kind of service is to be rendered in the church, let it be rendered heartily and faithfully by those who have been divinely qualified to fulfill such tasks, and each one has his own gift, his own contribution to make.

Paul then urges the Roman Christians who read his letter to live lives that demonstrate genuine love, joy, and hope together as one. They are to live peaceably with all, he says, and are not to attempt to seek vengeance upon any, leaving vengeance to God. Christians as one body are to love one another because love fulfills the law, the law of Christ.

The injunctions of this section of Paul’s letter to deep and abiding practical love are particularly reminiscent, aren’t they, of the Sermon on the Mount of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mutual love and sympathy and honor within the brotherhood of believers are to be expected, to be sure. But something more is enjoined here. Love and forgiveness, even to those who are outside the fellowship, and not least to those who persecute the believers and wish them ill.

Hear clearly these inspired words of the apostle. Look with me, if you would, at verses 14 to 21. They’re worth repeating and hearing read aloud publicly here tonight. Paul says on behalf of the Lord Jesus, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.

Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul’s appeal to love is quite plain, isn’t it? But it is an appeal to love that is given here in his writings and eschatological basis, in time emphasis. He tells the Romans, for example, in chapter 12, verse 11, that quote, salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. He adds, the night is almost gone and the day is near. These are the latter days, in other words. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Was Paul expecting the imminent end of the world? No, but we have to always keep in mind that with the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, the last days were inaugurated. Paul is writing under the conviction that Jesus had inaugurated the end time. He did not know, however, for sure, exactly when the final consummation of the last days would come. These to whom Paul writes are the very people he identifies as those upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

1 Corinthians 10 11. And because of such, they are in Christ a new creature, a new creation. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. Indeed, this is a description of you, beloved. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17. Yes, it is by the mercies of God that this has come to be. that it is possible for people, people like you and me, mind you, belonging temporally as we do to this present evil age, to live as heirs of the age which is to come, the age of renewal and resurrection and consummation, the consummation of the kingdom of God. It is therefore by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, again a mark of the end times, the indwelling Holy Spirit, who is given to us as a token and a pledge of our inheritance in the coming age, that we can now resist the tendency to go on living on the level of this present evil age, that we can indeed determine to no longer be conformed to this age, that is, to this world, but instead to be transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus so that we, together, may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Chapter 12, verse 2.

God has made his love manifest. He has made it manifest in the person and work of Jesus Christ, in the salvation which has come to them, to you who believe. Jesus, the Son of God, obeyed God’s love when he submitted himself to the cross. And he did so for those whom the Father had given him to redeem. Jesus now continues to serve the Father’s love through the relationship with Himself into which He brings believers like you and me. We’re still benefiting from that great love with which the Father loved His people and Jesus loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He continues to give Himself to the church.

That’s for emphasis, the cane has fallen down. The death of Jesus Christ is becoming effective in you. Even now, in you, the death of Jesus is having its effect. In that you are freed from your selfish appetite. For this reason, love originates directly from, and together with, faith. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ means transformation, because we have been joined to Jesus, that One who is the very living expression of the perfect sacrifice unto God, who gave Himself fully, even unto death. Because faith now, as it works in you and in me, separates the individual from his egotism, that egotism which covets one’s own greatness and one’s own right. Because the believer now yields to God, he is led also to others. Out of his isolation and selfishness, now love constitutes the will that orders his conduct in all of life. It shapes the entire content of his life, which becomes indeed a living and holy sacrifice to God.

I’m going to ask you to leave to listen this evening to a parallel passage, I think, to our text here this evening, as I read to you from the book of Colossians chapter three, verses one through 17. As we think of the end of the ages and we think of the new life, which is ours and the holy and. spiritual sacrifice of our bodies to God, a living and holy sacrifice to God. Listen to Colossians chapter three, verses one through 17, and put it in its context.

Therefore, beloved, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind, even tonight, on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience. And in them you also once walked when you were living in them. But now you also put them all aside. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and abuse of speech. Put them away from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all and in all.

So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, And whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. And let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

Amen. Let’s pray together. Our Father, we are reminded that we are a people who belong to the latter times, to the new age indeed, Father, that which is coming upon us through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are no longer our own, but we have been purchased by great price through the blood of Jesus and joined to him by faith such that his life is now our life. And we have been joined together as members of his body, each as members of Christ, members of one another. Let us love one another with sincerity and truth. And may we do the bidding of our God as we present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God, the God who saved us, who loved us, who purchased us and redeemed us.

Be with us even now as we pray these things together. As we lift up our hearts to heaven, we call upon the Lord Jesus and the powerful grace of the Holy Spirit. We pray and ask these things together now in Jesus’ name. Amen. And now I’m going to ask that we join in singing together from the Trinity Psalter hymnal, hymn number 502. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. 502, please.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

Sermon transcript

We come now to the reading of God’s Word as I ask you to open your Bibles with me this evening to the book of Romans, chapter 8. We’ll begin reading at verse 18. Let’s open our Bibles to Romans 8, verse 18. Do give your attention, for this is the Word of God. Romans 8, 18.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. In the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. But the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called, and these whom he called, he also justified, and these whom he justified, He also glorified, here ends the reading of God’s inspired word.

Let’s pray together as we ask God’s blessing upon our reading and preaching tonight. Father God, we do ask this evening that you would guide us into a right understanding of the knowledge of the truth and that you would grant us that true saving faith that holds fast to the hope which has been given to us in Christ Jesus. We do ask specifically this evening, Lord, that you would bless the word as it goes forth, having been read and soon to be preached. May your spirit rest upon us, each one, that we would hear it rightly. Lay it up in our hearts and bring forth the fruit of it, and that to the glory, to the praise of your holy name. Help us to fix our eyes upon things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father, where he ever intercedes for us. And may you equip us for service in your kingdom, to the glory and praise of your own holy name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We pray these things together tonight in Christ Jesus. Amen. We begin this evening in chapter 8, verse 18. Look there with me. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Yes, these words of Romans 8 verse 18 are spoken by the same man who wrote in chapter 7 verse 18.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. And that same man continues in Romans 7, 24 to say, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?

It’s that man in verse 18 of chapter eight, that man who has just lamented his own condition in chapter eight, verse eight, chapter eight, verse 18, now fixing his hope, even in the midst of his sufferings on glory. In between Paul’s self-assessment, as we read it there in chapter 7, and the prospects of glory of which he speaks here now in chapter 8, we find in between those all-important transitional words of Romans chapter 7, verse 25, through chapter 8, verse 2.

Hear them together. Paul writes, having said, Wretched man that I am, who shall Who will set me free from the body of this death? Answers his own question with these words. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, says Paul. But on the other hand, with my flesh, the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

When the wretched man that I am, he says, yes, these are Paul’s inspired words. wretched man that I am. Surely Paul was an apostle, Christ’s chosen instrument set apart by Jesus Christ himself to bear Christ’s name before the Gentiles and before kings and before the sons of Israel and to suffer much for the Christ’s name’s sake, we read in the book of Acts. That same Paul, that same apostle was to write the inspired epistles we find in the New Testament. from one of which we have read here this evening in the book of Romans. We repeat the words of Romans 7, verse 24, wretched man that I am. Yes, these are Paul’s words, but I accept them tonight as my own. And I ask then in light of that affirmation, who am I that I should preach the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ? I am no apostle. I’m just a minister, a preacher.

We are reminded by our text this evening that we live in a fallen world that has been subjected to futility. Evidence of such fallenness and futility is all about us. Nothing is exempt. Things wear out. Things break down. Sin is crouching continually at the door.

And Satan is prowling about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. The wretchedness that man shows in his own thinking, volition, and deeds, we see as a wretchedness that has been imposed upon him by God. Man did not attain such wretchedness by his own will. Rather, he bears it because of the one who subjected him to futility, as we read here in Romans 8.

Indeed, the whole creation has been enslaved to corruption. And yes, even we ourselves, we remember, were dead in our trespasses and sins. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, we are reminded. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

But in Romans 8.11, If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

We continue reading in chapter 8 verses 12 and 13. So then brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Chapter 8 verses 14, 15.

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father. Verse 16, the spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. This is good news. And so we preach. We preach even tonight. The glory to come far outweighs the affliction that we suffer in the present. Indeed, the affliction is light and temporary when compared with the all surpassing and everlasting glory, which is to come. Paul looks forward to the ultimate consummation of God’s plan for creation. Paul indicates that the sufferings of the present time are nothing compared to the glory that is to come to them who believe.

When the day of glory dawns, that glory will be made manifest on a universal scale and all will see it, made manifest in the people of God, the glorified body of Christ. We dare say that something of the glory is already visible. We remember what Paul says elsewhere when he sees a very special splendor in the church itself as the fellowship of the reconciled people of God. He even thinks of it as being displayed at the present time to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. They see something of that glory.

I’m thinking of Ephesians chapter three, verse 10. And they see there God’s masterpiece of reconciliation, what God is doing and continues to do in Christ in the church. But what is now seen in the church is a limited and all too distorted fashion. What will be seen at last in perfection and totality when the people of God attain unto the goal, the destination which God has ever had in view for them, even from the beginning. namely, complete conformity to his glorified son.

Believing Christians have this hope of glory by faith, a gift from God. The community of faith believes that they have been given the adoption whereby, and therefore they cry, Abba, Father. They also believe that we believe that we have been acquitted from guilt and from death, and the people of God boast in God as the one who justified them. This is also the content of their hope of what they have been given through the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Faith and hope obtain their causal power in what God has done in Christ Jesus.

Faith recognizes Him as the one sent by God’s love into the world to secure our redemption through his perfect obedience in his life and through the sufficient and adequate propitiation secured by his substitutionary sacrificial death on the cross and subsequent triumphant resurrection glory that he has attained unto at the right hand of God.

In the surety, then, that Christ is coming again and that the glory will be revealed in the believers when he comes, Christians, in faith, wait in anticipation. This waiting, to be sure, is marked by tribulation and suffering. Indeed, the revelation of the sons of God is the eager longing even of the whole created order. All creation, Paul says, is waiting with earnest longing for the day when the sons of God will be manifested in glory. Because the glorification takes place by means of being glorified together with Jesus Christ when He comes, their being revealed as sons of God means to be revealed together with Christ when He comes.

When he will be revealed, and every eye will see him, and every tongue will confess him, and every knee will bow before him, then too the church, the community that unites with himself by faith, will be revealed with him as well in glory, and all will see it. It will be made evident in the community that they have been made God’s children. by way of adoption and by way of completion of the glory that God has prepared for them.

This is yet still concealed at this time because, as it were, their body does not yet indicate it. The bodies of believers still suffer. They die. We suffer. We die. We think even this evening of the reports we have heard coming to us regarding your church in China, in Haiti, in Uganda, And we remember also the Apostle Paul who writes what he does for us this evening and the other apostles along with him faced imprisonments and beatings and sorrow and even death, death at the hands of wicked men even. Paul writes of his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 4 verses 7 through 11 when he says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not despairing, persecuted, but not forsaken. struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, Paul says, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

God’s sons, you and I, still have perishable bodies. God reveals himself through life, however. Hence, his union with his sons continues to be hidden because, like everyone else, Christian believers still have a mortal body. The day is coming, however, when the children of God, the sons of God, will be revealed in resurrection bodies, imperishable and incorrupted forever.

Those who suffer with Christ now eagerly await the day of glorification when Christ shall come again. But not only so, but the whole created order is waiting also in anticipation of that glorious day. For Paul, the creation is not necessarily wanting to see Jesus, but they want to see the children of God, because God’s destiny for humanity will at last be made evident to all in them, in us, in the church. We will see what God had in mind, even from before the foundation of the world for his own. Notice verses 19 through 22 of our text this evening. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly. for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. Paul envisions, doesn’t he, a coming new creation, one that is set free from the corruption and futility of the former creation.

Then Paul turns his attention back to believers in the conclusion of our portion of scripture tonight in verses 23 to 30. The whole creation groans, we groan, but there is also then especially the groaning of believers. groaning, waiting in anticipation, eagerly awaiting the day, that groaning expressive of their intense longing and desirous waiting for the final restoration and redemption when Christ shall come again. Christ is coming. Paul longed to be clothed with the resurrection body and in all things desiring to be conformed to the image of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Indeed, here is the believers hope and destiny.

Look at verse 28 of our text. And we know that God causes all things to work together for God good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And what is God’s purpose? Look at verse 29. We see God’s purpose spelled out.

Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined, he also purposed to become conformed to the image of his son, so that he, Jesus, would be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he predestined, Paul tells us, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

In the midst of Christian suffering, in the midst of Christian waiting, in the midst of Christian groaning, there comes another one alongside to help us in our weakness as we await our blessed hope. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Spirit of Sonship, the Spirit of Adoption, the Spirit of Christ, helps our weakness. For we do not even know how to pray as we should in the midst of our suffering and groaning. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us, Paul tells us here, with groanings too deep even for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Believers pray. Believers pray in hope. Commentator Adolf Schlatter observes, prayer presupposes faith. In other words, faith is what moves us to prayer. Prayer requires assurance and insight into God’s will. The Holy Spirit helps us in our prayers, and he is the perfect helper, for he perfectly knows the will of God, doesn’t he, and he prays perfectly for us. Thus, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul writes, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

Believers hope in God, in God the Father, in God the Son, and in God the Holy Spirit. These three are one, one God with one purpose, united in bringing many sons, many children of God to glory. And beloved, that is your hope. You who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is your hope.

May God grant you the blessed assurance that God, who by grace through faith began a good work in you, will most surely bring that work to its glorious completion, that you too will be conformed to the image of God’s beloved Son, conformed to the image of God’s beloved Son in holiness, in righteousness, in the knowledge of the truth, in resurrection glory.

Amen. Let us pray together. Holy Father, we do thank you for that blessed hope, which is ours, that we, once dead in trespasses and sins, we who were subjected to the futility of this fallen world, that we who suffer even now for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the name of our Savior, that we have that hope that the day is coming when Christ will appear in the clouds of glory and gather to himself his church and that church will be made complete and the sons of God will be revealed in resurrection, blessing and glory. How great a blessing and how great a hope this is. And we lay hold of that hope by faith, faith in your son, oh father, the Lord Jesus Christ. May you encourage us even tonight with these things as we rejoice in the the knowledge that the Spirit of God is with us even in prayer, asking that these things would be accomplished.

Even when we do not know how to pray, the Spirit prays and intercedes for us with groans and sighs too deep for words. We long for the restoration. We long for the glorification of your saints, O God. Hear us as we pray tonight. Build us up in that most holy faith. In Jesus we pray. Amen. I invite you to turn with me in your hymnal to number 542 as we stand and sing together, Jesus, the very thought of thee. Number 542.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

Sermon transcript

We come now to the reading of God’s Word as we open the Bibles together. We’re going to begin this evening in the book of Genesis. I ask you to turn there with me if you would. We begin in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15. There we’ll read just that one verse, Genesis 3.15. And I do remind you that this is the inspired Word of God.

Genesis 3.15. God says, and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. Thus far, God’s word. Let’s turn over to Genesis chapter four, and there we’ll pick up at Genesis four and verse one and read through verse seven. Genesis four, verse one through verse seven. Now, the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.

And she said, I have gotten a man child with the help of the Lord. Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part, also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering. But for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you so angry and why has your countenance fallen?

If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, but you must master it. Thus far, the reading of God’s word from Genesis chapter four. Let’s turn over now to our target passage, which is in the New Testament, the epistle of Romans. And we there will read from chapter seven of Romans, reading verses 14 through 25. Romans chapter 7, 14 to 25. Turn there with me if you would. We continue the reading of God’s inspired and infallible word. Romans 7 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin.

For what I am doing, I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then, on the one hand, I myself, with my mind, am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin. Thus far, the reading of God’s infallible word. Amen. Let’s pray together, shall we? Our Father, we come to you this night giving thanks to the God of our salvation, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. for that salvation which has come to us in His fullness in the person and work of Jesus. And we ask, Lord, then, that the Spirit of Christ which moved the prophet of old and the apostle of the New Testament to write the words we have heard here tonight, we pray that that same Spirit would now be here in our midst, enlightening and enabling the preacher, but also the hearers, O Father, that we would apply ourselves to the word of truth that the Spirit of Christ would illumine these things to our understanding with power, and that the Word would go forth for the conversion of hearts and minds, that more and more we might be transformed into the likeness of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. May, O God, you receive the glory, the praise, and the honor, both now and forevermore. We pray these things together now in Jesus’ name. Amen. The hope begins with a promise, the promise of Genesis 3, verse 15. And this is the promise.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. As you can see, the promise included the certainty of ensuing warfare. But it also included the hope of a seed, a seed of the woman who would eventually bruise the head of that serpent deceiver, Satan, that one who seduced Eve, leading to the fall of man into the miserable depths of sin and depravity and death. The promise began a time of anticipation and waiting. Only in the fullness of the time would there be a fulfillment in the arrival of that particular seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head.

We ask, who is that suffering servant, that son of a virgin, son of the Most High, the consolation of Israel, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, the word become flesh? Who is that second Adam? You know the answer. Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen and amen.

As we come to Romans 7 verses 14 to 25 tonight, we see in this section that the Apostle Paul continues to speak to us in the first person singular, as he did also in Romans chapter 7 verses 7 through 13. But here in 14 to 25, he leaves behind the past tense and he now is speaking to us in the present tense. As we’ll read that text in just a little while, I would ask that you particularly listen closely to Paul’s words as he speaks to us in the first person singular. I want you to carefully pay attention to the first person singular, the use of I or me, but I want you also to recognize that there is an inward tension in these words here.

A tension in 14 to 25 that was absent from verses 7 through 13. There, in verses 7-13, we see that sin assaulted Paul by stealth and indeed struck him down. Here, in verses 14-25, Paul puts up an agonizing resistance to that sin, even if he cannot beat down the enemy completely. As Paul makes plain here and elsewhere, There is a conflict, yes, warfare between the spirit and the flesh.

I would ask you very quickly to compare with me Romans chapter seven, verse six, where he says, and we’ve highlighted this in our last Roman sermon, compare Romans chapter seven, verse six, where Paul says, we serve in newness of the spirit. Compare that with Romans 7, 14. But I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin, this same one who said we serve in newness of the spirit.

I would also ask you to compare and see also Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17. We’re going to look at a number of texts this evening, and I think it would be helpful for me to be patient while you find that text. Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17. Give me a nod when you find it, and I’ll proceed. Galatians 5, 16 and 17.

Paul writes, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. He continues that theme in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 8. Once again, I’ll wait for you to find that with me. Galatians chapter 6, verse 8. We read, for the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Paul further develops this same theme in our book of Romans, chapter 8, verses 12 and 13. I’ll wait. Romans 8, verses 12 and 13. So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. But if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

See also Colossians chapter 3, verses 4 and 5. Colossians chapter 3, verses 4 and 5. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

This parallels the idea that we find in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 22 to 24. Ephesians 4, 22-24, the idea of putting off the old man and putting on the new man. I’ll wait for you to find the text and I’ll read there. Ephesians 4, 22-24, Paul writes that in reference to your former manner of life, You lay aside the old man which is being corrupted in accordance with the loss of the seats and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Words which seem to comport well with what Paul says about the first and the second Adam in the book of Romans chapter five. but also in the book of First Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 45 to 48. Think about this, the old man and the new man, Adam and the second Adam. In First Corinthians 15, 45 to 48, Paul contrasts what he calls the earthy man and the heavenly man. The first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life giving spirit. The first man is from the earth, earthy. The second man is from heaven. Before we go any further on this theme, let’s go back to our original passage, Romans 7, verses 14 to 25. Let us turn back to Romans 7, 14 to 25.

As we there deal with the struggle, the warfare even, that is going on in Paul, first person singular, that warfare of the spirit against the flesh. And there in Romans chapter 7, 14 to 25, in that context, we must deal with the shift we find in these verses from what we had read earlier in verses 7 through 13. In the earlier passage, verses 7 to 13, Paul, speaking there also in the first person singular, described what happened to him when he lived. in what might be called this present age. But here now in verses 14 to 25, he addresses his life in the age to come. The age to come which has already arrived.

Although that old age, the former age, what Paul calls in Galatians 1.4 the present evil age, has not yet passed away. Paul is a man living simultaneously on two planes. In keeping with this, we might say the kingdom of God has already come, but it has not yet come in all its fullness. The already, the now, and the not yet. He, Paul, lives in the tension of the overlap of the two ages.

Paul eagerly longs to live a life in keeping with the higher plane, that is, the age to come. But he is sadly aware of the strength of indwelling sin that remains in him, the flesh, what might be called the old man that keeps on pulling him down to that lower plane, the present evil age.

The spirit-inspired words of the apostle here are highly suggestive, prompting us to remember the words of God that he spoke to Cain just before he killed his brother Abel, as recorded in Genesis 4, verses 7 and 8. God says to Cain, if you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. You might recall that the story of Cain and Abel begins with the hope that Cain may in fact be the one to bring humanity back to Eden.

Look at Genesis chapter 4 and verse 1. His very name, Cain, expresses Eve’s interpretation of this one’s birth. She said there, I have gotten a man child with the help of the Lord. Again, Genesis four, chapter four, verse one. In other words, speaking such words, she is saying, aha, here he is, the seed, the seed who will bruise the serpent’s head. But it soon becomes very evident, doesn’t it, that all is not well with Adam’s firstborn son.

Having had his offering, that is Cain, having had his offering rejected by God, as recorded in Genesis 4, verses 3 to 5, Cain does not turn from his wickedness. He does not reform his half-hearted, faithless worship. Instead, he heartens his heart, angrily ruminating over his situation, as he does in Genesis 4, verse 5b.

So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell. In this evening’s passage there that we read earlier, the Lord warns Cain about the coldness of his spirit. Why are you angry, God inquires? Not because God cannot see the man’s heart, but in order that Cain might know the Lord’s displeasure is due to his own sin. Just as with Adam previously in Genesis 3 verse 9, God here mercifully gives Cain an opportunity to examine himself. Why are you angry?

An opportunity to examine himself and to repent of that. This interpretation gains further support from verse 7. The English Standard Version of the text translates verse 7a as, If you do well, will you not be accepted? Accepted can also be rendered as forgiven for the sake of clarity.

Basically, the Lord is telling Cain to soften his heart, turn from his unfounded anger, begin to worship, to offer true worship to the Lord rather than false worship that is unacceptable. The context thus demonstrates that the words do well does not imply justification by works on part of Cain, but that forgiveness comes only to those who repent. The remainder of verse 7 in Genesis 4 is a sober warning to Cain of his need to heed the Lord’s warnings.

God counsels Adam’s eldest son to beware of the sin which is crouching at the door, lest he is unable to master that sin. There is a connection to the seed of the serpent here, as the word crouching in other ancient Near Eastern literature is used of demons. Satan is seeking to use sin to dominate Cain, and he will be successful if Adam’s son does not turn from his unrighteous anger. Cain’s rage is itself evil, quite evil, but soon that rage will erupt into fratricide, murder, a more, even more heinous transgression.

Though Cain is an unbeliever, the New Testament most certainly uses him as a warning, even for the faithful. I’m thinking of 1 John 3, verses 11 through 15. 1 John 3, 11 through 15. John writes, For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? because his, that is Cain’s, deeds were evil, and his brother’s deeds were righteous.

Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brotherhood. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

By the Holy Spirit, all believers are enabled to live unto holiness, Paul will say in Romans chapter 8. Here in 1 John 3, John is saying that believers are enabled to love by the grace of God at work in their hearts. And therefore, as we hear such words that yes, we are enabled by the grace of the Spirit to be holy, to love one another, We would nevertheless be foolish to suppose that we are incapable of serious sin. And evil desire is the first step toward an even more wicked act, James tells us in chapter one, verses 14 and 15.

He says there, but each one is tempted when he is carried away and is enticed by his own lust. Thus, when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. And if we do not flee from evil desires, we may find ourselves ceding control to the serpent, that serpent who prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Listen then to Paul’s conflict as the Spirit wages war against the flesh. He says, I’m back in Romans 7 verses 14 to 25. Listen to what Paul speaks in terms of his own conflict, his own warfare. We know, he says, that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh and sold into bondage to sin.

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, says Paul, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Now pay very careful attention how Paul concludes this section of scripture at the end of Romans 7. What is the outcome of this conflict? Look at Paul’s own self-estimation. The preacher tonight says, along with Paul, and this is what Paul says about himself, first person singular, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death, Paul asks. Your preacher asks the same.

These words cry out for the end of the conflict, the end of the warfare, indeed for an eternal resolution. We might say, in keeping with that warfare that is going on, we might say that the first advent cries out for the second coming. The already cries out for the not yet. Christmas cries out in hope for consummation and the end of the present evil age. That hope will become reality in the appearing of the exalted Christ.

That seed of the woman who fatally bruised the serpent’s head on the cross, that suffering servant, the now exalted king, once born of a virgin, now declared the Son of God with power in the resurrection unto eternal life. The Son of the Most High God, the consolation of Israel, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, the Word become flesh.

Indeed, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is coming again. Amen and amen. O troubled sinner, you who ask, who will set me free from the body of this death? Take heart and hope tonight in verse 25 of Romans 7. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, Paul says, but on the other hand, with my flesh, the law of sin. And for now, that’s right where the Lord wants you and me to be. We’re in that conflict of the spirit and the flesh. Fighting the spiritual warfare, that’s where God wants us. The spirit against the flesh. And in faith, as those whose spirit is fighting against the flesh, we ought to be that people looking to Jesus Christ the one who will most assuredly complete the good work which he has already begun in us.

And this he will do when he comes again. And surely he will come again. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. So then, beloved, let us together walk by the spirit as we await and pray for the consummation in Jesus Christ, our Lord. And I wish a blessed Christmas to you all. Amen. Let’s pray together.

Our Father, we give you thanks tonight. We give you thanks that the one who began a good work in us, that heavenly man, the Lord Jesus Christ raised from the dead, is the one who will bring that work to its glorious consummation and completion. And though we find ourselves in the midst of warfare now, O God, we would not despair, but rather we would fight with the weapons that the Lord has given us. the weapons of faith, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying always as we would fight the good fight according to the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is now at work in us to will and to do according to your good pleasure. Our Father, may we press on in faith. as we give thanks for the appearing of Jesus, as we look for that second appearing of Jesus in anticipation and expectation of the great things that will mean for the people of God. Hear our prayers of thanks and adoration tonight, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. I would ask you to turn with me then, if you would, to hymn number 150 as we respond to God’s word this evening. We turn to hymn number 150.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

Sermon transcript

open our Bibles to Romans chapter 7, I’ll begin reading at verse 1. Hear the word of the Lord. Or do you not know brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.

Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ. so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, you shall not covet.

But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind, for apart from the law, sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me. For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore, did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be. Rather, it was sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

Thus far, the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray together. Holy Father, we do ask your blessing upon our hearing of your word today as it is read. And in turn, as it is preached, may we devote ourselves to your word with heart and mind and soul and strength. And may the spirit who moved the apostle to write these words of ages ago now be that same spirit who illumines and enlightens our hearts, our minds, our spirits to know and understand the truth and to act upon it. May you bless the one who preaches and those who receive the preaching that together we might grow in grace and the knowledge of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray together, giving thanks. Amen.

Scholar F.F. Bruce comments, quote, we can well understand the need of freedom from sin, but why should Paul be so concerned about freedom from the law? After the law, after all, the law is God’s law, isn’t it? The law forbids sin, doesn’t it? And the law prescribes righteousness, doesn’t it?

More than that, we think of what men of God in Israel in earlier days had found the law To be a safeguard against sin, for example, in Psalm 119, verse 165, we read, those who love your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. Likewise, we read in Psalm 19, verse 7, quote, the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.

So the law is good, and men of old found the law to be a safeguard against sin and an encouragement to righteousness. But Paul appears now to speak differently, speaking out of his own experience. With the law of God, with the law of God in itself, he has found no fault. He has no fault to find. For in Romans 7, 12, he says, the law is holy and righteous and good. What is really at issue is the conception of religion as law-keeping, the idea that by painstaking conformity to some law code, one might acquire merit in God’s sight.

When the Apostle Peter at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15 described the law as, quote, a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear, Acts 15 verse 10, He speaks there as a typical Jew, and he is thinking probably not only of the written law, but of its oral amplification, that oral amplification handed down through generations of scribes.

Of this oral law, tradition had said that Moses received it on Mount Sinai and that he delivered it to Joshua. Joshua delivered that law to the elders. and the elders in turn delivered the law to the prophets. And the prophets finally in turn to the men of the great synagogue and on down to the teachers of the great rabbinical schools which were dominant even at the time of Christ and the apostles.

Only those who dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to the keeping of the law interpreted according to the tradition of the elders, had any hope of success. But for them it was considered a real hope that they could do it on the basis of law. Consider, for example, the rich young ruler who told Jesus that he had kept all the commandments from his earliest days.

Or remember Paul himself in his career as a Pharisee, of which he says he was, quote, as to the righteousness which is in the law found blameless. Philippians three, verse six. Humanly speaking, Paul was about as devoted to the law as anyone could hope to be. Yet he, Paul, found in Christ a new life and a new power, a new joy and a new peace, such as he had never known before, together with a new righteousness, as he would say in Philippians 3, verse 9, not a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, Philippians 3, 9. But it is here in this section of the epistle to the Romans, chapter seven, that Paul tells us more clearly than anywhere else, just how he found the law so inadequate as a way to secure a righteous standing before God.

Our text today, beginning with Romans chapter 7, verses 1 through 6, is to be connected with what the apostle had already stated back in chapter 6 and verse 14 when Paul wrote, You are not under law, but under grace. In this earlier context of chapter 6, the statement gives the reason or ground of the assurance that sin will not have dominion over the believer. You are not under law, but under grace. There is, however, at that point in chapter six, no expansion or validation of that proposition that the believer is not under law. For immediately, the apostle back in chapter six, you must remember, turned his attention to refute the false inference that the phrase not under law means license to sin. Paul’s answer to that false inference is an emphatic, may it never be. But now here in chapter seven, beginning with verse one, he returns to the question of release from the law and show shows how this discharge from the law has come to be the opening question of verse one. Or do you not know, brethren, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives is ask in regard to the affirmation. You are not under law, but under grace.

And this question is an appeal to what the apostle assumes his readers to know, as is evident from the parenthesis that you see in your text there, the parenthesis which follows saying, for I am speaking to those who know the law. And we note that all are credited with this knowledge. as Paul writes to the Romans. What is this law, then, with the knowledge of which Paul credits his readers? The law assumed to be known here is surely the written law of the Old Testament, particularly the Mosaic law. Gentiles as well as Jews in the church at Rome could be credited with the knowledge of the Old Testament.

To know the law means considerably more than merely to know the ordinances of the law or the specifics even of the Ten Commandments. Remember what Paul writes in second Corinthians chapter three, verse 14, that Paul does not concede that the rabbis who were considered to be experts in the law actually knew the law. Rather, they read the law with a darkened veil lying over them. Despite their eager reading and their diligent study of the law, those who regard the law as eternal and expect righteousness from it in a word do not know it. Hence the parenthetical clause, I am speaking to those who know the law, verse one of our text, does not divulge anything about the ethnic origin of the Romans.

It is easily possible for a Jew to belong to those who do not know the law. so that what Paul tells him now will be spoken in vain. Conversely, it is possible for a Gentile to know the law if through the message of Jesus he has learned that Christ, who was made subject to the law, died in order to set believers free from the law.

Concerning sin, Paul said that its hold on the person ends in his death. Romans chapter six and verse seven. Now he argues, argues the same concerning the law. As long as he lives, the individual remains under its dominion. His death, however, terminates all obligations that the law had imposed upon him. Paul demonstrates this and then in the text with the marriage law.

It is at verse four that the apostle begins to apply the analogy of ordinary marriage to the spiritual sphere of our relations to the law and to Christ. John Murray says verses two and three of Romans seven are illustration that there is nothing in the text to suggest allegorical intent here. In other words, this use of the marriage as an illustration is not an allegory.

The facts stated here need no exposition, for they are simply to the effect that a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. That if while he lives she is married to another, she thereby commits adultery and will be called an adulteress. but that when the husband dies, the marriage with him is dissolved, matter of fact, and she is then free to marry another man. The main point of the illustration is that the death of the husband releases the woman from the bond of that particular marriage. Death breaks the marriage bond. Likewise, death breaks a man’s relation to the law, Paul says.

Remember again, in using the marriage as an illustration, this is not strictly an allegory with a one-to-one correlation from the wife to the believer and from the husband to the law. It is more so an analogy than it is an allegory. Thus, in the application, it is not the law that has died, But the believer who has died, no longer bound to the law, but is now free to be united to Christ. Put more simply, as death breaks the bond between a husband and wife, so death, the believer’s death with Christ, breaks the bond which formerly yoked him or her to the law. So now the believer is freed from the bond of the law to enter into union with the resurrected Christ. Remember, your former association with the law did not help you to produce the fruits of righteousness. But these fruits are produced in abundance now that the believer is united with Christ.

Sin and death were the result of our association with the law. Righteousness and life are the produce of our new association with Christ Jesus raised from the dead. For as Paul puts it in second Corinthians chapter three, verse six, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Or again, he says here in Romans chapter seven, verse six, but now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter. Being joined to Christ by grace through faith means being joined with him in his death. When Christ died, we died. We died with him. But union with Christ in his death must never be severed from union with him also in his resurrection.

Here, however, then, in Romans 7, verse 4 and following, the stress falls not merely on union with Christ in His resurrection on Resurrection Day, but upon union with Him as the One who has been raised from the dead. It is union with him, therefore, not only in the virtue and power of that historical event of Resurrection Day, but it is union with him now and forever in that identity that belongs to him as the resurrected Lord. as life-giving spirit, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 45.

I cannot underscore that text enough. Christ, by His resurrection and ascension, has become life-giving spirit. And this is permanent. And this, beloved, is the marital bond that can never be broken, having been joined to the resurrected Jesus, that one who is alive and alive forevermore. That bond we have with Him can never be broken. Romans chapter 6, verses 8 and 9 says, Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again.

Death no longer is master over him. That is the Christ who can say, as he does to his disciples in the Gospel of John, chapter 11, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Being joined to him and abiding in him, that is the resurrected Jesus, by faith ensures a glorious end.

Namely, that we may bring forth fruit to God. Fruit that is acceptable to God. Fruit that redounds to His eternal glory. Fruit that is the very antithesis of the licentious abuse of the glorious doctrine that we are not under law but under grace. Union with Christ must necessarily be a fruitful marriage between Christ and His beloved Church.

It is the very substance of the new covenant which God long ago had promised. where he said of old in Ezekiel 36, for example, verses 26 and 27, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. Moreover, also Jeremiah 31, 31 to 33, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. I will put my law within them and on their heart. I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

That is the new covenant that has come to pass in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the spirit. The Holy Spirit has been given to you, given to you who believe. as a down payment and as a guarantee of your eternal inheritance until you acquire consummate possession of it. And be reminded that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law, Paul writes. Praise the Lord that we serve our Savior then in newness of the Holy Spirit given to us according to new covenant grace. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.