STUDIES IN ROMANS

�� Dr. Paul Brand was called by God to become an expert in treating the deformed hands of lepers.� This Christian doctor has done more for restoring the hands of lepers then anyone in history.� It all began in 1947 in a leprosy sanitarium not far from Madras, India.� He was being shown around the hospital by Dr. Robert Cockrone the renowned skin specialist.� He noticed so many of the patients had twisted, gnarled and ulcerated hands with some fingers missing.� He asked how they got that way and what they were doing for them.� The answer was that they didn't know, and that nothing was being done.�

�� Dr. Cockrone explained that not one orthopedic surgeon in the world had yet studied the deformities of the 15 million leprosy victims.� Dr. Brand was applauded.� That was more people than had been deformed by polio or in auto accidents world‑wide.� Yet there was not a single surgeon to serve this desperate need.� He walked up to one of the patients and pride his fingers open.� He put his hand in his own and asked the person to squeeze as hard as you can.� He was shocked at the power, and had to ask the patient to stop for he was hurting him.� He realized that the muscles in this deformed hand were still good, but the patient could not feel the force.� At that instant he knew the Spirit of God had called him to find the answer.� With that hand shake his vocation for life was determined.� He went on to become the leading surgeon in the world for lepers hands.

�� Dr. Brand's call was as clear to him as was the call of Moses at the burning bush, or the call of Paul on the road to Damascus.� Dramatic calls like this are very personal, and they may mean little to others.� Paul's call was doubted, questioned, and fought by many.� He had to defend his call all his life.� The same was true for Moses.� A call from God does not mean that even godly people will recognize it as God's call.

�� One of the greatest missionaries to China was the little British lady named Gladys Aylward.� She was converted at a Salvation Army street meeting, and as a cleaning lady she got to reading the books of her employer who had a large section of them on China.� She felt God wanted her to go to China to share the Gospel.� When she applied to the Mission Board they gave her an intellectual test she could not pass, and they said no.� She did not measure up and could not go.� She went anyway, and she became so successful that years later a motion picture called "In Of The Sixth Happiness," was made about her ministry.� God's call is above man's approval.�

�� We could go on endlessly telling stories of calls like this, for there are thousands of them.� But because they are amazing and dramatic they are the only calls that we hear about.� The result is that the greater call of God to all His people is obscured and terribly neglected.� The very Greek word that Paul uses in verse 1 to describe himself as called to be an Apostle is the word he uses 2 more times in his introduction to the Romans to describe the call of all Christians.� The word is kletos, and it is used in verse 6 of those called to belong to Jesus, and in verse 7 for those called to be saints.� Every Christian is called to belong to Jesus and to be saints.� This is a universal calling and one that would be more history changing than any other calls of God if God's people would heed the call.� We have so exalted the special call to the few that we have ignored the general call to the many.� This is so even though the calling of God to all His people is the primary emphasis of the New Testament.

�� This same word kletos is used by Paul again in Rom. 8:28 where he writes, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."� All Christians are just as called as Paul.� He does the same thing in I Cor.� He uses the word called twice as often for all Christians as for himself.� We tend to think of Paul as somewhat conceited because he is always telling people he is called to be an Apostle.� But Paul exalts all Christians, even the poor ones of Corinth, to the level of the called.� He begins I Cor. with, "Paul, called to be an Apostle," but in the next verse he refers to the Corinthians as those called to be holy.� They are just as called of God as he is.

�� We do not have time to study all the related words that show that every child of God is a called one.� Let me just read the last use of this word in the New Testament from Rev. 17:14.� "...the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings‑and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers."� To be a Christian is to be called.� There is no special class of Christians who are called and others who are not called.� All Christians are called.� They are not all called to be Apostles, or pastors, or surgeons, but every Christian is called into the ministry.� Any Christian not in the ministry is missing their calling.

�� This Greek word also means invited, and some translations have it as, "You are the invited ones of Jesus Christ."� The Gospel carries with it the invitation or calling to follow Jesus and be like Him.� The goal of God is not just to save people for eternity, but to produce Christ‑like people in time.� The call of Gospel is two fold:� Come unto me and be saved, and then come with me and be sanctified.� We are called to be saved and then called to be saints.� This calling may not be as dramatic as a burning bush, or a blinding light and voice from heaven,� but the fact is, it is just as authentic.� This universal calling means no Christian has to worry about his or her gifts and abilities, for regardless of their abundance or scarcity every Christian has a calling to be a saint.�

�� Paul makes it clear that anybody can be a saint.� In I Cor. 1:26‑29 he writes, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.� Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.� He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things‑and the things that are not‑to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him."� Paul is saying that if you are a dime a dozen, no big deal, and a commonplace nobody, you qualify to be called t be a saint.�

�� The problem is that the Christian world has so copied the secular world that we have lost this biblical truth, and instead we have magnified the super‑gifted and talented Christian to the level of stardom, and we assume that only these special people are called to reach the world and accomplish God's purpose.� This is why the will of God is not done on earth as it is in heaven.� You don't have ten percent of the angels doing the will of God while the other ninety percent watch them do it.� All in heaven do the will of God, and when all of God's people on earth will recognize they are just as called as the super star Christians, then God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

�� One pastor asked another how many people in his church are willing people.� He said that all of his people are willing.� Ten percent are willing to work, and ninety percent are willing to let them.� This is very common because Christians do not realize they are called.� Paul was a super star who was called of God to write this letter to the Romans that has changed the course of history.� It has been the key influence in the conversion of other major super stars like Augustine, Luther, Wesley, and Bunyan.�� This is Paul's longest and most influential letter.� Luther called it, "The true masterpiece of the New Testament."� It has been called, "The Cathedral of the Christian faith."�

�� Ray Stedman expresses the conviction of many when he says, "It is safe to say that Romans is probably the most powerful human document every written."� Everyone agrees that to know the book of Romans is to be theologically educated.� Godet, the famous Swiss commentator, wrote, "The reformation was certainly the work of the Epistle to the Romans....and it is probable that every great spiritual renovation in the church will always be linked, both in cause and in effect, to a deeper knowledge of this book."� Everyone knows that Romans was not Paul's first letter, but it is the first one in the New Testament because it is the most important.

�� All of this just seems to support the idea that God's plan is to get his will done through superstars. But we need to read the rest of the story. How did this wondrous letter get to Rome? Paul did not take it there. It was carried by someone , and that someone is one of histories most important mail delivery persons. No plane; no train, no pony express rider ever carried a letter with a greater impact on history than did the carrier of this letter to the Romans. But this obscure servant is practically unknown to all of us. It was Paul's faithful female friend by the name of Phoebe. She was an active member of the nearby church in Chenchrea, and Paul asker her to help him out. She did by carrying this letter from Corinth to Rome.

�� Renan said that when Phoebe sailed away from Corinth she, "Carried beneath the folds of her robe the whole future of Christian theology."� Paul the superstar wrote it, but Phoebe the mere helper got it to the people it was destined for, and thus to the rest of the world.� Phoebe is only mentioned once in the whole New Testament, and Paul tells us her gift was that one everybody chooses when they feel like they have none, and that is the gift of helps.� In Rom. 16:2 Paul writes of her, "She has been a great help to many people, including me."� Here is superstar Paul commending obscure star Phoebe, for Paul has the mind of Christ, and he knew that Phoebe was just as called as he was, and just as vital to getting the will of God done with this letter as he was.�

�� Paul and Phoebe were a team, for Paul's gift of apostolic authority would have no impact on Roman Christians without the gift of helps to get the message to Rome.� Billy Graham knows that his impact on the world would be minimal without the help of masses of people nobody will ever know.� They are just as called to ministry as he is.� This is true in every ministry, and in every church.� Every Christian who is a part of the ministry and the church is called.�

�� Keep in mind that Paul did not start the church at Rome.� He had never been there.� The Christians who began this work are so obscure that nobody knows who they were.�� They are even less visible than Phoebe, but they are the ones who made it possible for Paul to write this famous life‑changing letter.� If they had not started the church, there never would have been a body of believers who needed this message of Paul like they did.� These persons will never be known in time at all.� They get no recognition whatever in the great plan of God for this letter, but they were just as called and a vital part of the plan as was Paul.

�� Paul would have loved the honor of having started this strategic church in the capital of the Gentile world.� But God gave that honor to people we do not know.� Being called does not mean having special gifts, or getting special notoriety or fame.� The obscure and unknown are just as called as those who get the limelight.� Paul knew this and he was applauded that the church at Corinth was setting up superstars for special honor, and the people were saying, "I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Paul."� Paul fought the superstar mentality, for he knew the facts.� God calls all His children to be a part of His plan, and every one of them is just as important as those who get the center stage.� The behind the scenes helpers are just as called and just as crucial for success.�

�� In verse 11 Paul may sound like a proud superstar when he writes, "I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong."� But he no sooner wrote that, and then continued in the next verse to write, "That is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith."� Paul was saying that he needed their help as much as they needed his.� Paul was no self‑sufficient superstar who had no time for the little guy in the church.� He needed the gifts of the common Christian just as they needed his special gifts.� In a truly biblical value system every Christian counts because every Christian is called. There are no non‑called Christians, and the sooner we all grasp this, the sooner we will realize that all of us matter to the success of God's plan.� All of us can help fulfill the will of God.� This is not for the few, but for the all.�

�� Now the question is, what in the world is a saint?� This is our calling as Christians.� This is the universal vocation of every child of God, and yet most saints would be hard pressed to define exactly what it is they are.� Many try to force the word into some canned idea of what a saint should be, and it scares the daylights out of most of us, and we figure we must not be saints.� You cannot define a saint by any system of theology, or any pattern of religious behavior.� Abraham married, but Jesus never did.� Paul spoke in tongues, but Jesus never did.� Peter wrote inspired Scripture, but Jesus never did.� Barnabas helped start Gentile churches, but Jesus never did.

�� We could go on and on revealing that the saints of the Bible did many things that Jesus never did. Yet the essence of being a saint is being like Jesus. But this is not helpful, for there are so many ways that no saint is like Jesus.� We don't walk on water; we don't change water into wine; and we don't weep over Jerusalem, or ride into it on a donkey.� We don't fellowship with prostitutes and tax collectors, or take a whip to religious leaders who corrupt the temple.� We can go through the life of Jesus and find so many ways we are not like Him.� It makes you wonder what it means to be Christ‑like.� If most of what Jesus did we can't do, and many saints do what He never did, how can saintliness and Christ‑likeness be the same?� It is no wonder one child's definition of a saint was, "A dead Christian."� The dead you can wrap in legend and mystery, and build and illusion, but how can living Christians who are so unlike Christ be saints?�

�� Alexander the great had his portrait painted with his face resting on his hand as if in contemplation.� The true purpose was to hide the ugly scar that creased his cheek.� The Bible does not so paint the saint.� The great heroes of the Bible have their scars in full view.� The saints are not portrayed as sin free at all, but they are seeing as sinful like all.� Every saint in the Bible is also a sinner, and not just in his or her pre‑saint days, but also in their sainthood days.� John tells us that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.� So a saint is one who knows he is a sinner.� The concept of a saint being a holier than thou self‑righteous judge of all others is not biblical at all.� A biblical saint is one who is fully conscious of his sinfulness, and so is one who is humble rather than judgmental.�

�� To many Christians interpret humble to mean they are not important, and so they do not get involved.� They know they are sinners and that they are not superstars, and so they conclude that they are not called to an active role in the church.� They are of the people of God, but they see themselves as the little people.� It is as if God has different categories like the Bantam Baptist, or the Midget Methodist, or the Puny Presbyterians, or Liliputian Lutherans.� What they fail to see is that these so‑called mini saints are the foundation for the success of God's plan.�

�� The church at Rome and every church in the New Testament was composed largely of these mini‑saints who were unknown and not greatly gifted. Remove these from the church and you have no church for the superstars to minister to, and to minister through. The point is, every Christian in important to the successful working of the church. All are called to be saints.

�� Paul never even met these Roman Christians he is writing to, but he is sending them the most important letter of his life, and it is because he knows that God's purpose for history involves the average church member. They are all called, and only when all realize they are called can the church be all it was called to be. In Eph. 4:11‑12 Paul makes it clear that the whole purpose of specially gifted people like Apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor‑teachers is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Every Christian is in the ministry, and it is the gifted people who are to help them do their job more effectively. The gifted are God's gift to those less gifted. Gifted people are to help all the other believers be able to rise to a higher level of effectiveness.

�� It is folly to feel that because you do not know the Bible well enough, or because you do not know how to witness effectively, or because you have not learned how to overcome certain temptations, that you are not qualified to be called a saint. The Romans who received this letter did not know the Bible at all, and in fact, they did not have any of the Bible but this letter. They were inferior in many ways to the average believer today, but they were saints. All Christians are saints and called to be better ones. You do not work your way up to sainthood. You start the Christian life as a saint, and as one called of God to live for His glory, and to do his will on earth as it is in heaven. When you trust in Jesus as your Savior you are born a saint. Being saved and becoming a saint are the same thing.

�� We are all called to be saints, and that just means that we are called to be all we can be for the kingdom of God. We are to be willing to expose ourselves to the Word of God and be growing in the knowledge of God and His will. We are to be more and more conformed to the likeness of Christ in the way we think and behave. We are not expected to be superstars, but to just be who we are seeking to use what we have in ability to serve the cause of cause of Christ. We are to be growing and making ourselves available on any level to be of benefit to the body of Christ. We do not have to be like anyone else at all, but we need to be willing to become the more that we can become by the grace of God. The point is, the calling of God is not just for the few, it is for all of us, for all are called to be saints. That means all are called to be set apart from the secular world to be a part of that group of people who are serving God and His cause in the world in order to bring others into the kingdom of God by faith in Jesus Christ. The call is for all.

2.� ��VOLUNTARY SLAVERY based on Rom. 1:1‑7

�� In the early days of Israel if a man got into debt and could not repay he was not sent to prison, but was allowed to become the slave of his creditor. But it was not to be a permanent situation. When the 7th year came he would be liberated and be free to be his own master again, and begin to rebuild his life. Some of these free men would soon find that their chances of making it on their own was near impossible. They had no future as a free man, and if they liked their master and felt well treated by them they could go back to him and volunteer to stay as his slave. The master would then take him to the tabernacle where the priest would bore a hole in his ear lobe as a sign that he was the slave of his master.

�� Here was slavery that was not the result of war, or even debt, but a voluntary slavery by choice because it was the best option available at the time. This might seem crazy to give up your freedom to be a slave, but it is not a lot different that what we have today. Unemployed people have the freedom to stay at home, watch T. V. and go for walks and shop whenever they please, but this can only last for so long. So they go around looking for a place where they can give up this freedom and volunteer to be a slave for 8 hours a day for the sake of a paycheck.� We use different terms, but the end result is not all that different. We just get a number today instead of the hole in the ear. It is not all that bad to be a slave to some degree for the sake of the benefits.

�� Paul was happy to be a slave to his Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing he says in this letter to identify himself is that he is a servant of Jesus Christ. The word for servant is doulos, which is the word for slaves all through the New Testament. It is one of the paradoxes of the Christian life that the way to the top is to be a servant. There is no greater title than that of being a servant, and that is why Paul even puts it before his office as an Apostle. He does it again in his letter to the Philippians and his letter to Titus. The top of the totem pole is not chief, captain, kings, or President, but servant or slave of Jesus Christ.

�� Jesus established this value system when he said in Matt. 20:26‑27, "..whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave."� Mark 10:43‑45 repeats it with this added slant, "..whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

�� In the Old Testament in Isa. 52:13 God calls the coming Messiah, "My Servant." Jesus establishes the way by which Christian status will be determined. It will not be by in heritance or by riches or by honor or by power or by any of the methods that the world determines status. The Christian status symbol is a towel that symbolizes the Head of the church wiping the feet of His disciples. The Head serving the feet is the way Jesus wants us to see true greatness. The more needs a Christian meets in others the greater the status of that Christian. That is why Paul is proud to wear the title of slave of Jesus Christ, for his greatest joy is to sever the Head of the church by serving the church which is his body.

�� Paul knew the teaching of his Lord that the servant is the greatest of all and that the servant will be the one greatly rewarded in eternity. Jesus used this same word for slave in Matt. 25:21 where he said, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness." If you want the best that heaven can offer, do not seek to be a king or a noble, but strive to be a servant, for these are the people most pleasing to the Master of all.

�� The final use of this word doulos is in Rev. 22:6 where we read that God, "..sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place." There is no higher honor than to be a servant of God, and this will be an honor for all eternity. Three verses before this we see heaven described as a place where "his servants will serve him." When you become a Christian you are volunteering to become a slave forever. Once a slave to Christ, always a slave to Christ. Voluntary slavery is what the Christian life is all about.

�� Paul did not hesitate to call himself a slave, for he was sending this letter to many who were actually slaves.� If you go to the last chapter you read in 16:11, "Greet those in the household of Narcissus."� Before this in verse 10 he writes, "Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus."� Paul is referring to slaves.� Rome was filled with slaves, and many of them became Christians.� These who were slaves by necessity became voluntary slaves of Christ.

�� Even if one was not a literal slave when he became a Christian, he became a slave for Paul says in I Cor. 6, "You are not your own, for you are bought with a price."� Like a slave purchased from a market, so you have been bought out of slavery to sin by the precious blood of Jesus to become His slave.� There is no escape from slavery, for everyone is the slave of some master.� But not all masters are alike.� Some are so brutal, and it is miserable bondage to be in their service.� Others are kind and benevolent, and it is a joy to serve them.� One does so freely so that it is a choice of voluntary slavery.� Paul spells this out clearly in Rom.7:20‑22.� He describes the Christian life as escape from slavery to the freedom of a new slavery.�

"When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control

of righteousness.� What benefit did you reap at that time from

the things you are now ashamed of?� Those things result in death!

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become

slaves to God, the benefits you reap lead to holiness, and the

result is eternal life."

�� Everyone is either a slave to sin and death, or a slave to holiness and life.� The choice is not, should I be a slave or free, but whose slave shall I be, for all who are not slaves of God are slaves of sin, self, and Satan.� We tend to think the slavery issue is long past, but the fact is, it is always relevant and contemporary, for every person on the planet struggles with it continuously.� We are ever in an age of slavery.� People are slaves to every form of addition on a grander scale than ever before.� In our great land of freedom we have people in bondage to alcohol, drugs, sex, cigarettes, TV violence, and abuse of every kind.� Until Satan is in the lake of fire slavery will be a major issue of life.�

�� The New Testament answer to all forms of bondage is freedom in Christ. If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. But the freedom in Christ is not a form of total independence, for this will just lead to some other kind of bondage.� Freedom in Christ is a liberating form of slavery which is voluntary slavery.� It is a choice to be committed to Christ as Lord of one's life.� No man can serve two masters Jesus said.� But every man has to serve one. �Every man has to have a master.� The choice is of one that destroys and diminishes the self, or one that enriches an exalts the self to become what it was meant to be.� The Prodigal Son wound up as slave to pigs, but he chose to go back home and be a voluntary slave of his father.�� He made the wise choice, and that is a choice all of us must make.

�� There is no third choice of being independent and free from all commitments to either good or evil.� There is no such ground to stand on between good and evil.� You have to make a choice, and so in a very real sense every person is in some form of voluntary slavery.� If the Prodigal would have stayed feeding the pigs, that too would be a form of voluntary slavery.� When the Gospel is heard one can choose to follow a new master, and by the help of the Holy Spirit come out of bondage to the old master.� This is the ministry of the body of Christ in the world.� It is to help people be delivered from on form of slavery, and be set free to choose another form of slavery so radically different that it is called coming out of darkness into light.

�� The whole book of Romans is about slavery.� Paul stresses that Jews and Gentiles alike are slaves to sin.� The Jews are slaves to the law also, and the Gentiles are slaves to their evil desires.� The result is that the world is full of judgment on the folly of man. The only solution is the Gospel which is the power of God to liberate both Jews and Gentiles. It is hard for us to think in these Biblical terms, but the fact is, the battle with slavery is the crucial battle of life. Paul was a slave to the law and self‑righteousness. He had to be set free from salvation by works, and become a slave to Christ by faith.� The journey from slavery to slavery is the journey all must take if they are to be used of God to change the world.

�� In the 13 volume set called 20 Centuries of Great Preaching, most of the names are well known by those who have studied the history of preaching. But one name is very unknown and obscure, for though he was a great preacher John Jasper was born a slave in Virginia in 1812 as the 24 child in his family. At age 22 he married a slave girl, but when his master found he had spent a night away from his plantation he forced them to separate, and he never saw her again. He went on a wild rampage of rebellion as he lived a sinful life.

�� Then at age 27 he came under conviction and was radically converted to Christ and began to preach. He was so eloquent and full of fire that he soon became the most popular preacher around.� Whites as well as blacks would travel long distances to hear him.� He was soon preaching to several thousand people every Sunday.� So many whites came to the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church of Richmond that they had to rope off a special section for them.� For forty years he was a slave, but then the Civil War set him free, and he lived forty years more as a free man.� Here was a man who had no training and was terribly ungrammatical, but he became so famous that his sermons stand along side of the most brilliant preachers of the centuries.� Was there ever a slave who set so many people free?�

�� Yes there was, for all of the great preachers in that set of books from Paul to Billy Graham were also slaves. They were not literal slaves like Jasper, but they were real slaves before they were set free in Christ to be slaves of a new master.� All of this might seem like a trivial play on words, but when you study the history of the word doulos or slave you begin to realize just how serious a biblical issue this is.� The word doulos was a nasty word until the New Testament cleaned it up and glorified it.� The Greeks use the word often as a despised word.� Plato and Aristotle used it in a derogatory way. �We still do today when we say who was your slave last year, or I'm not your slave.� Seneca said, "The foulest death is preferable to the fairest slavery."�

�� In the Old Testament you have the concept of a noble slave developing, but the Hebrew mind despised the slave just as much as did the Greek and Roman mind. A Jewish proverb said, "A dog is more honorable than a slave." This kind of thinking entered into the Christian world and many came to believe that slaves were less than dogs, and that they were sub‑human. There was a time when calling your neighbor a slave could lead to excommunication from the church.� It has been universally despised to be a slave. The only place where the term and idea become on of honor is in the New Testament.

�� Paul describes his whole ministry as that of a slave. In I Cor. 9:19 we read, "Though I m free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible." Notice how Paul stresses it is a voluntary slavery. He does not have to do this. He is not forced against his will, but he chooses to be the slave of everyone. He goes on to say he become all things to all men in order to win them to Christ. He is a slave to what others want him to be in order to win them. He did not try to be anyone's master and win them by authority, but he became their slaves to win them by service.� If you can catch the spirit of Paul as a slave, you will never judge him again as a proud or arrogant man trying to impose his will on others. He was a humble servant of Christ and a slave to all men.

�� It was Paul's writing about literal slavery that led eventually to the abolishment of slavery in the Western world. When Paul wrote to Philemon about his run away slave Onesimus he said in Philemon 15 and 16, "Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good‑no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord."� These words were the nails that finally put slavery in the coffin where it belonged. But it took centuries for Christians to grasp the implications of Paul's words. If it was not for servants of God fighting slavery we could still have millions today being treated like animals rather than like persons made in the image of God.

�� Paul has some powerful words in I Cor. 7:21‑23, "Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you‑although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men." The whole point of Paul is that Christians are to be free from all forms of slavery except slavery to Christ. Our job as slaves of Christ is to be rebels against all other forms of slavery, and to help people escape from all other forms of slavery.

�� The exodus out of Egypt was the great deliverance of God's people out of slavery. Salvation in the New Testament is also an exodus out of bondage to sin. Slavery is the number one problem of man, and freedom is the number one goal. The only adequate answer is a transfer of ownership. The slave to sin has to find a master who will purchase him. That is what the Gospel is all about. Jesus is the new Master who bought us with His blood. We are now free to come under his ownership and be slaves to Him rather than slaves to sin and all of the masters of the flesh. The Gospel revolves around the idea of voluntary slavery. We are freed by faith in Christ to choose a new master, and like Paul, become slaves to the Lord Jesus.

3.�� GOD'S HUMAN NATURE based on Rom. 1:1‑7

�� Superman has always been popular as a comic book character, and I can remember racing across the snow in a blizzard to trade comic books with a friend in order to get some new adventures of this heaven‑like hero of humanity. In our day now the movies of superman have made millions because they appeal to the universal human fantasy that man can be God‑like, and fly on his own power, be invincible as he fights the forces of evil. We love to have our super heroes. This is true in every culture.

�� Some of the early Christians exalted Jesus to the level of a superman. It is understandable why they did, but the majority of Christians got together and declared these Christians heretics by making Jesus a superman. They were guilty of thinking too highly of the deity of our Lord. This seems very strange to us, but the world is full of strange things. There is a rare metal called gallium which melts at 86 degrees, so that if you held it in your hand for awhile it would begin to melt. That does not fit our image of a metal, but it is a fact. It seems equally unlikely that anyone could think too highly of Christ's deity. How could this be possible?

�� The Christians who were called heretical were saying that Jesus was so divine than he could never be truly human. They so exalted the deity of Christ that they denied his humanity. They said he could not have been a real man for human nature is evil, and a holy God could never take on a human nature. These people were called Docetists from the Greek word meaning to seem. They said Jesus only seemed to be human.

�� Their theology has come down to us in the Acts of John which was written in the second century. In it Jesus does come down from the cross and does not suffer at all. That would be totally unworthy of the Son of God. The people saw him suffer on the cross, but that was only an illusion. Jesus appears to John and reveals to him that he is really not suffering at all. It is all a trick, and it is like superman acting weak when he is not. This superman image of Jesus became popular, and we have Gnostic documents from the third and fourth century that tell us Jesus did not really die. It was all an illusion and Jesus was really laughing as he watched them nailing him to the cross, for it was not real. The church declared these writings heretical for they rejected the real humanity of Jesus.

�� The New Testament does not give us this superman concept at all. The Jesus of the New Testament could not stop bullets, for he could not even stop� whip on his back. It cut through his skin and made him bleed, as did the crown of thorns on his head. The spear went through his side and the nails through his hands. He had to endure the pain a suffering of a fully human body.

�� The battle raged for centuries between the two groups with one saying it was all illusion and the other saying the pain was real in a real human body. Orthodox Christianity said Jesus was not a fake man, but he was totally real as a man. One heresy after another tried to deny the full humanity of Christ, but the church stuck to the Scripture and said he was fully real in his humanity. The battle goes on yet today, for many believe Jesus was fully God, but not fully man. They say his humanity was only a disguise. Charles Colson in The Struggle For Men's Hearts and Minds tells of a survey by Christianity Today in which people were asked if they believed Jesus was fully God and fully man. Among the general public only 26 percent said yes. Among evangelical Christians only 43 percent said yes. That means that the majority of believers are still rejecting one of the major doctrines of orthodox Christianity. They do not realize that they are heretical in their beliefs.

�� All of this brings us again to the introductory paragraph of Paul's letter to the Romans. In it he spells out the essence of the Gospel which centers in the two characteristics of Jesus, which are his humanity and his deity. Like the two ends of shoelaces, these two realities tie up the Gospel package. If you cut one side off you lose it all. Paul says in v. 3 that the Gospel regards God's Son as to his human nature and then in v.4 he says it regards God's Son as to his divine nature. Only a man could come from the seed of David. The word used here is spermatos. Jesus had a human nature that came from the very sperm of David. He is called the son of David because he was a physical product of David's body. But then in v. 4 Paul says Jesus was declared to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Only one who was God could raise himself from the dead.

�� So we have here in these two verses the basis for the two main Christian holidays of the year, which are Christmas and Easter. On Christmas we celebrate the humanity of Jesus, for he was God come in the flesh. He was totally human and had to grow in wisdom and knowledge and stature. On Easter we celebrate his deity, for he did what no man can do, as he defeated death and rose from the grave.� The full Gospel is Christmas and Easter, and that Jesus was fully man and fully God. He was the God‑Man. If you take either one out of the church year you have destroyed it, and if you take either of the natures of Jesus out of him you have destroyed the Gospel and the Jesus of the New Testament.

�� It can be hard to grasp how Jesus could be both God and man, but this is the clear revelation of the New Testament. Paul could not have made it clearer than he does in Rom. 9:5 where he writes of the Jews and says, "...from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised." There are numerous examples of the dual nature of Jesus. God does not sleep, but Jesus did. God does not get tempted, but Jesus did. God does not pray, but Jesus did. God did not die, but Jesus did. The list could go on and on because Jesus was fully man and experienced life as all humans do. He was one with us and felt all of the human emotions.

�� A� little girl said to her mother, "I just love Marjorie more than anybody else." The mother asked why she loved her more than her other friends and she replied, "Because when I cry she cries with me." That was the kind of friend Jesus was. He wept with those who wept. He could feel what they felt, and he still does have these human feelings so that he can identify with all who call upon him.� Paul says in I Tim. 2:5, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." His present and eternal manhood is one of the major teachings of the book of Hebrews. If we did not have a human Savior and mediator how could we have any confidence that he can really understand where we are coming from in our weakness? He says in Heb. 4:15‑16, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are‑yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Some poet has written‑

O glorious truth that my High Priest

Who bids me tell him all my need

Is sympathetic with my plight

For He's the Son of Man indeed!

�� If Jesus is just a fake man and never really felt the power of temptation, and never really felt the weakness of the flesh, and never felt the pain and limitations of the body, then he could never really understand us. We could never identify with his example, for it would be meaningless to have an example of one who was God only, and had no limitations. He would be no more an example for us than superman flying an explosive device into outer space where it can explode harmlessly. This is no meaningful example for our behavior in dealing with the forces of evil.

�� The only reason we can follow Jesus and go about doing good, loving people where they are, and sharing the good news is because these are all things that people can do. His deity would be no example at all, but his humanity is� powerful example that we can follow. We cannot walk on water or turn water into wine, but we can do those things he did in his humanity, for we can love and serve and encourage. William L. Stidger said it in poetry.

My Master was a man who knew

The rush of rain, the drip of due;

The Gentle kiss of midnight air

Upon his face upraised in prayer.

He was a man of lakes and stars;

He knew the Pleiades and Mars;

The silver of the Milky Way

The night, the light, the dawn, the day.

His skin was bronzed like that of one

Who traveled under wind and sun;

His feet were stained by dusty ways;

His cheeks were brown as autumn days.

All men and their need were in his thought.

This man, God‑bred, star‑led, shy‑taught.

�� It is so important that Jesus had a complete human nature that it was to be an anti‑Christ if one denied it. This sounds strange, for it means you can say that Jesus was very God of God and yet still be anti‑Christ by a denial of his human nature.

�II John 7 says, "Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the anti‑Christ." We do not really have a choice in the matter. We either acknowledge that Jesus entered into a complete human nature, or we cease to be for the Christ of New Testament revelation.

�� The Arian heresy said Jesus did not have a human soul. The Apollinarian heresy said the human soul of Jesus was replaced by the Logos, of the divine spirit so that Jesus was only a partial man. He was a brilliant theologian, and he forced the church in the fourth century to struggle with the issue. In 381 A. D. at the Council of Constantinople the church condemned the idea of Jesus being only a partial man. If he was not totally man he could not be a substitute for man. Just as animals could not be an adequate substitute for man, nor could an angel, so it was not possible for a partial man to be so. Jesus had to be a complete man with a human body, mind and soul. His human nature had to be just as complete as his divine nature. He was one personality with two natures. He was complete man and God joined in perfect unity.

�� Every attempt in history to somehow modify the human nature of Jesus so that it was not totally and completely human has been condemned as heresy. Every conceivable bit of biblical data was weighed for centuries, and the end result was that every hint that Jesus was somehow not a complete man was rejected as anti‑Christian theology.� This is not an easy concept to grasp that one can be equally God and man, but as Robert Capon writes, "The rule of theology is: when you've got two truths which you can't hold in harmony, you don't solve the problem by letting one of them go. You hold on tight and hold them both in paradox."

�� The only way you can understand how Jesus could be God and still pray "not my will but thine be done" is to recognize that Jesus had a human will. His human nature had a will of its own, just like ours has, and he had to surrender that will to the will of the Father, just as we do. This is a major truth and we see Paul beginning this letter to the Romans by asserting this doctrine as the very foundation of the Gospel. You do not have to know that Jesus preached the Sermon On The Mount to be a Christian. You do not have to believe that Jesus took a towel and washed his disciples feet. There are dozens of facts about Jesus you do not even have to know to be a Christian, but you do have to believe that he was fully God and fully man to be an authentic Christian.

�� This has profound implications for the Christian view of man. Your view of human nature will have an effect on all you are and all you believe as a Christian. Those who have a low view of human nature have a hard time loving lost and sinful people.� A police officer was complaining one day when it was dull and nothing was going wrong in society. He was griping because their was not robberies or fights of murders, and not even a stolen car. He said, "If this keeps up they will be reducing the force and we will be out of a job." The chief responded, "Don't worry Pete. Something will happen. I've got faith in human nature."

�� He was right, and you can count on human nature to be doing something evil and illegal very soon. Crime, war, greed, and folly of all kinds is never far away because of fallen human nature. Jeremiah said that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Paul says in Rom. 8:7‑8, "The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God." The Bible repeats this often, but Christians have applied this truth to life in a way that is misleading. They say that since man is such a miserable sinner that means he is worthless. This is not so, for God gave his Son and Jesus gave his life because of a high view of the worth of man.

�� Man was the crowing work of God in creation, and he said his work was, not just good, but very good. Human nature was his best work for he made man in his image. Man fell and filled the creation with great evil, but God never gave up on this great work. He was determined that man would be restored to the goodness in which he was made, and that he would spend eternity in that state with God. God's view of man is to be the view that we have, and that is that sinful human nature if worth a great price to save and restore to its state of goodness.

�� We do not look at a rotten tomato and conclude that is what tomatoes are. They are soft and slimy, black and moldy worthless fruit. That may be what a rotten tomato is, but that is not the nature of tomatoes. The tomato as God made it is a firm and brightly colored fruit with hundreds of delicious uses beneficial to man.� The rotten tomato is just as real as the ideal tomato, but the ideal one is the one that is what a tomato is meant to be. The rotten one is the product of decay and death. If you apply this illustration to man, you need to see man for what he was meant to be, and what God can make him to be, and not what he is when he is filled with decay and death.� Man fell and filled the creation with great evil, but God never gave up on this great work. He was determined that man would be restored to the goodness in which he was made, and that he would spend eternity in that state with God. God's view of man is to be the view that we have, and that is that sinful human nature if worth a great price to save and restore to its state of goodness.

�� We do not look at a rotten tomato and conclude that is what tomatoes are. They are soft and slimy, black and moldy worthless fruit. That may be what a rotten tomato is, but that is not the nature of tomatoes. The tomato as God made it is a firm and brightly colored fruit with hundreds of delicious uses beneficial to man.� The rotten tomato is just as real as the ideal tomato, but the ideal one is the one that is what a tomato is meant to be. The rotten one is the product of decay and death. If you apply this illustration to man, you need to see man for what he was meant to be, and what God can make him to be, and not what he is when he is filled with decay and death.� You do not define anything by its worst example, and so you should not define man that way either.

�� So when we look at man and ask what is man?‑ we do not go to the drunk in the gutter, or to the sophisticated scoundrel who rips off widows. They are men alright, but they are poor specimens of the species. Even so they are worth saving because of what man is. He is not just a drunk and a scoundrel, but he is one made in the image of God. He can become a being that is so good that a holy God can be pleased with him. Man is always far more than the sum total of his sin and folly. He is a being who can become a child of God.� You do not define man by looking only at the first Adam. You need to look at the second Adam to get the real and true image of man. Jesus is what man was meant to be, and he is what man will be again by the grace of God.

�� You can say all you want about the depravity of fallen man, and you will be right, for it is all true, but the final word about man is not his fallen nature, but his redeemed nature. Satan did his best to spoil the second Adam too, but he failed, and the result is Jesus and his perfect human nature will be the final word about man.� We are not to define man by the worst examples.� We don't do that with anything else.� We don't define a lake as a weed infested swamp unfit for human pleasure just because such things do exist.� A lake is a beautiful body of water full of potential for human pleasure.� We don't define milk as a soar, bacteria infested liquid that can make you sick.� No matter how much of this there really is, that is not what milk is.� You define things by their best example and not their worst, and so it is with human nature.� What is it?� It is the greatest work of God known to us in this world.� It is a channel of all that is good and God‑like in this world, and the proof of it is the manhood of Jesus Christ.� He is what man is.

�� You cannot look at any other man and say this is the best God could do, and this is what He made man to be.� But you can look at Jesus and say that, for He is man as God meant man to be.� This changes the entire Christian perspective on what it means to be human.� We can get so down on the depravity of man that we come to despise being human, and this is folly.� The more human we become, the more Christ‑like we become.� The goal of God is that all His children become as human as His incarnate Son.� The point of redemption is not to take man out of his manhood and make him angelic, or some other creature.� The point is to restore him to full and complete manhood.� The destiny of the redeemed is to be as fully human as Jesus.

�� R. Lofton Hudson wrote a book called, Helping Each Other Be Human.� The point of the book is that the purpose of the Christian life is to be more human.� We call it being sanctified, or being Christ‑like.� Paul says it is being called to be saints.� But all of this, in the light of who Jesus was, means we are called to be as truly human as He was.� Christians sometimes get all bent out of shape over whether we are God‑centered or man‑centered, and they forget that if we are Christ‑centered the distinction evaporates, for He was God and man. ��The human and the divine are of equal importance in a Christ‑centered theology.�

�� The Psalmist asks, "What is man that thou art mindful of him?"� And the answer is Jesus.� That is what man is, and that is why God is mindful of him, and why he pays the ultimate price to save him.� He is for sure a rotten apple, but God has His own proverb about apples.� Our human proverb is that one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel.� God's view is just the opposite, for He says that one perfect apple in a barrel of rotten ones can restore them to what apples were meant to be.� Only a real and perfect man could do it, and that is why Christians have fought off every attempt to minimize or modify the manhood of Jesus.�

�� Only man could offer a sacrifice to please God, but only God could provide such a sacrifice, and so the only hope of man was a God‑man, and so Jesus is the only answer.� To know Jesus is to know all there is to know of God, and all there is to know of man.� He is the best of both.� He was man as God intended man to be as one imperfect fellowship and obedience to his creator.� How human can God be?� The answer is Jesus.� How divine can man be?� The answer is Jesus.�

�� David Read, the contemporary preacher and author, quotes the Christmas Carol:� "The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying He makes."� Read says, "I don't believe it.� Jesus was a real baby and He cried like all other babies.� He wept as a man and He cried as a baby."� We dare not deny any aspect of the reality of His humanity, for He was totally human.� He is the one perfect apple that will restore the barrel of rotten humanity to what God intended man to be.� We are all spoiled apples, but by faith in Jesus Christ we can be assured of enjoying forever a perfected human nature.� May God help us to be biblically intelligent Christians who not only enjoy Christmas and Easter, but know why we do, and acknowledge that our Lord Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man.��

4.� ��THE GOSPEL OF GOD'S PROMISE�� Based on Rom. 1:1‑7

�Paul Robeson was a famous American Negro singer back in the 30's and 40's.� It was announced in London that his great singer would broadcast a concert from Russia where he was then living.� The people of London filled the large concert hall to standing room only waiting to hear this broadcast.� It was to begin right at noon, but as that moment came and announcer came on the stage, and people could tell by his face that he had bad news.� "My friends," he said, "I have a very disappointing announcement to make to you.� You have gathered here to listen to the beautiful music of Mr. Paul Robeson.� But at the last moment word has come that the Russian authorities have decided not to permit him to make this broadcast."�

�� A murmur of disappointment echoed across the hall from these expectant listeners.� They were shocked by this announcement.� But then the stage door opened and Paul Robeson himself walked in.� The announcer was just as puzzled as the people.� But then the crowd burst forth with delighted applause.� Robeson explained in these words:� "The Russian authorities refused to allow me to broadcast, and, rather than disappoint this audience, I hired a plane at my own expense and flew to London.� I just landed at Croyden Field, got a taxi, and here I am.� I never break a promise or disappoint an audience if it is humanly possible to keep and engagement."

�� In the world of entertainment where the theme is, "The show must go on," I am sure there are numerous stories of sacrifice and super‑human efforts to see that promises are kept.� Whatever the motive, many have said with Robert Frost:

The woods are lonely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

�� Samuel Johnson commended Duke William III back in 1777 by saying of him, "If, for instance, he had promised you and acorn and none had grown that year in his woods, he would not have contented himself with that excuse; he would have sent to Denmark for it."� We know politicians are notorious for breaking promises, but it is good to face the reality of the other side, and see that it is also true that many have been famous for keeping promises.� Emperor Charles V promised Martin Luther safe conduct to his trial at Worms.� His enemies tried to persuade the emperor that a promise to a heretic does not need to be kept.� He refused to buy this and said, "Whatever promise has been made must be fulfilled."�

�� The point of all this is that it can be established that even on a human level men can be faithful to their promises.� How much more will God be faithful to His promises?� An elderly Christian was in distress as he lay dying.� He said to his pastor, "I have relied on God's promises all my life, but now in the hour of death I can't remember a single one to comfort me."� The pastor knowing that Satan was trying to rob him of his faith said to him, "Do you think God will forget any of His promises just because you do?"� A smile came over his face and he said joyfully, "No, no He won't!"� He fell asleep in Jesus with peaceful assurance that God would keep all His promises.�

�� One of Satan's most powerful weapons is to get Christians to doubt God's promises.� One of the most dramatic true stories I have ever read of spiritual warfare over the promises of God is that of Roger Simons.� He was hitching a ride home after he got out of the service.� A big black Cadillac finally stopped and he hopped in.� The driver was Mr. Hanover, a business man from Chicago. They talked about many things, and Roger felt the Holy Spirit urging him to witness.� He resisted because this man was obviously rich, sophisticated, and worldly, and could care less what Roger thought about life and religion.� But as they came closer to where he would be dropped off he felt the impulse to witness so strongly that he could not remain silent.� He began to share his faith and what Christ had done for him, and to his surprise Mr. Hanover pulled off to the side of the road, and he prayed to receive Christ as his Savior.�

�� Roger was soon let out by his home, and Mr. Hanover gave him his card and told him to come and see him if he ever came to Chicago.� Roger had a lot of joy in being home and seeing his family, but no joy was greater than that of being used to lead another into the kingdom of God.� Roger married and got into his own business.�� It was 5 years later when he had an occasion to go to Chicago.� When he packed he found the card that Mr. Hanover had given him, and he decided that he would look him up.

�� When he got to the Hanover Enterprises Building he asked the receptionists if he could see Mr. Hanover.� She said she would call Mrs. Hanover.� He thought that was strange for he did not know her.� Her first question to him was, "Did you know my husband?"� Roger said, "Yes.� I met him when he picked me up 5 years ago."� She asked, "What day was that?"� He thought for a while and remembered it was the day of his discharge.� "May 7th," he replied.� Mrs. Hanover was nervous and asked, "Did you talk of anything special?"� Roger said, "Yes we did.� I talked with him about his soul." Her lips began to tremble and she asked, "What was his response?"� He said, "He pulled to the side of the road and gave his life to Christ."�

�� Explosive sobs gripped Mrs Hanover and she let loose with a flood of tears. Roger was puzzled. Finally she got a grip on her emotions and explained that she had prayed for her husband for years, and she felt God had promised her he would be saved. Roger asked, "Where is he now?" She went on to tell him that he was dead, and that he died in an accident shortly after he let him out of the car. She said, "I thought God had not kept his promise, and I have been living for 5 years feeling that he let me down." God had been faithful to his promise, but she did not have the faith to believe. This has always been man's major problem. They will not believe God's promises. Adam and Eve were assured of the best possible life if they obeyed God, but they did not believe and that was the beginning of the problems of mankind.

�� God promised Israel the land flowing with milk and honey, but they did not believe and had to march in the desert for 40 years until all� the doubter were dead. All through the Bible men are seen missing God's best because they do not believe his promises. The biggest and most central promise of all is the one Paul deals with in this introduction to the book of Romans. This one is also often missed, but Paul is called to take this promise to the Gentiles so that they might get in on it, and not miss out on the greatest promise ever given. It is the Gospel. It is the Gospel he promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

�� The Gospel is not something new. God's good news is as old as God's heart of love for man. He was promising man all through the Old Testament that He was sending a Savior into the world. No matter how awful life was in the Old Testament, the saints then had a foundation for optimism because God gave them a promise of good news. And when you can anticipate good news, you can handle almost anything.� One of the first things Paul establishes is the continuity of the Old and the New Testaments. God never expected anyone to ever be saved by the law. It was faith in his promise that was always the basis for salvation. Salvation by faith has always been God's plan.

�� You cannot have faith without a promise. Faith has to have some ground to stand on, and that ground is the promise of God. Standing on the promises of God is the theme song of the saints of all time. God promised Adam and Eve that a seed would come from them that would crush Satan's head. God promised Abraham that a seed from him would be a blessing to the whole world. God promised David that his seed would rule in righteousness, and all the prophets pointed to the coming seed who would save the people of Israel, and the Gentiles as well. The entire Old Testament hope was based on the Gospel of God's promise. It is this promise that makes the Old and New Testaments one book. They are different in many ways, but the thread that sews them together as one is the promise of God.

The New is in the Old concealed.

The Old is in the New revealed.

The New is in the Old contained.

The Old is in the New explained.

�� After Jesus rose from the dead the first teaching he did was with the two on the road to Emmaus. Luke 24:27 says, "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." Jesus said that he was the focus of the Old Testament promises, and that now he had fulfilled them. Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews in John 5:39, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me." Jesus claims that the focus of the entire Old Testament was on him, and that he was the Promised One of God's Old Testament Gospel. Paul preached this to Jews and Gentiles alike in Acts 13:23 where he said, "God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised."

�� People often ask how people were saved in the Old Testament, and the answer is that they were saved the same as people in the New Testament. All people are saved by faith in the promise of God, which was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.� The great faith chapter of Hebrews 11 ends with these words in vv. 39‑40, "These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." All the Old Testament saints were saved by faith in the promise of God that he would send a Savior, and all New Testament saints are saved by faith that Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise.

�� Two little girls were playing together and one said, "Lets count our pennies." The one counted and said I have five. The other put down the same number and said I have ten. The first girl protested and said, "You have the same number that I do." "I know," said the girl, "but my daddy promised he would give me five more when he came home from work, and so I have ten." She was counting what was promised to her, for she had faith to believe that she already possessed what was promised. This is how people were saved in the Old Testament. They had faith to believe the promise of God, and so they possessed the salvation he promised, even before it became an historical reality.

�� Now why does Paul make an issue about the Gospel of God being promised beforehand in the Old Testament, and why does he stress throughout the letter the continuity between the Old and New Testaments?� The reason is clear as you to through the letter. Paul was writing in a context where racism and prejudice was even greater than they are today. Why would Paul in v. 16 say "I am not ashamed of the Gospel?" I was because many saw the Gospel as a Jewish religion, and they despised the Jews. And the Jews saw it as a perversion of Judaism and designed for the Gentile dogs. Paul's whole stress in this letter is that God does not have different strokes for different folks, but that all people are the same. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and all have only one way to be saved, and that is by faith in the promise of God.

�� One of the major purposes of this letter is to make it clear as crystal that all men are in the same boat, and that all are equally lost and all have an equal chance to be saved by faith. There is no special plan for the Jews, or some modified plan for the Gentiles. There is only one Gospel, and there is only one way for all men to get in on this good news, and that is by faith in the promise of God fulfilled in Christ. We enter the Kingdom by faith, we live by faith, we walk by faith, we work by faith, and we worship by faith. Faith in the promises of God is the foundation of all in God's plan.

�� When we cease to live by faith we become poor, negative Christians, and we lose the joy of our salvation. D. L. Moody said, "...if you would spend a month feeding on the precious promises of God you wouldn't be going about complaining how poor you are. You would lift up your head and proclaim the riches of his Grace, because you couldn't help doing it."

�� The Old Testament not only reveals the perpetual failure of man, but the perpetual faithfulness of God. He never forgot his promises, and he remained faithful to his people no matter how rebellious and disobedient they were. We need to keep in mind that there were also negative promises, and if they disobeyed they would be severely punished. These were also kept faithfully, and they suffered much judgment.� A young boy was asked, "Did your father promise you something if you cut the grass?" He responded, "No, but he promised me something if I didn't." We will focus on the judgment later in Romans, but now we are focused on the positive promise of the Gospel.

�� Gen. 8:22 says, "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." God promised to be faithful just as surely as they could count on the seasons. Alice Mortenson wrote,

Like Seasons faithful in their change,

God's promises stand out

To cheer the earth‑bound traveler on

That none may make him doubt.

Like A Rainbow in the eastern sky

When wind and cloud are still,

They span God's Word with beauty

And our whole horizon fill.

Like Stars upon a lonely night,

When hope seems almost dead,

They shine upon the Christian's path

And point to heaven ahead!

�� This theme of God's faithfulness to his promises is a major theme of Romans, for Paul is stressing how the Gospel of God was promised beforehand in the prophets. He is calling our attention to the fact that the New Testament has its roots in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a crucial document that establishes that everything has been tried, and the conclusion is conclusive that man cannot save himself. He cannot even do it with God's help and God given tools like the law. Man just cannot do it.

�� If we did not have the Old Testament we could always wonder what if we had an all wise, powerful, and rich ruler? What if such a person could solve all the problems of man. Surely with such a leader we could save ourselves and establish a utopia. The fact is that Solomon was just such a man, and he did bring about a golden age to Israel. It was as good as it gets. But the bottom line is that it did not work. Solomon fell into idolatry and the whole kingdom was soon crumbling and again under the judgment of God. The best that man could produce, even with God's blessing, could not save man. His house of self‑salvation came tumbling down like a house of cards in a storm.

�� If there is a lot about the Old Testament that you do not like, do not feel bad, for God did not like it either. His judgment was almost seasonal so frequent was it needed. All that man did failed, and even all the God did failed in the Old Testament. Nothing was able to save man from himself. The law, the sacrificial system, the ministry of priests and prophets, it was all to no avail in saving man. The only hope of the Old Testament was the promise of God to send a Savior into the world, and man's faith in God to keep this promise. God had to let man get all of his theories about saving himself out of his system before he sent his Son. Man in his stubborn pride thinks he can do it on his own, and so God had to give him every chance to do it his way to see how futile it was.

�� If God had not given his promise of a Savior there would have been only despair in the Old Testament. The only Gospel they had was the promise of God, and that promise was fulfilled in Jesus. Paul stood up in the synagogue at Antioch and said to the Jews in Acts 13:32‑33, "We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus."� Paul goes further in I Cor. 1:20 and says, "No matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ." In other words, every promise of God ever made is fulfilled in his Son the Lord Jesus.

�� In Jesus the age of promise became the age of fulfillment. But let us never forget that the promise was potent enough to save all who believed it. This is still relevant today because to live by faith still means to stand on the promises of God. J. Richie� Smith said, "The Bible opens with the promise of the first coming of Christ and ends with the promise of his second coming, and all the way between is strewn with promises as sky is studded with stars."� All of God's people of all time live on the same principle, and that is by having faith in the promises of God.

5. ��CALLED TO OBEDIENCE based on Rom. 1:1‑7

� Colonel Wilbur Rogers was ordered to let loose an artillery barrage in a World War I battle. He was right there on the battlefield, and he could see what the commander could not see. If he fired as ordered he would shell 10,000 American infantry just ahead of him. He refused to obey an order that would have killed his own soldiers, and the result was he was immediately removed from his command and arrested. Charges were preferred against him, and he was reduced to a class B status, which means he was deemed unfit to hold commission in active service. Colonel Rogers fought in court for 14 years to prove that there are circumstances where disobedience to orders is a manifestation of common sense. Finally in 1934 he was vindicated and President Roosevelt signed a bill that reinstated him to class A status.

�� Blind obedience to orders that you know are based on ignorance of the circumstances is not a virtue, especially when you do know the circumstances and can make a wiser decision. On the other hand, when you are the one who is ignorant of the circumstances it is a virtue to give blind obedience to those in authority over you. This is illustrated by the Eastern King who hired two men to pull water out of a well and pour it into a basket. After awhile one of them said that it was foolishness. The water runs through the sides of the basket and the labor was in vain. The other one said that they were being paid good to do it and so it is the master's business. The first man was not satisfied and just threw the basket down and quit. The other man went on doing the job, and when he got to the bottom of the well he learned the purpose of his labor. There was a precious diamond ring that had fallen into the well. Had it been brought up before they got to the bottom it would have been found in the basket. It was not useless labor at all. The worker who remained faithful to the task was greatly rewarded because he worked on when he did not understand the purpose of it.

�� The king had planned the whole thing, for he was looking for a reliable servant who would obey him even when they did not understand his plan. This has been God's search all through history. He has ever sought for servants who would obey him. Abraham was one of his best servants and we read in Heb. 11:8, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." In blind obedience he did what God ordered, and became the number one example of a man of faith. He even obeyed God when he was asked to sacrifice his own son Isaac. It made no sense, for God had promised him a great host of descendants as vast as the sand of the seashore. But he had faith that God would keep his promise, and so he was ready to do what made no sense to him. God, of course, did not let him do it, and provided the substitute lamb for the sacrifice.

�� If you study all of the heroes of the faith, you discover that the virtue they all had in common was the virtue of obedience. They were different in many ways, but they were all obedient to what they knew was the will of God. Obedience was the key virtue in the Bible and still is today. The first sin in the Garden of Eden was the sin of disobedience, and this is the essence of all sin. It is those who obey who will have access again to the tree of life in the eternal kingdom.

�� Some may be thinking that love is the supreme virtue, and this is correct. But the Bible so links love and obedience that they are married and become one. You cannot have one without the other. Jesus said in John 14:21, "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." Then two verses later he says, "If a man love me, he will keep my words." We make a distinction between a professing Christian and a possessing Christian because it is not words buy obedience that makes a true believer. In Matt. 7:21 Jesus says, "Not every one that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." It is in obedience to God that we demonstrate faith and manifest love. Without obedience all the lovely language and professions are mere stubble that will quickly perish in the fires of judgment.

�� We do not grasp the goal of God at all unless we see that the bottom line is obedience to his will. F. B. Huey Jr. wrote an article for Christianity Today that was titled Obedience A Neglected Doctrine. In this article he tells us that obedience is so practical that we would rather focus on other doctrines that are merely intellectual groping for the truth. Obedience is hard because it demands that you act and back up your profession with behavior. He wrote, "If we are completely honest, we will admit that obedience is the biblical doctrine most difficult to put into practice. We preach, teach, give a tithe or more, go to the mission field, may even be willing to die for the faith; but how many of us will at the end of this life be able to say: 'I led every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.' (II Cor. 10:5)? Total surrender is often talked about, but it is far easier to preach than to practice."

�� Because we do not like to submit to be a slave to God's will we tend to let obedience slide. Professor Huey wrote again, "The alarming statistical decrease in conversions in recent years is partly explained by the lessened insistence upon obedience of children in the home. A well‑known evangelist has pointed out that it is very difficult to win to Christ people who as children never learned obedience. If a person does not respect his earthly parents, how much more difficult it is for him to obey the Father in heaven. Parents who teach their children the importance of obedience are preparing them for salvation." Obedience on any level has eternal implications.

�� We are spending a lot to time looking at the first few verses of this great letter because it is universally agreed upon that Paul gives us a mini‑outline of the entire letter in this introduction. John MacArthur is one of the most popularmis Bible teachers of our day and he says, "...the entire thrust of all 16 chapters of Romans is distilled into the first seven verses‑Paul is so thrilled by what he wants to say that he can't wait to say it. He capsulizes his foundational thoughts in Rom. 1:1‑7. It is as if the seed of the Gospel is sown in the first seven verses and then fully blooms throughout the rest of the epistle."

�� It pays to go slow when you are panning for gold, for those who go fast are sure to throw away nuggets with the pebbles.� Some lost is inevitable for no man has ever gotten them all.� Martin Lloyd Jones preached on Romans for 8 years.� Donald Gray Barnhouse preached on it for 3 and a half years, and greatly influenced Chuck Swindoll who preached on it for nearly a year.� None of them claimed to cover the subject thoroughly, for it is a lifetime task.� John Calvin in his commentary on Romans wrote, "...when anyone gains a knowledge of the Epistle, he has an entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture."�

�� Most of us usually skip through the introduction and miss the treasures.� So far we have looked at 1.� The Preachers Of The Gospel.� 2.� The Promise Of The Gospel.� 3.� The Person Of The Gospel.� And now we are looking at 4.� The Purpose Of The Gospel.� Paul spells it out in verse 5 where he says the whole purpose of his receiving grace and apostleship was to call people from all the Gentiles to the obedience which comes from faith.� This is just another way of stating the Great Commission of Christ who said in Matt. 28:19‑20, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."� The bottom line is obedience, for the finished product is to be obedient disciples.

�� Walter Isenhour tells of the English farmer who saw a party of horsemen riding toward a field that he did not want trampled.� He sent one of his boys to shut the gate and not let it be opened.� He got there just in time.� When the horsemen came they ordered the gate to be opened.� The boy refused stating his orders.� Threats and bribes failed to move him.� Then one of the riders said, "My boy, I am the Duke of Wellington.� I command you to open that gate that I and my friends may pass through."� The boy removed his cap to honor this man all England delighted to honor, but he said firmly, "I am sure the Duke of Wellington would not want me to disobey orders.� I must keep the gate shut and not allow anyone to pass but by my master's permission."� Greatly pleased, the old warrior lifted his own hat and said, "I honor the boy or man who can be neither bribed nor frightened into doing wrong."� Handing the boy a sovereign, the old Duke put spurs to his horse and galloped away.

�� The purpose of the Gospel is not just to save people for heaven, but to produce people on earth in all nations who will be that kind of obedient servant, and be loyal to Christ above all others.� But notice carefully what Paul says about this obedience in verse 5.� It is obedience that comes from faith.� There is obedience that comes from force and from fear also, but this is not the kind of obedience that Jesus wants.� He wants obedience that is by choice and not by coercion.� The purpose of the Gospel is to get people of all nations to be voluntary slaves of Christ.� These are people who choose to obey His commands because they want to, and because they belong to Him, and they believe His promises.�

�� Obedience that comes from faith is not an I have to obey attitude, but it is an I want to obey attitude.� I want to please my Lord.� We have not arrived at God's goal for the Gospel until we do His will because we love Him and want to do His will.�� If we obey because we feel guilty if we don't, or feel pressured by the need to conform, or by some other external motive, we have not yet arrived at Christian maturity.�

�� A rich man� had a son that he loved dearly, but who died at a young age.� The father died not long after, and he stipulated in his will that all of his art treasures were to be auctioned off, and to begin with the portrait of his son.� He had many treasured paintings, but the portrait of his son was by an obscure artist, and so most just waiting for this to be out of the way.� In fact, there was only one bid, and that was by the servant of the wealthy man who had also loved the son and wanted to possess his portrait.� The auctioneer handed the portrait to the servant, and then went on to read the net portion of the will.�� "All the rest of my treasures will go to the one who loved my son enough to purchase his portrait."� The parallel is not in the purchase, where there is no price on the Gospel.� The parallel is in the love for the Son.� Those who love the Son God gave to fulfill His promise will receive with their choice to love Jesus all the riches that go with the inheritance of Him who is a perfect portrait of the Father.�

�� You do not come to Jesus because you have to, but you come because you want to. You do not obey Jesus because you have to, but you obey because you want to.� This is the obedience that comes from faith, and this is the goal of the Gospel.� It is the very purpose for which Paul is writing this letter, and why he longs to go to Rome and preach the Gospel.� The Greek word here for obedience is used 14 times in all of the New Testament.� Seven of them are used right here in this letter to the Romans.� Obedience is a major theme of this letter.

�� The entire plan of salvation revolves around obedience.� Paul writes in

Rom. 5:19, "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."� Obedience is a major New Testament doctrine because by it Jesus became the perfect man, and so was the perfect sacrifice that made it possible for God to save us.� We are saved, not just by the sacrifice of Christ, but by His obedience.� His sacrifice would have been worth nothing had He not first been obedient.� His death on the cross was His supreme act of obedience.

�� Phil. 2:6‑9 says, "Who, being in nature God, did not consider equally with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death‑even death on a cross!� Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name."� Jesus made it to the top by obedience.� It was not by force, by deeds, or clever maneuvering, but by obedience.� To be like Christ is to be obedient to the Father's will.�� To be a disciple of Jesus, and to be a saint, are just different ways of describing the call to obedience that comes from faith.

�� Paul makes it clear in this letter that the whole purpose of his ministry was to lead people to obedience. In Romans 15:17‑18 he writes, "Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done." Paul would be very please if his epitaph read, "Here lies the man who led Gentiles to obey God." This was his glory and in the final chapter of this letter he says in 16:19, "Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you." Paul's joy was not based on the numbers, as is so often the case in our culture, nor on the amount of money given. Paul's joy was in their obedience, for that is the very purpose of the Gospel, and the purpose of his ministry.

�� In the next to the last verse of this letter in 16:26 Paul sums it up again by writing, "That all nations might believe and obey him." Nothing, and I mean nothing is more pleasing to God than obedience. God said to Abraham in Gen. 22:18. "Through your offspring all the nations on earth will be blessed." Then he tells Abraham why: "because you have obeyed me."

A. W. Tozer wrote, "The church of our day has soft‑pedaled the doctrine of obedience, either neglecting it altogether or mentioning it only apologetically and, as it were, by the way. This results from a fundamental confusion of obedience with works in the minds of preacher and people. To escape the error of salvation by works, we have fallen into the opposite error of salvation without obedience. In our eagerness to get rid of the legalistic doctrine of works, we have thrown out the baby with the bath water and gotten rid of obedience as well."

�� There are two basic things the Bible gives us, and they are promises to believe and commandments to obey. We tend to favor the promises and neglect the commands. This is like trying to plow with one live and one dead horse. It will not work, for you need a team of two live horses to get the job done.� Many stress the promises to be believed as if this was the same as obedience. But you do not obey a promise. You believe it and trust it, but you do not obey it. Others will stress the commands to be obeyed and give the impression that you can save yourself by obeying the ten commandments and others. This is legalism and salvation by works and misses the need for faith in the finished work of Christ, and living by faith in the promises of God.� You do not have faith in a command, but you obey it, and so they miss out on the need for faith in the promises of God and dependence on God's grace. Both are half right and all wrong, and they produce incomplete Christians.

�� We all need to listen to Paul's stress on obedience that comes from faith. He agrees with James that faith without works is dead, and also that works without faith is dead. You need both to have a true Christian theology. One without the other is Laurel without Hardy, or Abbott without Costello, or salt without pepper, and a horse without a carriage. If they are not a team you do not have a biblical view of God's plan and purpose for man. It is a common misconception that one is doing just fine if they have correct ideas about biblical truths, even if they do not live in obedience to the commands of the Bible. Such a slipshod Christianity cannot change society, for it does not even change those who profess such a perverted faith. Without obedience to God's revealed will any profession of being a Christian is phony. An authentic Christian will still be a sinner and will fail, but they will be always striving to obey all they understand of God's will for their life.

�� If you do not remember anything else in Paul's introduction to Romans, remember verse 5 and the purpose of Paul in his ministry to call people from all nations to obedience that comes from faith.� A. W. Tozer again wrote, "The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith.� The two are opposite sides of the same coin.� What does all this add up to?� What are its practical implications for us plain Christians today?� Of this we can be certain:� God is waiting in all readiness to send down floods of blessing upon us as soon as we begin to obey His plain instructions.� We need no new doctrine, no new movement, no "key," no important evangelist or expensive, "course" to show us the way.� It is before us as clear as a four‑lane highway.� To any enquirer, I would say: "Just do the next thing you know you should do, to carry out the will of the Lord."�

�� If God's people would have obeyed Him the Old Testament would not be filled with violence and judgment, but it would be a perpetual proof of just how close even fallen man can live to paradise.� They failed, and so do we, but the challenge is ever before us. �This is God's goal in history to produce in every nation people who will obey Him.� Chuck Swindoll said, "Only one decision pleases God‑obedience."� This means there is only one way to success that fits God's definition of success, and that is by obedience.�

�� Heaven and hell, and everything in between, meaning all of history, revolves around the issue of obedience.� Paul wrote in II Thess. 1:18 that when Jesus comes again in judgment, "He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus."� Not to obey is to reserve a place in hell.� On the other hand, we read in Heb. 5:8‑9, "Although he was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered, and once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him." Heaven is the destiny of those who live in obedience.� May God help us all to recognize this great truth that we are called to obedience.

6.�� ESTABLISHED BY ENCOURAGEMENT� Based on Rom. 1:11‑13

�� One of the greatest heroes in Minnesota history was James Root of White Bear.� He was the engineer on the No. 4 Limited the day it pulled out of Duluth heading for St. Paul on Sept. 1, 1894.� Before that day ended he saved the lives of nearly 400 people.� Unknown to him and his passengers they were heading into one of the worse fires in history.� It completely destroyed 6 Minnesota villages killing 420 people, and it turned every thing to ashes over an area of 350 square miles.

�� As Root brought his train to Hinkley he saw masses of people running down the track toward him.� He stopped the train and jumped out of the cab.� He soon learned that Hinkley was a furnace, and that a tornado of flame was heading their way.� He encouraged the 300 people of men, women, and children to get on board.� By the time they did the heat was already so intense that it shattered the window of his cab and cut his forehead.� He put the train in reverse and headed back to Skunk Lake, a small station 4 miles North.

�� The heat was so intense that his fire man climbed into the water tank.� He was alone and fighting for his own survival.� His hands were so burned he feared rubbing them lest he tare off the flesh.� The cars were all on fire and the glass was melting.�� It was torture for the passengers to breathe, but Root kept the train moving and got it to the Skunk Lake bridge where there was a swamp with a few feet of water.� He and the passengers got into this swamp and watched the train be destroyed by the flames.� Had Root not been strong in his determination all 400 hundred would have perished.�

�� Hero stories are almost always stories of strength where you see exhibited strength of body, mind and will.� All the heroes of the Bible were not as strong as Samson, but they were all strong in their commitment to the God of Israel, who was called the Strength of Israel.� Habakkuk ends his prophecy with these words, "The Sovereign Lord is my strength."� Over and over the Psalms refer to God as the source of strength, and He is named Strength.�

Psa. 18:1, "I love you, O Lord, my strength."

Psa. 18:32, "It is God who arms me with strength."

Psa. 22:19, "David cries out to God O my Strength, come quickly to help me."

�� There are dozens of references to God as my strength and song.� The joy of the Lord is my strength, and the purpose of worship is to enter into the beauty of God's presence to be strengthened by his strength.� The saints are urged to seek God's strength and to be clothed with it.� They are to walk in His strength for a life of joy and victory.� All of this becomes the background for our understanding of Paul's concept of Christian worship and fellowship.� He writes to the Romans here in chapter 1 verse 11 that he longs to be with them to impart to them some spiritual gift, and why does he feel this is important?� He says the purpose of the gift is to make you strong.

�� Weak Christians are a great problem.� Therefore, the greatest solution to this problem is to make Christians strong.� That is the point of the gifts of the Spirit.� That is the point of worship and Christian fellowship.� Strong Christians are obedient Christians, and weak Christians are disobedient Christians.� The only the church can fulfill God's purpose in history is to help Christians be strong.� Paul is not so proud as to think that he does not need the strength that can come from them.� In verse 12 he says that he wants to see them, not just to give strength but to receive it, and that they might be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.�

�� Here is the most powerful reason there is for Christians to get together.� It is that they might encourage and make each other stronger.� Paul knows what anyone knows who tries to live in full obedience to God.� It is hard, and there is an ever present temptation to throw in the towel and take the easy way out, and just drift along with the culture.� Swimming against the stream and climbing the mountain of the upward call leads to burn out and discouragement.� We need to be renewed and strengthened to keep going.� We come together to hear the Word of God in order to charge our batteries so that we can go away saying with Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."� We can then resist the devil; resist conformity to the world, and in spite of our weakness be witnesses for Christ.

�� The point of coming to church is to come out of the world to worship God, and then be strengthened to go back into the world to work for God.� You need energy to be a witness.� You need to overcome all the natural weaknesses of the flesh, and recognize that every day you touch lives with either that weakness or the power of God.� George Elliot wrote,

Every soul that touches yours‑

Be it the slightest contact‑

Gets therefrom some good;

Some little grace; one kindly thought;

One aspiration yet unfelt;

One bit of courage

For the darkening sky;

One gleam of faith

To brave the thickening ills of life;

One glimpse of brighter skies

Beyond the gathering mists‑

To make this life worth while

And heaven a surer heritage.

�� This is true if you are strong.� If you are weak, you are part of the problem and not part of the answer.� Weak Christians offend people and make them doubt the value of being saved.� They do not attack but repel people because they operate in their own strength, which is weakness, rather than in the strength of Christ which draws men to Himself.�

�� The Roman Christians had to be fairly strong and mature, for the report of their faith had spread all over the known world.� Nevertheless, Paul says they still need to be made strong.� The implication is that every Christian, including himself, needs to be strengthened.� There is no such thing as a Christian who is too strong.� There is no level a Christian can reach where he is no longer in need of encouragement and strengthening that comes from other Christians and their gifts.

�� If anyone could be a lone ranger Christian it would be Paul, but he admits he needed the encouragement of their faith.� Anyone who claims to be so strong that they never need the encouragement of others has achieved a level that is no where recognized in the New Testament.� Look at verse 13, and you can see Paul admitting to his frustration.� He says that he planned many times to come to them but was prevented.� Maybe you thought that being an Apostle of Christ was a perpetual joyride where everything worked out and nothing ever went wrong.� The fact is, Paul's plans fell through over and over again.� He did not get to do what he wanted to do.� It is a great disappointment to have your plans not work out when all you want to do is serve the Lord and do good.� It is bad enough when the plan goes sour once or twice, but when it happens many times you feel jinxed and begin to wonder if you should just give up.�

�� There are disappointments in serving Jesus, that is why Paul needed the encouragement of others, and that is why we all do.� The only way any Christian can be obedient over the long hall, and not get weary in well doing, is to be encouraged by other believers and strengthened to keep running the race.� Paul needed it more than most, for he had problems, trials, and burdens that go beyond what most ever have to bear.� He writes in II Cor. 1:8‑9, "We do not want you t be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death."

�� In II Cor. 4:8 Paul says that he was perplexed in all his trials. The word means to be at a loss to explain what is happening. Paul could not understand why he had to experience so much disappointment. Here is a man who has more revelation from God than any man who has ever lived, and yet he does not know all the plans of God. He sees through a glass darkly. There is no one who can rise so far above the rest of us in spirituality that they do not need the encouragement of the rest of the body.

�� Daniel Tayler tells of his father who had a dream come true. He got to be a bat boy for the Chicago Cubs. All was going fine until in a late inning the pitcher came to bat and got a hit. Someone threw him a jacket and said take it to the pitcher. He did not know that in the major leagues the pitcher put on a jacket when he got on base. He only knew one pitcher in the game and so he ran out to the mound to hand the jacket to him. People were shouting at him to take it to the pitcher, but the pitcher was refusing it. He was totally confused. He thought he was doing what he was told to do, but it was not working. He was perplexed and at a loss as to what was happening. The manager finally walked out and pointed him to the right pitcher on first base. He was doing his best but did not understand the plan he was supposed to carry out.

�� It is too bad that such complexity cannot be limited to the experience of little boys, but the fact is that even an Apostle cannot escape it. Paul's sincere efforts to do the will of God were often dashed to pieces and crushed by circumstances beyond his control. He writes in I Thess. 2:17, "..out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you, for we wanted to come to you‑certainly I, Paul, did, again and again‑but Satan stopped us." God allows Satan to hinder the plans of his servants. God allows him the freedom of will that he needs to be a valid enemy, for it he had no weapons it would not be an authentic conflict of good and evil. We have to wage real warfare as we serve the Lord, and this means that much can go wrong, or not go at all.

�� It is bad enough that Satan has power to hinder our efforts, but to make matters worse, even the Holy Spirit can and does hinder our will. In Acts 16:6‑7 we read, "Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phyrigia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to." Now when the unholy spirit of Satan and the Holy Spirit of Jesus are both throwing monkey wrenches into your plans, you need a lot of encouragement. That is why Paul is practically begging Christians in all of his churches to pray for him. The battle is real.

�� Paul was a wise and brilliant man of God, but he did not always understand the will of God. He just did his best and admitted that he needed the encouragement of others. When you need something yourself you are more aware of how others need it also. Paul is fully aware of how all believers need encouragement and strength that comes from the gifts of others in the body. Paul was not so proud that he would not admit his own need.

�� The church was meant to be a mutual benefit society in which we strengthen each other's weaknesses and meet needs. John Calvin said, "There is not one so void of gifts in the church of Christ who is not able to contribute something to our benefit."� Every Christian is a part of the whole process of encouragement. Sometimes all you have to do is just be present to be an encouragement. Just seeing you helps them to press on and resist the temptation to forsake the assembling of themselves together. We can all give this gift of encouragement, and that is why it is so important that we be faithful in our being present to other believers.

�� Harold Dye, a gifted Christian writer tells of his experience while fishing in the New Mexico mountains. He was climbing to a high stream when he came to a dangerous spot on the trail. The rain and the snow had eroded the trail and left a chasm he would have to leap across. He write, "As I debated making the leap from this side to the other I noticed something on the trail ahead that made all the difference in the world‑the fresh imprint of a shoe. Someone had been along this trail before me. He too had faced the same chasm and had safely crossed it. That was all the encouragement I needed. With one strong effort I was safely on the other side and on my way to that inviting stream."

�� Just the presence of one other person facing the same decision can keep us climbing. That is why support groups are so popular and helpful. They encourage people in whatever battle they face because they know they are not alone. This is the comfort and encouragement that the church is to give to all who want to climb higher in the Christian life, but who face obstacles that hinder them and make they want to give up. Paul is not just concerned with starting new churches, but with helping established churches to be constantly renewed. The Roman church was established, but Paul knew that it needed to keep on growing or it would lead to decay. All believers need to be continuously encouraged and strengthened or they will begin to settle down to mediocrity, and cease to grow in their love for God and the doing of His will.

�� Our presence, our actions, and our words are all potential gifts of encouragement to make each other stronger. If you go away from church without some gift that makes you stronger you have missed the whole point of being in church. You have missed the gift that God intended you to have by hearing some truth, getting some insight, hearing some inspiration, or feeling loved by some other person. We need to come to church ready to give and to receive some gift of encouragement. We are all called to the ministry of encouragement, and all believers can do this. If you come to church and you and nobody else is encouraged by your presence then something is wrong that needs to be corrected. We need to come prepared to be encouraged and to give encouragement to others. If we miss this goal we are not in the will of God.

�� God wants us all to be a part of making each other strong in the Lord. The Greek word for strong is sterizo. It is one of Paul's favorite words. He uses it more than all other New Testament authors put together. It was to him the goal of all ministry. He writes in I. Thess. 3:2, "We sent Timothy....to strengthen and encourage you in your faith." He sent Timothy because his letter was not enough to impart sterizo. His letter to Romans was not enough either and so he longed to come to them to impart sterizo. There is a strength that you can only get in fellowship. You cannot get it just by reading the Bible or other Christian writings. You need the fellowship of other personalities to be strengthened.� Some believers forsake the fellowship of the church and feel they can make it one their own, but they are weak and ineffective Christians, and often live no higher than a gnats eyelash above the world.� God made us to need each other to be strong Christians.

�� Paul links encouragement and strength because no Christian can become strong without encouragement. Rob a believer of encouragement and you pull the spark plug out of his engine, and he or she will lose power and cease to run the race to new heights. But encourage a believer and they will never cease to press on to new levels of growth and service. That is why Paul ends the second chapter of II Thessalonians with this prayer: "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word." It is not only Paul's idea, but it is God's idea that they bottom line is the need for encouragement.

�� Paul says here that he longs to see them to make them stronger, and to be encouraged himself.� The Greek word for long is epipotheo, and it refers to a very strong emotion. It is translated desire greatly, or desire earnestly, and long after greatly. In one place it is even translated lust. That is how strongly Paul felt the desire to be involved in the ministry of encouragement. He had a lust to strengthen the body of Christ. This is a rare lust. Martin Niemoller had it. He was the German pastor who defied Hitler and spoke out boldly for Christ.

�� He was arrested and put in solitary confinement for 8 years. He was cut off from his family and church and had no way of serving them. Then one day he came up with an idea. Each day he moved his table under the high window of his cell. He then put his chair on the top of the table and by standing on tip toe on the chair he could get close to the window. There he waited for the scuffling that could be heard as the other prisoners crunched the ground on their daily walk. When he heard them he began to read passages from the Bible that would be an encouragement. He did this day after day with no way to know who, if anyone, was listening. That was a lust to be an instrument of encouragement.

�� It is not likely you and I will ever be so tested to see how strong our desire is to be an encouragement to other. We are free to do it in hundreds of ways every day. Everything we do and say can make the body stronger or weaker. May God help us be aware of this so that we come to church with this spirit of Paul to help contribute to the goal that we are all established by encouragement.

7. ��THE DUTY OF BEING IN DEBT�� Based on Rom. 1:14‑17

�� In 1901 Andrew Carnegie sold his Pennsylvania steel mill to J. P. Morgan for 420 million dollars, and thereby became the richest man in the world.� That fortune was made by the sacrifice of thousands of common laborers.� He under paid them ruthlessly, and he forced them to work 12 hours a day 7 days a week.� His labor practices stirred up a lot of hostility, and in Homestead, PA., where our son Mark was born one of the bloodiest strikes in labor history took place at his mill.� Fourteen people were killed, and 163 were seriously injured.

�� The good that came out of this is that Carnegie felt obligated to benefit the masses with his fortune, and so he began to give it away.� He endowed 3000 libraries, and I have personally blessed with generous gift, for I have used some of those libraries.� Eighty per cent of his money went to educational purposes so that millions have benefitted for the thousands who had to suffer.� So many of the blessings of life come to us because of men who felt obligated to do their best to make up for the damage their past has caused.� Paul was just such a man, and because of his strong sense of obligation he preached the Gospel and started churches all over the known world.� Paul felt like he was in debt to the whole world, and he poured out his life to the fullest of his ability to pay what he felt he owed.�

�� Everyone is in debt to someone, but Paul was in debt to everyone.� In verse 14 he says, "I am obligated both to Greeks and non‑Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish." What he says just about sums up the entire human race.� There might be room to squeeze somebody in between wise and foolish, but there is no room at all between Greeks and non‑Greeks.� If you are not a Greek, you are a non‑Greek, and so everyone is covered.�

�� Our national debt is outrageous, but even we do not owe everybody on the planet.� Paul was more in debt than anyone has ever claimed to be, but he was not ashamed of it.� He glories in his debt to all men, for what he owes them is, not dollars, shekels, or any other type of money, but the Gospel.� That is why he longed to get to Rome and to far off Spain, and to everywhere else in the world.� Paul owed the whole world the Gospel, and so he had business everywhere.

�� Something tells me this is a message we have missed as American Christians.� How often have we ever felt in debt to our non‑Christian friends, associates, and neighbors?� We do not feel like we owe them anything.� But Paul says that he felt an obligation to all men to share the Gospel.� He was debtor to all because he owed them the Gospel.� Why did Paul feel such an obligation?� It was because he knew that all men were capable of being made rich in Christ.� The Gospel is not‑look at how good I am‑if you were as good you too could be a child of God.� Or, look at how good someone else is.� That is not good news.� Good news is that you can be saved and be a child of God no matter who you are, or what you have been. �No matter how sinful, foolish, or proud you have been, you can be saved and be a child of God.� It doesn't make any difference if you are a PhD or a high school dropout.� The reason Paul was obligated to all men is because all have an equal right to receive the Gospel and be saved.

�� The implications of this are staggering.� It means that everyone of us is in debt to every non‑Christian we know.� We owe them the opportunity to be saved.� This is an enormous obligation, but I fear we have been so influenced by our culture that we do not take obligations all that seriously.� Clerks are obligated to wait on customers, but they often make the customer wait while they do personal business.� Manufacturers are obligated to produce a product that is safe, but tons of stuff floods the market that can hurt, or even kill you.� The government is obligated to protect its citizens, but often neglects this and lets dangerous drugs and products into the market place.� Professionals of all kinds let us down for they set their obligations to us on the back burner, and give selfish goals priority.�

�� We all do our share of griping and complaining, for we are all victims to some degree, but listen to how Paul starts chapter 2 of Romans: "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."� You say that people owe you money and they won't repay.�� You say you have rights, but they are not being honored.� All of this might be true, but what about the fact that every man, woman and child on this planet has a right to hear the Gospel and become a child of God!� What about the fact, that we as Christians are debtors to all people, and we have an obligation to share the Gospel with them.�

�� We saw in a previous message that we have an obligation to be an encourager of all in the body of Christ, and now we see that we have an obligation to be an enlightener of all who are outside of the body of Christ.� We are debtors to all people, and we owe everybody something.� We need to face the reality that we are all in as bad a shape as the government.� We let our debts build up and do not pay them off.� We neglect a major obligation of the Christian life because we do not have a plan by which we share the Gospel with unsaved people.�

�� I suppose we feel that just because Paul felt such an obligation to all people, it does not mean we have to take on that same sense of debt he felt.� But this rationalizing will not hold water, for in chapter 8 Paul uses this same word to refer to all believers having the same obligation as he had to die to self and what the sinful nature desires.� We are to live in accordance with the Spirit, and set our minds on what the Spirit desires.� The Spirit does not give us all the same gifts, and so we are not like Paul in many ways, but it is God's will for all of us to have that sense of obligation that Paul had, and to feel like we owe this lost world a chance to get in on a saved world that will last forever.� We all owe the lost a chance to be saved, and so we are all under the same obligation as Paul to not be ashamed of the Gospel, but to be bold in sharing it with those who will be lost without it.�

�� Notice that Paul does not say I am obligated to God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit.� Jesus saved him even though he was a proud and arrogant man of violence who persecuted and killed Christians.� He was a religious bigot of the worst kind, and yet Jesus saved him.� He owed everything to Christ, but Paul also knew he owed nothing to Christ, for Jesus paid it all, and he was debt free to God.� All he owed to God had been paid by his Savior, and so he was a free man.� But it was to man that he was in debt.� They did nothing for him, and yet he was in debt to them.� He owed them the Gospel because he had received it freely, and when you have a gift that is so valuable that you can share it with everyone, and in so doing have even more of it, then you have an obligation to do so.�

�� If I won the lottery and started sharing my fortune with others I would eventually run out and deplete my resources.� But if I share the Gospel I never have less, and I enrich others with that which makes them rich forever.� The Gospel is a gift that never stops giving, and that is why we are so obligated to share it.� If I discovered a cure for all cancer and just kept it for myself in case I ever got cancer, you would consider me a monster of immorality worthy of a place along side Hitler in the pages of infamy.� Yet we have a cure for sin and all of its eternal effects, and still we feel no obligation to share this good news with those who are dying for time and eternity for lack of it.�

�� There is only one way to reduce this deficit, and that is by doing what Paul did.� He shared the Gospel with everyone he could in the world.� If we do not share the Gospel with anyone, then we are guilty of not paying our greatest debt in life, and we fail in our greatest obligation.� We do not like this message of Paul.� We like his message when he says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, and we like his freedom message, and his message about escape from the bondage of the law.� We love all of his positive stuff, but we do not like the balancing side where he makes us feel the need to bear one another's burdens, and to feel responsible for suffering for the cause of Christ, and being obligated to pay off our debt to all people.

�� We like the benefits of being servants of Christ, but not the burdens.� We want Christianity without the cross, for the cross is costly and puts us into debt.� To take up the cross and follow Jesus like Paul did is to feel an obligation to tell the world about the Gospel.� We owe everyone the chance to be saved, but we seldom make a payment on this debt by telling anyone about what Jesus did for them.� Should we feel guilty?� Of course we should!� If we have a legitimate debt and do not try to make payments we should feel guilty.� A non‑witnessing

Christian should feel guilty because that is probably the only way they will get motivated to make a list and begin to pray for people, and think of strategies by which to share the good news.� We feel the obligation to pay off our financial debts, and we need to match that zeal in paying off our spiritual debts to the lost world.�

�� I was impressed in reading about the life of Sir Walter Scott.� In 1826 at the age of 55 he sank everything he had into a book publishing company that went bankrupt.� It not only left him penniless, but heavily in debt to the tone of 700 thousand dollars.� He was no Pollyanna who said that this was wonderful.� He was miserable, as any of us would be in that circumstance.� He wrote in his diary that he would like to lie down to sleep and never wake up.� He wanted to escape the burden of it, but he did wake up and vow that he would pay back every cent.�

�� He rented a home in Edinburgh and began to write like a madman.� In two years he had paid his creditors 200 thousand.� He toiled so hard that he became ill, but he never ceased writing.� Great books flowed from his mind.� His hair turned white and he became weak with exhaustion, but he had a debt to pay, and pay it he would whatever the cost.�� He suffered terribly, but when he died he had paid off the greatest share of his debt, and all of his creditors honored him as one of the greatest writers and honorable men of all time.� He became great by his labor to pay a debt.� So it was with Paul.� Do you think we would have ever heard of Paul had he not heeded the call of Jesus to be an Apostle to the Gentiles?� Had he not felt the obligation to carry the Gospel into the whole world, we would not have his Epistles.� Paul is one of the greatest men who ever lived because he lived to pay a debt.�

�� Paul does not say to the Romans, "You are obligated to Greeks and non‑Greeks, to the wise and unwise."� He says, "I am."� It is individual commitment, and not a committee decision.� How many statues have you ever seen erected in honor of a committee?� Every Christian has to decide on their own what they will do. Is this my debt as well, and do I owe the world anything?� Is it my responsibility to witness and share the Gospel with lost people?� If we leave it to the church as a whole it just won't happen.� Only individuals can pay this debt.� God did not send a committee into the world. He sent His only Son.� He did not call a committee to be Apostles to the Gentiles.� He chose just one man, and that man was Paul.� This does not mean that God does not use groups, but those He uses are only effective when they are made up of individuals who have committed themselves to the cause.

�� If you do not feel a personal responsibility, it will not happen.� I am convinced that every Christian has people in their lives that only they can touch, and nobody else will.� Unless we feel an obligation to do our part we will be a hindrance rather than a help to fulfilling the purpose of God.� Paul cared about every person that his life could touch.� He had no prejudice, and no class spirit.� He was a Jew, but he loved all Gentiles.� The Greek word for non‑Greeks is barbaros, which we call barbarians.� They are the uncultured and unsophisticated.� Paul was an intellectual, and so we can see why he would love to reach the scholars and the philosophers.� But Paul says that he is also a debtor to the foolish, the uneducated, and those of the lowest status.�

�� There was no discrimination with Paul.� If you were a human being, he owed you the Gospel, and all the personal love and compassion he was capable of sharing.� Paul was the ideal, however, and most have not been able to live on his level.� They feel an obligation only to reach their own class of people.� That is better than not caring about anybody, but it is far from the Christian ideal we see in Paul.� The closer we come to him the more pleasing we will be to Christ.

�� One of the greatest examples I am aware of in crossing all barriers to reach people was Dr. Frank Laubach.� A brilliant man himself, he took it as his goal to help the illiterates of the world to read and to discover the Gospel for themselves.� He reduced the Bible to 300 words, and he has taught millions around the world to read it.� We need to catch something of his spirit so that we can really care about those who live in a lower state of learning.�

�� Dr. Laubach wrote, "If you sit down beside an illiterate as an equal, your heart overflowing with love for him..., if you never frown nor criticize but look pleased and surprised, and praise him for his progress, a thousand silver threads wind about his heart and yours.� You are the first educated man that ever looked at him except to swindle him, and he will be so mystified by your unusual kindness, that he is likely to stop and ask: "How do you expect to get paid for this?� I have no money." The only irresistible Gospel is love in action....If we serve the illiterates and then tell the Gospel after we have won their hearts, they will believe in Christ because they believe in us."��

�� For the Christian to develop this attitude he or she needs to have a deep conviction about the common origin and infinite value of every human life. Paul in Acts 17 stressed this on Mars Hill as he spoke to the Greek scholars and philosophers. He said the God is not far from any of us, and in him we live and move and have our being. He quotes one of their own poets who wrote, "We are his offspring." Paul could find a common ground with all people because of his conviction that all people are loved by God.

�� Modern science is confirming this conviction by making it clear that all mankind likely came from one mother. The study of genetics reveals that the DNA in the cells of all people has come down the same from the first egg. There is an unchanging line that goes all the way back to Eve. They studied the DNA from women in Europe, Asia, New Guinea, Africa, and Australia, and they found it to be extremely similar. We do not need chemistry to tell us this for the Bible calls Eve the mother of all living.

�� It is hard sometimes to love the unrighteous just because they are from the same origin and made in the image of God. But the early Christians were just this kind of unrighteous people before their conversion. Paul writes in

Titus 3:3‑4, "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passion and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another, but when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared he saved us..." Paul was in debt to these very unrighteous and foolish people because those are the people Jesus died for. Had he not died for such awful people there would be not Gospel to share with our world. Many faithless fools have become faithful friends of God because of believers who feel the debt they owe them to let them know they can become children of God through Christ.

�� Our society is producing ruined lives almost as fast as we produce garbage. Thousands of youth run away, kill themselves, get pregnant, and do every foolish thing known to man. The folly of the adult population is too obvious to need listing. It is our duty to try and make a difference in the lives of these masses of unhappy people. There are endless books on how to get out of debt, and this is good economic advice, but for those of us who are rich in the grace of Christ, there is a need to get deeper into debt and feel more deeply our obligation to share the riches with those who desperately need the Gospel.

�� Frank Tillapaugh in his book Unleashing Your Potential tells of visiting with the pastor of Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston. They were eating in a restaurant right next to this historic church. In the 40's a busboy worked in that restaurant by the name of Ho Chi Minh. 2000 Christians in that church were only feet away from one who would lead the Communist Revolution in China. Many of them ate in that restaurant, but there is not a hint that one of them attempted to witness to him.� One friendly Christian might have changed the course of history had they felt the debt they owed to that young boy so far from his native land.� You might not change the world, but you can change some life you touch if you will just realize, as Paul did, the duty you have of being in debt to the lost around you.

8.�� SHIPPING OUT SHAME�� Based on Rom. 1:14‑17

�� It is on the highest interest level to hear of people's most embarrassing moments.� Jane Wyman tells of hers.� She was preparing for very important guests and she put a note on the guest towels that she had so carefully selected.� The note read, "If you use these I will murder you."� The note was meant for her husband, of course, but in all the excitement of her preparation she forgot to remove the note. When the evening was over and the guests had departed she discovered the towels were still in perfect order, as well as the note itself.

�� She wanted to crawl into a hole she was so embarrassed. Something like this happens to all of us at some time or other. Carl Michaelson tells of his little girl coming in with a tear in her pants and his wife was angry. She had done this too often, and she said to her, "Now you go to your room and sew up that tear." The poor little kid never had a needle in her hand. The mother went to check on her a little later and there were her torn pants on the floor, but no little girl. She went searching and when she saw the light on in the basement she called down, "Are you down there running around with your pants off?" There was silence, and then a deep voice responded, "No madam, I'm just reading the gas meter." Talk about embarrassing!�

�� Art Linkletter tells about one of his most embarrassing experiences on his once popular show People Are Funny.� They had an auction offering the person in the studio who contributed most to charity the chance to come up and hit him with a chocolate cream pie.� The highest bitter was a sweet little gray haired grandmother.� She wrote out her personal check for 200 dollars.� She picked up the pie and smashed it completely across his face.� Then she twisted it which forced the meringue under his eyes.� He said he would never forget that experience, but to add to the embarrassment her check bounced, and he knew he had been had.

�� Life is filled with embarrassing moments.� We feel embarrassed as children about our silly mistakes that everybody laughs at.� Then as teens we are embarrassed about our zips, our clothes, and quite often about our parents.� But it works both ways.� And when we become parents, we are often embarrassed by our children, and their behavior.�

�� Shame because of our feelings of inferiority and our sinful desires are a normal part of everyone's life.� A Christian father writing in Moody Monthly says the most embarrassing thing he ever did was reading the Bible with his children.� The first thing they asked was why did Abraham lie about his wife Sarah?� His daughter asked, "Daddy didn't he love her?"� Then came Lot in Sodom and they wanted to know why the town homosexuals wanted to beat down the door of Lot to get at his guests.� Things did not get better when he got to David.� Questions about adultery and murder were not comfortable for him.� He switched to Proverbs for a while, but then had to face:� "Daddy, what's a prostitute?"� It was one of the hardest things he ever did because the Bible deals openly with all the things that shame and embarrass us.� But it did force him to prepare his children for the real world.

�� The feelings of shame and embarrassment are not all bad. Peter the Great was once so angry with a servant on his boat that he was going to throw him overboard and let him drown. The servant reminded him that this would go on his record for all of history. This reminder cooled him off, for he did not want the shame of that blot on his record. Shame prevented his sin. This is the positive value of shame.

�� We need to be sensitive in some areas of life or we lose the ability to blush and nothing embarrasses us anymore.� We become hardened to the sinful nature of man.� This is going on all the time in our culture.� People are on talk shows openly sharing their sex life.� Articles in the paper deal with the most intimate aspects of life, which were once preserved for the eyes of professional people only.� We are an open culture, and our children now watch on TV things that would have turned most people's faces red with embarrassment only a generation ago.

�� There is no doubt that some openness on sensitive issues is good.� The Bible itself is quite open, but the fact is, if the openness does not carry with it a sense of shame and embarrassment it is harmful.� Paul in the last part of Romans 1 tells of how God gave people over to a depraved mind.� They felt no shame about anything.� They did every kind of wickedness and not only felt no shame, but gloried in their evil, and enjoyed the evil of others.� The worst judgment that can happen to a culture is to lose its sense of shame.� That is the bottom of the pit when man gets so depraved that nothing produces shame.� Abraham Heschel, the Jewish author, in his book What Is Man? writes, "I am afraid of people who are never embarrassed by their own pettiness, prejudices, envy and conceit, never embarrassed at the profanation of life.� What the world needs is a sense of embarrassment."

�� On the other hand, we have a world filled with people who are neurotic because they are ashamed and embarrassed about their bodies and their normal sex desires.� Christian counselors by the thousands are busy every day trying to� help Christian people get over their shame that robs them of the joy God intended them to experience in marriage.� Shame over the legitimate enjoyment of sex is a curse.� In the Autobiography of Gandhi he tells of the night his father died.�� He was by his bedside until 11 P. M. when his uncle came to relieve him.� He went to bed with his wife and enjoyed the pleasure of lovemaking.� Later the message came that his father had died.� He felt shame and wrote,

"So all was over!� I had but to ring my hands.� I felt deeply

ashamed and miserable.� I ran to my father's room.� I saw

that, if animal passion had not blinded me, I should have

been spared the torture of separation from my father during

his last moments.� I should have been massaging him, and he

would have died in my arms.� But now it was uncle who had

had this privilege.� He was so deeply devoted to his elder

brother that he had earned the honor of doing him the last

services!� My father had forebodings of the coming event.

He had made a sign for pen and paper, and had written:

'Prepare for the last rights.'� He had then snapped the

amulet off his arm and also his gold necklace of tulasi‑

beads and flung them aside.� A moment after this he was

no more.

�� The shame, to which I have referred in a foregoing

chapter, was this shame of my carnal desire even at the

critical hour of my father's death, which demanded wakeful

service.� It is a blot I have never been able to efface or forget."

�� Over the years I have counseled a number of people who feel this shame and guilt because they were not there when a loved one died.� They may have been enjoying some valid pleasure of life at the time, and they are ashamed of themselves for their self‑indulgence rather than self‑sacrifice.� It may be just eating or sleeping, but they feel guilty and ashamed.� The goal of the counselor is to help them get beyond their neurotic shame and see that nobody can be in a state of perpetual self‑denial.� Even in a crisis we need relief, and some enjoyment to balance out the burden.��

�� So what we have is a crazy paradoxical world where there is both too much shame, and also too little of it.� This brings us to Paul's dealing with this very issue in writing to the Romans.� Human nature hasn't changed, and the issues of Paul's day are the same as those we deal with in our day.� In 1:16 Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ."� So we can deal with the Christian need to overcome shame in dealing with the Gospel and other religious issues.� Then in Rom. 6:21 Paul uses this same word in referring to their former lives of sin.� He writes, "What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?"

�� What we have here is Christians who are on both sides of the fence striving to not be ashamed of certain things, and at the same time trying to maintain shame of other things.�� Unfortunately, it often happens that we feel the shame where we shouldn't, and don't feel it where we should.� We have shame we are to ship out, and shame we are to shape up.� It is not shape up or ship out, but shape up and ship out.� Paul is dealing here with‑

SHAME WE ARE TO SHIP OUT.

�� Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel when he wrote, but he was earlier in his life. He was ashamed that Jewish people were claiming that Jesus was the Messiah. He was a man who was crucified as a criminal, and it was embarrassing for people to honor him. He wanted to hunt them down and rid the world of such people. After Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus he was never ashamed of Jesus again. Then he was ashamed of his stubbornness and blindness that made him a persecutor of Jesus. Not all people have such a dramatic event in their lives.

�� Timothy was one of the great men of the New Testament and a favorite friend of Paul. He was not a bold personality, but was rather shy and timid. He had to fight with shame in identifying with Jesus. Paul had to give him a pep talk in II Tim. 1:7‑8, "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self‑discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the Gospel." Poor timid Timothy had a crucified criminal as his Lord, and he had a jailbird for his leader. It was hard to be bold with these embarrassing credentials. How would you feel if an interviewer looked at your resume and asked about your present status as follower of public rioter and prisoner Paul, and partner in stirring up hostilities in many communities over the teachings of an executed criminal in Israel. This might bring a blush to any man's face.

�� Peter was a bold man and thought he could take on the Roman soldiers single handed with his one sword. But when he saw Jesus in bondage he denied he even knew him was a servant girl said he was a follower of this prisoner. He was ashamed to be linked with Jesus at that point. We do not have to face what he did, but we all have the battle with shame in identifying with our Lord in a world where his name is often used as a curse word.� It is a common battle that Christians have to try and overcome that shame that keeps them from being a witness to their faith in Christ.

�� Jesus had to endure shame as he hung on the cross, and was nearly naked in public.� His disciples had forsaken him, and the people were mocking him. It was the ultimate in embarrassment, but Jesus rose above it and conquered the shame of it. Heb. 12:2 says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Jesus looked beyond the shame to the purpose of God in saving millions by his act of sacrifice. He shipped out the emotion of shame and took on the emotion of joy, for he saw the unseen values of all eternity that would come from this event.

�� Paul did the same thing. If he would have looked only at the visible it would have been embarrassing. He was serving the Lord of all and yet was often in prison and going through all kinds of hardships. But Paul did not look at the negative but at the positive. That is why he could say he was not ashamed of the Gospel. He knew it was the power that would save lives for all eternity. He had insight into the invisible and the ultimate victory just as Jesus did. You overcome shame by developing an emotion that is even stronger. Paul writes of his victory over shame in II Tim. 1:11‑12, "And of this Gospel I was appointed a herald and an Apostle and a teacher. That is why I m suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day."

�� We are often ashamed because we do suffer. We are ashamed to be bold for Christ because we fear people will say, "If being a Christian is so great, why are you more poor than my non‑Christian friends? Why do you have as many problems as anyone else. Your life is no dream come true." We are embarrassed by this reality. It would be easy if being a Christian made you superior to everyone else, but that is not the way it works, and so we have shame. Almost every educated man alive had a better life than Paul did, and they were not being stoned and run out of town, or being arrested.� He was seen as a fool by the wise of his day, but he was not ashamed because of his confidence in what was ahead in Christ.

�� In our day the shame is made even worse by the preaching of the health and wealth gospel. A true believer is supposedly never to be sick or in debt. Life is just a bowl of cherries for the believer. This perversion so contrary to the New Testament is an embarrassment for we can seldom live up to this false image, and so we do not claim to be believers as we should. Paul, on the other hand, gloried in what he suffered for Christ. Everyone could see he was not rich and was often in trouble of one kind or another, and he also had his physical problems. He was not embarrassed by all of this negative at all, for he saw the positive he had in Christ.

�� In our culture, however, we are often embarrassed by any level of failure for it looks like we are not blest of God is we are not on the highest level of success. Anything less than the best is an embarrassment. Beatrix Potter, the English writer, wrote the tale of Peter Rabbit as a girl. As she grew older, richer, and more successful, she became embarrassed by her early work and never allowed Peter Rabbit to be mentioned in her presence. It is a quirk of human nature, but the more successful we become the greater the danger of being ashamed of Jesus.

�� Charles Colson in his book The Struggle For Men's Hearts and Minds gives this analysis of American Christianity: "We live in a time that would seem to be marked by unprecedented spiritual resurgence; 96 % of all American say they believe in God; 80% profess to be Christians. Yet families are splitting apart in record numbers. Countless millions of unborn children have been murdered since 1973. And there are 100 times more burglaries in so‑called "Christian" America that in so‑called "pagan" Japan. Why this paradox between profession and practice? Why is the faith of more than 50 million Americans who claim to be born again not making more of an impact on the moral values of our land?"

�� "The answer is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor martyred y the Nazis, labeled cheap grace: the perception that Christianity offers only a flood of blessings, the rights of the kingdom without responsibilities to the King. This easy believism fails to take biblical truth to heart and fails to act in obedience to the Scriptures. The result is a church which increasingly accommodates secular values. Not knowingly, of course, but simply by gradual acceptance of secular standards which have become comfortable."

�� He is saying, in essence, that we as American Christians are embarrassed by the Gospel. It does not fit our idea of what is acceptable, and so we have tailored it to fit the way we feel so we can be more comfortable with it. The paradox is that the only way we can get back to Paul's position of not being ashamed of the Gospel is to add to our lives shame for all that is not the Gospel. We need to be embarrassed by all of the false gospels of our day. We need to feel shame for all the perversions and rip‑offs that operate under the name of Christian.� Shame can be an asset. An honest look at our own sinfulness will prevent us from being hypocritical and holier than thou in our approach to witnessing.

�� We need to be honest about the reality that we are not saved because we are better than others. We have the same problems and the same tendencies to sin as anyone else. We have the same temptations, and the same desires for success, fame, things and pleasure. People need to know that salvation is not earned by being better, but it is a gift that comes when we have faith in the one who offers it, and that is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not want people to focus on us, but to look to Jesus who alone can save.

Frederick Buechner was a chaplain as a Christian Academy. One day he was walking through the slums of Manhatten, and on the wall of an abandoned building there was a mass of graffiti. There were four letter words, names of lovers, and right in the midst of all of this someone put "Jesus Saves."� His first reaction was embarrassment to see that message in the midst of all that profanity. It shocked his sense of Presbyterian propriety. He tried to figure out why he had such a revulsion to that message, and he concluded he was embarrassed for lack of faith.

�� He really had lost his conviction that Jesus could save people out of the sewer they were living in. He expected Jesus to save only the clean and respectable people. He realized he was embarrassed because he had lost his awareness of the power of the Gospel. That is why any of is ashamed of the Gospel. It is because we have lost faith it its power to save anyone who will believe. We need to ship out this shame and regain the faith of Paul that made him unashamed of the Gospel. This will lead us to be more bold and powerful in sharing this good news with all whom God brings us into contact.

��

9.� �AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE ��Based on Rom. 6:1‑10

�� Baptism and the Lord's Supper are two of the simplest things we do as Christians.� But the fact is, these two simple acts of obedience to Christ have created a great deal of controversy in the Christian world.� Every aspect of baptism is a major issue on which Christians differ.�

THE TIMING OF IT:� Should it be when people are infants, or when they are old enough to be believers and able to make their own choice?�

THE METHOD OF IT:� Should it be by sprinkling, by pouring, or by immersion?�

THE MEANING OF IT:� Is it a sacrament by which grace is imparted, or is it a symbol of our obedience to Christ?

THE NECESSITY OF IT:� Is it essential for salvation, or is it just a basic step of obedience?� Is it essential for church membership, or can one be a member of the church and not be baptized?�

�� Beside all of these issues there is the more subjective issue as to what one is suppose to feel when they are baptized.� The author of How To Live Like A King's Kid shared this testimony of his baptism:� "So I went to his little Baptist Church with him.� And when the pastor invited anyone who wanted to, to come forward and make a public confession of faith‑a confession with his mouth that he had faith in Jesus in his heart‑I went forward and did it.� They scheduled a baptismal service for me right away, and I dutifully got wet all over, being immersed in the dunk tank.� I didn't mind too much.� The Bible said New Testament Christians were baptized by being immersed‑that's what the word baptizo means‑and if New Testament Christians did it, that was good enough for me.� Besides, I read that Jesus was baptized by John in the River Jordan, and so baptism seemed a good thing for me if I was going to follow Him.� When I came up out of the water, I was disappointed.� I didn't feel anything but wet.� I thought I had done something pretty terrific, humbling myself in the little old country Baptist Church like that.� And I waited for a ball of fire to hit, but nothing happened, not then.� Ed said the feelings would come later."

�� He went on to say that they did come later, but he was expecting his baptism to be like that of Jesus when the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, and God spoke from heaven about how pleased He was with His Son.� His expectations were too high, for baptism is an act of obedience to Christ, and its value does not depend on how it makes you feel.� It should make you feel good to obey your Lord who commanded that all who follow Him be baptized.� But He did not promise it would be an experience of ecstasy.� In fact, in many parts of the world being baptized is a very scary experience, for it can mean rejection by your family and society.� Many obey Christ in fear and trembling, for the consequences of their obedience can be suffering and even death.

�� Trying to keep up with the changes in churches on this issue is almost impossible.� Many churches that practiced only infant baptism are now baptizing by the believer's baptism, and many are doing so by immersion.� Some even baptize infants by immersion.� John Westerhoff tells of the infant baptism in a Catholic Church.� The father came down the isle with a coffin that he had made, and the mother was carrying a pail of water.� The godparents carried the baby.� The coffin was placed on the alter while the priest filled it with water.� He took the child and held its nose and pushed it under the water saying, "You are drowned in the name of God the Father, the God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."� The congregation then stood and sang joyful Easter songs.� The priest said over the head of the child, "You are now resurrected so you might love and serve the Lord."

�� So now you have even babies being immersed with the same symbolism that Baptists have stressed for centuries.� Many Catholic churches now recognize that for centuries Catholics baptized in large baptismal pools, and now they are going back to that original method.�� Christians everywhere that recognizing that baptism is symbolic of the death and resurrection of Christ.� Paul in Rom. 6 makes it clear that we are buried with Christ in baptism, and that we are also symbolically raised from the dead with Christ.� The only adequate way to convey this is by immersion.� You cannot be buried in a cup or a baptismal fount.� You need a large enough body of water to immerse the whole person to convey the idea of burial and resurrection.� That is why the New Testament always portrays the quantity of water involved in baptism.�

�� In John 3:23 we read that John the Baptist was baptizing in Aenon because there was much water there.� He needed a lot of water because he had to immerse people in it and not merely sprinkle them.� In Acts 8:36 we read that Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch were going through the desert and they came to a body of water.� The Eunuch who had just received Jesus as his Savior said, "Look, here is water, why shouldn't I be baptized?"� Until enough water was available the possibility of baptism was not considered.� This man was not heading across a desert without any water.� If it was only a matter of sprinkling some water on his head, or of pouring some out of a jug on his head, there was nothing to hinder him from being baptized before they came to this body of water.� This new convert knew that he needed to be immersed, and only an adequate water supply could lead to a meaningful baptism.� The point is, not any amount of water can give witness to the death and resurrection of Christ.� It takes enough to bury a person in.

�� Now we have to be honest with the historical reason for Christian departing from immersion and going to sprinkling.� As the church spread not everybody lived near a river or a lake, and it was a great inconvenience to find a body of water for immersion.� Some churches in desert places had no access to a large body of water.� They began to argue that even though immersion was the New Testament mode that it is no where stated that it has to be in this mode for all times and places.� Added to this there was the problem of the sick and aged who could not travel to the river even if there was one not far away.� Even in Baptist churches there are cases of the sick and aged who are taken into membership without immersion.� They fall into the same category as the thief on the cross who entered heaven with Jesus even though he could not obey Jesus and be baptized.

�� The inconvenience of immersion led the Catholic Church to change, and by the 5th century sprinkling was almost universal.� When the Protestant Reformation came in the 1500's all the great leaders struggled with this issue.� They all agreed that immersion was the New Testament mode, and that believer's baptism was the New Testament practice.� But after a thousand years of the tradition of sprinkling it was hard to go back and so Lutherans, Presbyterians and later the Methodists all stuck with infant baptism.� There were many practical reasons for not changing back to the New Testament method, and we should not be too critical of the great Protestant leaders, for they went through agony over this issue.�� Had we been in the shoes of Martin Luther we may have done the same thing, and had we been in the Arabian Baptist Church of 4911 No Water Drive, Sand Dune, Arabia, we may have chosen to sprinkle rather than immerse.�

�� We do not have the limitations that many have had, and so we have no reason not to follow the New Testament pattern of believer's baptism by immersion.� There are not persons in the New Testament who were baptized before they were believers.� We read in Acts 2:41, "They that gladly received His Word were baptized."� In Acts 8:12 we read, "When they believed...they were baptized."� In Acts 18:8 we read, "Chrispus believed...and many of the Corinthians having believed, and were baptized."� This does not mean one has to be an adult to be baptized.� Many children are believers.� I was baptized at age 9, and I remember that as a deacon I voted for a 4‑year‑old girl to be baptized.� She knew her theology as well as any adult.� She loved Jesus and understood she was being a witness by her baptism to the death and resurrection of her Savior.� Age is not the issue.� It is belief.

�� Baptists have been critical of those who baptize children so young, but there is no basis for it.� Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."� I cannot imagine any child who loves Jesus, and who desires to be baptized in obedience to Him, being to young.� If a child knows what it is to obey Jesus, I would not want to be the one who says to them that they are too young to obey Jesus.� The New Testament makes it clear that whole families were baptized together, and there is no reason to assume that this did not include small children.� You have the family of Lydia and the Philippian jailor as examples.� The important thing to focus on is the focus of Paul, which is the death and resurrection of Christ.� Baptism is our witness to the fact that we identify with the two great acts that made Jesus the Savior of the world.�

�� The cross and the resurrection are the foundation of God's plan of salvation.� Baptism is our witness to the world that we are a part of that plan.� We are Christians and followers of Christ, and we are committed to Him as Lord and Savior.� We are not to pretend that we are superior to others who may baptize in some other way.� We only say that the New Testament way best conveys the meaning of baptism.�� It is the way that gives the most intense witness.� Let's say we are going to dramatize the experience of John being caught up into heaven.� At one point we are going to bear witness to his vision to the glory of God on His throne.� Some on the planning committee suggest that we use a flashlight behind a sheet to convey the glory of God.� Others say we should hook up 3 or 4 floodlights.� The first group says this last idea involves too much work, and the flashlight is so easy and convenient.� But the others persist because they say that you cannot witness to the glory of God's unapproachable light with a flashlight.� Even the floodlights cannot begin to convey the glory of God, but the flashlight will convey nothing but the weakness of His glory.� It is better to have no witness at all than one that is so pathetically weak.�

�� This is the same issue with baptism.� Baptists feel that just as a flashlight bears little witness to the glory of God, so other modes of baptism bear little witness to the death and resurrection of Christ.� Immersion was the New Testament method because it does illustrate the experience of death and resurrection.� The body is put under the water to be buried with Christ, and it is brought up again like one being resurrected from the grave.� It is the only adequate way to symbolize the death and resurrection of Christ.� Those baptized by some other mode are not any less Christian, but their witness conveys less meaning.� Many of the greatest Christians in history have not been immersed, and they are no less great Christians for it.

�� John Calvin, the great reformer, wrote in his Institutes, "But whether the person baptized be wholly immersed, and whether thrice or once, or whether water be only poured or sprinkled upon him, is of no importance; churches ought to be left at liberty in this respect, to act according to the difference of countries.� The very word baptize, however, signifies to immerse; and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient church."� This is a view that has been held by millions.� Even Baptist libraries all over the world are filled with the books of those believers who were not immersed.� Baptists do not persist in defending immersion because they feel it is essential to salvation.� It is because they feel it is essential to adequately convey the death and resurrection of Christ as its meaning.�

�� There are many good arguments for not bothering with immersion.� It is so inconvenient and more time consuming, and it far messier.� But no one can escape the fact that it is the only way to convey the picture of burial and resurrection.� Since that is the point of it all, Baptists say we have to put up with the inconvenience in order to give an adequate witness.� It doesn't make Baptists superior, but it does make their witness superior as to what Jesus did for us in His death and resurrection.� The purpose of baptism is to point to Him and to indicate our commitment to Him.� It is an act of obedience by which we thank Him for what He has done for us in His death and resurrection.

��

10. ��WITNESS WITH WATER�� Based on Rom. 6:3‑4

�� A visitor to a drought stricken area was talking to some of the citizens about their no rain situation.� As they were complaining about the difficulties it brought to them he sought to comfort them with the it‑could‑be‑worse philosophy.� He said, "If you think it is bad here, you should go South.� They haven't had rain for so long that the Baptists are sprinkling, the Methodists are using a damp rag, and the Presbyterians are issuing rain checks."� The story is of doubtful historicity, but the point is true that water is essential and the amount of water available can be a determining factor in the mode of baptism.� In John 3:23 we read that John the Baptist was baptizing in Aenon because there was much water there.� This implies that a large quantity was necessary for an effective witness through baptism.�

�� In Acts 8:36 we read that Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch were moving along and came to a body of water, and he said, "See here is water; what does hinder me to be baptized?"� Until enough water was available the possibility of baptism was not considered.� He was certainly not traveling in the desert without water, and so if it was a mere matter of sprinkling or pouring a little water on him there was nothing to hinder him from doing so before they came to a body of water.� All of this is saying that an inadequate supply of water is a hindrance to a meaningful baptism.�

�� Nature by means of water gives witness to its power in floods, tidal waves and cloudbursts of rain.� The amount of water is a determining factor in the intensity of the witness.� No one is greatly impressed by a normal rain, but when it falls in sheets and the streets become rivers people are wide awake, and they stand at awe at the power of nature and the witness it can give of that power through water.� As Baptists we feel this has a parallel in the spiritual realm.� We are to witness with water concerning the power of God in our lives, and the quantity of water makes a difference in the intensity of the witness.� We feel that the biblical pattern of immersion of the whole person in water gives the most adequate witness.� Those who sprinkle admit that immersion was the biblical mode, but they argue that it is nowhere commanded as essential, and so there is no reason the mode cannot be changed.� But any change only weakens the witness.��

�� We do not feel that baptism saves, and so there are millions who have been sprinkled who truly love Christ and are brothers and sisters in Christ.� We continue to defend and practice immersion not because we think it is essential for salvation, but because we think it is essential as an adequate witness.� If it was just a spiritual matter completely we could forget water entirely, but we cannot do so because literal water is essential to the witness.� To get the point clearer, look at another example to get a better perspective.� Let's say we are going to dramatize the experience of John being caught up into heaven.� At one point we are going to bear witness to his vision to the glory of God on His throne.� Some on the planning committee suggest that we use a flashlight behind a sheet to convey the glory of God.� Others say we should hook up 3 or 4 floodlights.� The first group says this last idea involves too much work, and the flashlight is so easy and convenient.� But the others persist because they say that you cannot witness to the glory of God's unapproachable light with a flashlight.� Even the floodlights cannot begin to convey the glory of God, but the flashlight will convey nothing but the weakness of His glory.� It is better to have no witness at all than one that is so pathetically weak.�

�� We feel that just as a flashlight bears little witness to the glory of God, so sprinkling bears little witness to the death and resurrection of Christ.� Paul makes it clear in verse 3‑4 of what we are witnessing to in baptism, and so we want to examine these two basic ideas from these verses.� First we see‑

I. IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST.� v. 3

�� Paul says that in baptism we are identified with Jesus in His death.� We are giving witness to the fact that as Jesus died for sin, so we will die to sin.� We want to bury the old man of sin that clings to us and holds us back from fellowship with God.� This does not mean that the Christian no longer sins after baptism, but that he is committing himself to never again live in sin.� He identifies himself with Christ, and in so doing he cannot be un‑Christ like without struggle and guilt.� In other words, the Christian still sins, but no longer enjoys living in sin because of his identification with Christ.� Sin becomes conspicuous and can no longer be practiced without the pangs of guilt that drive us to repentance.�

�� Paul is writing to people who are deceiving themselves and trying to justify sin by saying that if they sin grace will abound all the more, and so we need not fear to sin.� It was a subtle way of making sin lawful.� Paul demolishes this idea by calling their attention to what they witnessed to in the water of baptism.� They gave witness that were identified with Christ in His death.� They were buried with Him, and the man of sin was no longer to be allowed to live.� No clever reasoning can be allowed to displace this witness.� If you allow the old man to revive and live in sin, you reject the witness of your baptism, and are no longer identified with Christ.�

�� Baptism is to be a witness not only to the world, but a perpetual witness to your self in time of temptation.� You are to look back, as Paul makes the Roman Christians look back, and remember what you gave witness to in the water of baptism.� You said, "I bury myself with Christ.� He died for sin and I die to sin.� I can never again give myself to a sinful life."� Baptism witnesses to what we have determined to do with our wills.� By God's grace we will cease to serve sin.�

We will stand with Christ until death in the battle against sin.� The second thing we witness to in baptism is our‑

II. IMITATION OF CHRIST.� v. 4

�� As we are to be identified with Jesus in His death, so we are to be imitators of His life.� Paul says, "Like as Christ was raised up from the dead even so we also should walk in newness of life."� Jesus rose a new person, for when He died He bore our sins, but when He rose He was pure and spotless, and from then on He was eternally holy.� It is certainly an ideal beyond us, and baptism will never be able to cleanse us and make us perfect as He was, but it is to be a witness of our determination to aim for this high and holy goal.

�� We are to imitate Jesus in His holiness, and though we cannot fully attain it, we can go far by His grace.� If we consider the context, we can see just how important this concept is and the need for pursuing it.� Paul is writing to Christians who were violating their witness.� It shows that baptism is not automatic in its effect.� It is not magic, and does nothing without the will of the person committed to its meaning.� These Christians were trying to be identified with Jesus without imitating Him in newness of life.� They wanted the blessings without the responsibility.� Paul reminds them that this is folly, for they cannot identify with Christ without imitating Him, for the witness of baptism is in two parts, and they are as inseparable in meaning and life as they are in the act.�

�� If you only go down in the water of baptism and do not come up, there will be no imitating of Christ, for you will be literally dead.� Nor is it possible to come up to newness of life without having previously gone under.� Without death there can be no resurrection.� Both are essential for the full witness of baptism, and both are essential for a full Christian life.� Only those who are both dead to sin and alive to Christ are giving full witness to the good news in their lives.� Let us, therefore, recognize the serious significance of this witness with water.� It is to be a symbol to others and to ourselves of what our lives must seek to always bear witness to, and that is that we are identified with Christ and His death, and we are imitators of His life in how we live.��

��

11.�� THE ONLY WAY OUT� �Based on Rom. 7:18‑8:2

�� Floyd Collins was a professional cave hunter.� He found the famous Crystal Cave in Kentucky in 1917.� It is a popular tourist cave now, but back them it was too far off the road to get people to come to it.� Floyd's dream was to find a bigger and better cave, even more beautiful than the world famous Mammoth Cave.� So he began exploring, and one day as he went deep into a cave, he squeezed into a narrow opening, and found the cavern of his dreams.� It was like a� domed cathedral studded with glittering stalactites and stalagmites.� He was so excited he became careless, and his foot pushed a small rock that held up a huge boulder, and the boulder came down on his left ankle pinning him there deep in the cave.

�� He almost pulled his leg off trying to get free, but it was hopeless.�� For 24 hours� he laid there in pain and fear.� Finally, he heard someone coming.� He yelled, and his two partners found him.� They could not budge the boulder, however.� He begged them to go get help. In a matter of hours that cave sight became pandemonium.� Crowds gathered as the news spread of a trapped man.� His brother offered five hundred dollars to anyone who could rescue Floyd.� Many tried but failed.� For two days these attempts went on, and Floyd was getting weak.� Finally, they offered five hundred dollars to any doctor who would amputate his leg, but there were no takers.

�� By this time reporters and photographers had made this cave sight the focus of world attention.� Fifteen hundred people who camped in the area, and the governor had to call in the state militia to keep law and order.� In desperation to get Floyd out they tried to dig a shaft from the top.� This led to a cave in that blocked the passage to him, and so they could no longer get food and water to him.� Eleven days later they broke through, but Floyd Collins was dead.� The body could not be removed, so they held a service right there, and the cave became his tomb.�

�� It was not a very happy ending, for it reveals that with all of man's resources there are some things he just can't get out of.� There are traps he just can't escape from.� Floyd could not get out himself, nor could anyone else help him out.� He had gotten himself into a truly hopeless situation.� Now this experience, we must admit, is very rare, but it illustrates a fact of life that is not rare, but it so common, it is true of all of us, and everybody else.� Everyone of us has explored the cave of sin and gotten trapped by the boulder of guilt.� The Bible says, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."� Once you are in this cave there are no ways of escape that man can devise.�

�� We have a record of all the ways men have tried to get free from the bondage to sin. Men have offered millions of sacrifices to God in order to get Him to forgive and release them from sin.� But there is no record that anyone was ever set free by this method, even when they offered their own babies, or young virgins in sacrifice.� All of this folly just added to the darkness of the cave in which they were trapped.� Two thousand years ago men use to dig a pit, and get down in it, and kill a bull above it.� They would then let all the blood come down upon them in the pit to atone for their sin.� All they did was make a major mess. They never washed one sin away with all of that blood.

�� Men have tried other ways to escape their bondage.� They have tried to atone for sin and escape it by doing hard things, like crawling on their hands and knees for hundreds of miles; by standing in cold water in a cave up their neck until nearly frozen; by kissing thousands of steps as they climb to a shrine on a mountain top.� On and on goes the list of the many things men have done to try and get free from the cave of sin.� The tragedy is none of them work, just like nothing worked to rescue Floyd Collins.� Man, with all of his progress, and all of his marvelous inventions, is no closer than the caveman to a way of escaping the cave of sin.�

�� Does this mean that man is in a hopeless situation?� Yes it does, as far as man is concerned there is nothing he can do to escape the chains of sin.� Once you have sinned there is no way to unsin.� It is done, and the wages of sin is death, and so man is trapped. The inner anxiety cause from being trapped drives men to all sorts of things to deaden the� pain of his fear and guilt.� Alcohol, drugs, sex, amusements of all kinds, dominate his life in the hopes of drowning his sense of despair over the fact that he cannot escape.� Yet we need not despair, for there is good news.� The good news is, man is not alone in his fight for freedom.� There is a God who also hates sin, and all that it does to man to rob him of life. God has come up with a plan to deal with the hopeless situation.

�� It is hopeless for man, that is, but God has a solution.� That huge boulder of guilt that keeps you pinned to the floor of sin can be dissolved in the blood of Christ.� You can't do anything about sin, but Jesus can.� He can forgive it because he paid for it.� If I bought a thousand books, I can give them away if I want to, and I can give them to anybody I choose.� If I want you to have one, I can give it to you if you will take it.� Jesus purchased forgiveness for all men, and He is ready to give it to any man who will say he wants it.� Those who receive it can shout with Paul, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."� You are free in Christ and no longer trapped in the cave of sin, but free to come out into the sunlight and live again.� There are only two ways to deal with sin:� You can try and fight it on your own, and like Floyd Collins parish in a hopeless battle, or you can receive forgiveness in Christ as a free gift.�

�� Forgiveness is complete with God.� He does not say I forgive, but I will never forget. I will let you off this time, but if you ever fall again I will drag out all of your failures of the past and show you the scum that you are.� The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, and that means it removes it.� There is no way you can know how many gravy spots I have had on my shirt, because when it is washed the spots are removed and gone for good, and there is no mark of its having been present.� So God sees you when you are forgiven as clean and pure with no remembrance of your spots and stains.�

�� You have to deal with the new spots and stains, and confess your latest sins, and get them forgiven, but once you come to Christ and ask His forgiveness, you do not have to deal with your past sins any longer.� I do not take my suit and rub it where I had soup stains last year.� I forgot all the stains of the past, for they are gone.� I do not feel embarrassed by what use to be on my sleeve, for it is gone.� All I have to do is deal with the now, and keep the shirt clean.� Deal with sin daily, just as you wash your hands and face daily.� Ask Jesus to cleanse you and forgive you, and start each day fresh and clean. If you get a blot on your clean day, get it cared for so the next day you can start with a clean slate.�

�� Forgiveness is connected with reconciliation with God, for forgiveness has as its goal being restored to a right relationship.� If God just said, "I forgive you now, get lost," what good would forgiveness be?� We would still be without God and hope.� We want more than just not to suffer a penalty, we want life with meaning, joy, hope, and fellowship with God. The story is told of a servant girl caught stealing from the Queen.� She was brought before her majesty for sentencing.� She threw herself before the Queen, and begged for forgiveness, and pledging complete loyalty in the future.� Touched by the tears, the Queen said, "Rise, I forgive you, but I don't want to see you around here anymore.� Leave the palace and find employment elsewhere."� "But your grace," the servant girl cried, "That isn't forgiveness.� That is merely pardoned.� I want to be forgiven so that I may remain in your service."� The Queen was surprised by this depth of discernment and said, "You are right, return to your duties as though nothing had happened, for you are forgiven."

�� So God says to those who receive Christ, "Your sins are gone, and you can return to fellowship with Me.� The past no longer blocks the way, for it is no longer remembered." Saving men from hell is just a marvelous fringe benefit, but that is not the primary goal of God in saving men.� He wants them to be in fellowship with Him.� He wants them to be a part of His family forever.� The father of the Prodigal Son did not want him home just to get him out of the pigsty and cleaned up, he wanted him home to be with him, and to love him. So God also does not save men just to keep them out of hell, but because he wants them to enjoy heaven with Him.� God wants to forgive you, not forsake you.� God wants to pardon you, not punish you.� God wants to befriend you, not blast you.��

�� All repentance is, is being honest with yourself and God.� Repentance means you admit to God you are trapped, and going in the direction that� you know is leading to destruction. The reason this is hard for many is because of our pride.� We are like the man who was driving to Detroit.� As he turned onto the freeway his wife told him he had turned the wrong way, for Detroit was the other direction.� He said, "I know what I am doing," and he stubbornly refused to consider he may have made a mistake.� A few miles down the road he saw a sign that said Chicago 75 miles.� He was shaken up a bit by that sign, but refused to change his direction.� After two more signs, he knew he was headed the wrong way, but he just could not admit to his wife that he made a mistake.� He kept hoping there was a way he could get to Detroit without turning around.

�� That is where man is.� He wants to go to heaven, and live forever in the paradise of God, where there is no sin, suffering, or death.� Who would not want such an eternal life of joy and abundance?� His sin, however, is taking him the other way to a life of loss, and darkness, and the absence of all that is appealing.� He knows it too, but his pride makes him stubborn, and he refuses to admit he could be such a fool as to risk the glory of heaven for the sake of his sin.� No man wants to admit he gave up the chance to get diamonds because he was to busy going after jelly beans.� No man will feel comfortable admitting he gave up a chance to be rich because he wanted to read comic books.� Man's pride makes it so hard for him to be honest, but only when he is honest, can he stop being a fool.� Repentance is simply admitting I am going the wrong way, and now I am sick of it, and want to turn around and go the way that leads to life.�

�� Repentance is not a one time thing, as if you can only make a wrong turn once in life. Christians who are sensitive to the Holy Spirit will repent frequently, as they grow and walk in the light.� They will see they are going the wrong way, and need to repent and turn around time and time again.� It is not anything to be ashamed of, for it is something to be proud of, for to repent is to be honest with yourself and God.��

�� A couple of years ago this story came out in the Dallas Times Herald.� A man who had been active with the Nazi's during World War II feared reprisals when the war ended, so he hid himself in the attic of his sister's barn.� There he lived alone, isolated and cut off from life.� He ate only the little food his sister brought him.� His whole existence was limited to that small room.� When the authorities finally discovered him, they checked their records and could find no charges against him.� They had never wanted him for anything, so he had spent 30 years in self‑imposed imprisonment.� You say, what a pathetic waste of life.� What a colossal fool for not finding out he could have been a free man.� The fact is, some of you may be just as foolish.�� God has sent His Son to set you free, yet you live as a prisoner, trapped in the cold dark cave of sin and guilt.� All you have to do is repent, and admit you can't get free on your own, and turn to Jesus, trusting Him to set you free.� He promises that when the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.�

�� I'm free from the fear of tomorrow.

I'm free from the guilt of the past.

I've traded my shackles for a glorious crown.

I'm free, praise the Lord, free at last.

12.�� LIBERTY IN THE LORD�� Based on Rom. 8:1‑2

�� The Civil War was a complex and complicated war.� Lambdin P. Milligan was one of the men who got caught up in the complexities of it, and changed the course of legal history in the United States.� Milligan was a lawyer active in local politics in Indiana.� The war had been on three years and was already the worst in the history of our land.� Indiana was on the side of the North, but many were in sympathy with the South.� Secret societies were formed which were called Copperheads, and they supported the Confederate cause.

�� When the Northern general Alvin Hovey heard that Milligan was a part of one of these Copperhead groups, he had him arrested and tried for treason.� Milligan charged that the army had no right to try him under military law because he was a civilian.� General Hovey ignored his argument and went ahead and tried him.� He found him guilty and sentenced him to hang.� Milligan�s lawyer went to President Lincoln directly to plead his case.� All Lincoln could offer was that if the war ended before he was to hang he would give him a prison term instead.�

�� The war did end soon, but Lincoln was assassinated, and there was no record of this private conversation.�� Nine days before he was to die Milligan�s lawyer took his case to the Supreme Court.� The court ruled that the military has no right to try a civilian, and only when the civil courts are closed and unable to operate can a military court have any authority over a civilian.� Milligan was released and was a free man.� It was not because he was innocent, but because he was transferred to a different system of law.� The civil law set him free from the condemnation of the military law.�� The one system of law took away his freedom and sentenced him to die.� The other set him free to live his life.� What system of law a man is under is literally a matter of life or death.

�� This is precisely what Paul is saying in these opening verses of Rom. 8.� Life and death depend upon what system of law you are under, and the good news that fills his heart with joy is that in Christ we are transferred from the law that condemns us to die to the law that sets us free to live in liberty without condemnation.� With a theme like this it is no wonder that Rom. 8 is considered to be one of the greatest chapters of the Bible.� It begins with no condemnation and ends with no separation.� It is a gold mine of assurance, and a diamond field of gems that makes the Christian who comprehends them rich beyond compare.

If the Bible was a ring and Romans its precious jewel the 8^th chapter would be the sparkling point, for it dazzles with beauty from beginning to end.� We want to focus our attention on just one of the many sparkling points of this gem.

THE EXCLAMATION OF LIBERTY IN CHRIST.� v. 1.

�� G. Campbell Morgan points out that this opening sentence is emphatic and explosive in the Greek.� He writes, �It is the glad exultant cry of a soul apprehending the fullest meaning of what the Gospel has wrought for men.�� Paul souls like a man who has just emerged from the court room where he was on trial for his life.� Confronting the reporters he shouts, �I�m free!� I�ve be acquitted!� The verdict was-not guilty.� There is therefore now no condemnation.� I can walk out of here in complete liberty as a free man.�

�� Life is never abundant without liberty.� Jesus called Lazarus back into life, but He also commanded that they unbind him from his grave clothes that he might have liberty in life, for life without liberty would have been a burden and not a blessing.� Life was and is a burden for all who live under law, for one is always under the law of condemnation.� He who keeps the whole law yet offends in one point is guilty of all.� There is no way for sinful men to keep the whole law, and so he is under perpetual condemnation.�

�� Because we, as Christians, have never been where Paul was, under the law, we tend to lose the full appreciation of the liberty that came with the Gospel. Most of us have never felt the bondage and the burden of condemnation.� One of the reasons there is more exclamation of joy for those converted later in life is because they have felt this bondage and burden.�� They have felt the heaviness, and so they more deeply feel the release and the liberty that comes with the Gospel of forgiveness.� The majority of Christians do not feel as deeply as Paul about the liberty they have in Christ, for the same reason that the majority of Americans do not feel as deeply as political liberty as did Patrick Henry, who exclaimed, �Give me liberty or give me death.�

�� Only those who have been oppressed and denied their liberties, and only those who have felt the burden of condemnation can burst forth into praise and commitment like Paul and Patrick.� Does this mean that those of us who have benefitted by always having the liberty of our Lord and our land cannot join in the exclamation of those who have gone from bondage to liberty?� Not at all!� We may not be able to fully enter into the intense degree of emotion felt by those who have been through the radical transformation, but by empathy we can approach it.

�� Empathy is the ability to enter into the experience of another.� You do it when you weep at sad scenes on the screen.� You feel the hurt of those who suffer.� You know in your heart what it must feel like.� You do it when your face lights up and you smile when someone you see on the scene is exceedingly happy.� By empathy you enter into their emotions and feel with them.� You don�t have to be a slave and then set free to feel the joy of liberty.� You don�t have to be a prisoner of war who is tortured and starved, and then delivered by your allies, to have the joy of liberty.� You don�t have to live in fear that some Pharisee will find you picking up a stick on the Sabbath and have you stoned to feel the joy of grace that sets us free from the many laws that made life a burden under the Mosaic Law.�

�� In other words, you don�t have to experience the negative to enjoy the positive.� If that was the case, every generation would have to give up its progress and go back to experience all the negatives that were fought and overcome.� We don�t have to go back and feel the load of the law to enter into the delight of deliverance from the law.� All we have to do is understand history.� That is what history is for.� It is help us to enter into experiences of others so we can feel what they felt.�

�� I can imagine how maddening it would be to not have the freedom to worship as you desire.� To have someone else tell you where you could meet, and what you could or could not preach would be intolerable.� I�ve never experienced that, but I can by empathy feel that burden and so be thankful for the religious liberty that I have in our land of freedom.� I have never lived under the burden of trying to keep many laws to please religious leaders.� I have never had to live in fear that my sin would be greater than my good deeds, and so have to stand before God condemned.� But I can imagine that kind of burden and fear, and so I can enter into the joy of the exclamation of no condemnation.

No condemnation, O my soul,

Tis God that speaks the word!

Completely justified art thou,

In Christ, thy risen Lord.

��

13. ��THE INDWELLING SPIRIT� Based on Rom. 8:9‑13

�� Indwelling has a variety of meanings.� It can mean that matter indwells matter as a kernel or fruit within a shell.� A yoke indwells the white and both dwell within the shell.� It can refer to a situation where one substance is intermixed with another, as with salt and water, or medicine within your blood system.� Then there is the non‑material indwelling the material.� When an artist really puts himself into his art, we say his spirit indwells it.� A musician lives in his composition.� It reveals his nature, personality, or mood.

�� This is what we mean when we say God indwells His creation.� His beauty and harmony of nature are built right into what He has made.� Another type of indwelling is related to heredity.� Parents indwell their children in the sense that part of them has been reproduced.� Man being made in the image of God conveys this idea, and so God indwells men in the sense that they have qualities that are from His nature.� We can speak of one man dwelling in another in the sense of influence or inspiration.� If a man is a follower of another's methods or ideas, you can say that he just lives in that man.

�� All of these ideas of spiritual indwelling fit the meaning of being indwelt by God, but they all fall short of the full meaning.� Paul makes it clear in this passage that God's indwelling is not just figurative, and does not just relate to His image, influence, and inspiration, but to a literal indwelling.� God actually abides within our literal flesh just as Jesus literally entered the flesh of a human body in the incarnation.� The term Christian refers to those who are Christ ones, and that is what we literally are as Christians. �We are little Christ's.� We have the same Holy Spirit indwelling us as He had.� The source of His wisdom and power is within us as it was in Him.� In verse 11 Paul makes it clear that the very Spirit of God who raised up Christ is the Spirit that dwells in the believer, and it is He who will also raise us up to life immortal.

�� It is no wonder that Paul was such a man of assurance and certainty.� Paul didn't claim to know everything, for he said that we know only in part.� Much was mystery to Paul, but he was sure of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.� We want to study this passage verse by verse in order to grow in the knowledge that is necessary to have the assurance of Paul.�

�� In verse 9 in the KJV Paul says to the Roman Christians, "You are not in the flesh."� If you take this literally you would think Paul was writing to disembodied Christians.� It sounds like a weight watchers paradise.� But the modern versions make it clear that Paul is saying they are not controlled by the sinful nature.� He is saying that the natural man is not controlled by the Spirit, but the Christian is to be so controlled.� Those who are in flesh live their life with no regard for God and His will.� They live in a sphere that is flesh controlled and dominated.� In contrast Paul says the Christian is controlled by the Spirit.�

�� Paul's method of getting people to examine themselves is far superior to that of asking people if they are saved.� Instead of asking them, he describes the two spheres in which all people live, and then let's them judge for themselves which sphere they are in.� To be in the Spirit is the opposite of being in the flesh.� If you are in the Spirit and controlled by the Spirit God will play the dominant role in your decisions, thoughts, and acts.� John wrote in I John 14, "Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit."� The indwelling Spirit is the key to Christian assurance.�

�� Then Paul says, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, He does not belong to Christ."� We must possess the Spirit to be possessed by Christ.� He must be ours if we are His.� Mutual possessing and mutual indwelling is what salvation is all about.� These are terms that are not familiar to us because we have taken a few biblical concepts to describe salvation and have ignored the rest.� This is a statement of absolute finality, just like the statement, "You must be born again."� You must have the Spirit of Christ is saying the same thing.� Having the Spirit is a good biblical phrase that we ought to use, for it means to be a child of God.� We tend not to use this terminology because it brings the Holy Spirit into the center of the plan of salvation, and we tend to be weak in our understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit.�

�� In verse 10 Paul says, "But if Christ is in you...," and so we see that Christ in us, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of God, are all used interchangeably.� They are one, and you cannot have one Person of the trinity in you and not have the others.� Where one is, all are.� Then Paul says your body is dead because of sin.� What does this mean?� Does Christ dwell in a corpse?� Was He resurrected and ascended, and then sent back to dwell in dead bodies?� What Paul means is that the body of the Christian is subject to death.� It is in the realm of the dying, and will return to dust because of sin.�

�� In other words, the Christian is only partially saved in the present.� Sin still has power over the realm of the flesh, and as Paul goes on to say, not until the resurrection will our bodies be made spiritual and enter into the realm of the Spirit and be saved. Christians, therefore, are half and half.� They are half saved and half not saved, but the half not yet saved has a guarantee to be saved if the Spirit indwells them.�

�� Then Paul ends verse 10 by saying, "Yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness."� It is alive because of the righteousness of Christ.� Jesus said, "He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die."�� The Christian is alive even if he is dead.� Death no longer has dominion over them.� The body which is still subject to death is not the controlling factor in the Christian.� His body does not run the show as it does for those in the flesh.� For the Christian the Spirit is in control, and so the power of the resurrection is already in operation in the Christian life.� The resurrection life is a life in which the Spirit is in control, and not the body.� There is no difference between the bodies and the lost and those of the saved.� The difference is in the Spirit.� The spirit of the lost man is a slave to his body, but the spirit of the saved is a co‑partner with the Spirit of God.�

�� In verse 11 Paul makes it clear that sin and death will not gain the slightest victory over the children of God.� He wants to make it clear that though the body is dead and not in control it is not to be abused, for it will be a part of the total plan of salvation.� Jesus indwelt a body, and even though it died it saw no corruption.� God will not let any body He has dignified by His indwelling be left in the grip of death.� All that God indwells shall be eternal and so if the Spirit indwells us, we can have perfect assurance of immorality.� Just as certain as Jesus rose with a body changed and made immortal, so shall all Christians rise and be changed.� The power of the resurrection is the power of the Spirit, and no temple of the Holy Spirit will lie forever in the dust, for the Spirit will give life even to our dead bodies.�

�� In the light of all that the Spirit does for us now and for eternity Paul goes on to say that we have an obligation to live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. We do not owe the body anything, for its fleshly nature only brings us down, but we owe the Spirit everything, for He lifts us up to the dignity of being God's child.

�� Paul goes on in v. 13 to say that we will die if we live according to the sinful nature of the flesh, but we will live if we put to death the deeds of the body by means of the Spirit.� This is life now and forever.� We must be in constant battle with the body to keep it under the control of the Spirit. We must present our bodies as living sacrifices as Paul says in chapter 12 of Romans.� We must die daily or the body will dominate us and lead us in many ways that are not truly life, but paths to death.� The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and if you let your body determine what you will do, it means you will do much less for Christ and for your own spiritual growth than is you are controlled by the Spirit. The flesh will keep you from doing much that is God's will for your growth.

�� By the grace of God the Spirit working with our spirit can overthrow the tyranny of the flesh and reign in its place. The Spirit can gain control and discipline the body and bring it under submission. This will lead to the fruit of the Spirit being produced in your life. The Spirit will help us put to death the desires of the body to be lazy and indifferent to the things of God, and the desires to do what is contrary to the will of God.� If the Spirit is not in control, the body will quench the Spirit and we will be carnal and not spiritual. Something has to die, and it is either the flesh or the Spirit, and which it is determines the quality of your life now and for eternity. Assurance of salvation; assurance of eternal life, and assurance of abundant life now are all dependant upon the indwelling of the Spirit of God.

14.�� BLESSED ASSURANCE�� Based on Rom. 8:14‑18

�� William Stidger tells this fascinating true story out of history:� It was the final battle in the war between the Tartars and the Russians as they faced each other across the Oka River in 1462.� For several days they were engaged in bitter fighting.� Time after time the Tartar hordes tried to drive across the river, but they were thrust back.� The Russians were far inferior by number, but the water of the Oka was their protection.

�� Then something happened that struck fear into the hearts of the Russian defenders.� A cold wave swept down from the snow‑clad peaks of the Ural Mountains, and the waters of the Oka began to freeze over.� Once the ice was strong enough the Tartars could cross over and annihilate the Russian forces.� As they sat around the camp fire talking of the advantage the enemy would soon have, and as they felt the weather getting colder and colder, their fear grew to a panic, and before midnight the whole army was fleeing back to Moscow.

�� The following morning when the Tartar sentries were able to look across the river, they were amazed to find that the enemy had vanished.� The Tartars immediately suspected a trick.� They thought that perhaps the Russians had crossed the river several miles down and were planning to attack from the rear.� Uncertainty as to what the Russians were up to caused fear to spread through the camp, and in less than two hours the Tartar host had abandoned its tents, and was in full retreat.� Two panic stricken armies were running from each other, both having been conquered by fear.�

�� Fear is a great conqueror.� It is one of the most universal and powerful forces that man has to contend with.� Every man, even the bravest, has to fight with fear on many different fronts.� We feel fear because of inadequacy.� We fear people who are superior.� We fear those with more education, and those with more talent.� We fear those who are more widely traveled.� We fear dozens of different relationships with others because of our ignorance and inadequacies.� The result is that we flee in retreat and let fear defeat us and deprive us of many of life's blessings and opportunities.�

�� Not only do we have social fears that control us, but we have bodily pain fears.� Certainly it is a rare person who does not fear a heart attack every time they get a pain in the chest.� We hear so much about physical problems in all age groups that we are conscious that no one is immune from serious and fatal diseases.� The result is a constant weight of fear pressing down on us.� Add to this the fear we have over economics.� We fear inflation and depression.� We fear we won't be able to afford to send our children to college.� We fear a thousand different things in relation to money.� When a woman says she hasn't a thing to wear she is saying that she fears to be out of style.� Fear even plays a role in determining our wardrobe.

�� Children fear they will not win their parents affections, and parents fear they will not raise their children right.� Parents fear they will not maintain their love and loyalty to each other.� Everything seems to be built on shifting sand, and there is no certainty.� Therefore, fear reigns, and masses go down in defeat before fear every day.� We haven't even mentioned the dozens of religious and superstitious fears that fill our institutions for the mentally ill.�

�� We quote, "I will fear no evil for thou art with me," but then we do not walk in fearlessness as we talk.� We shun the conflict with the enemy like weaponless orphans.� Boldness and courage are quenched by fear, and we do not witness as we ought.� God says to go and conquer, but like the Israelites of old, we let our fear reign and reply that there are giants in the land.� Every obstacle looks like a giant, and we feel like pigmies.� I can't, I can't, is the theme song of the average Christian.� What they mean is, I fear, I fear.� There is no victory march of certainty ringing in their ears.� They hear only the dismal dirge of doubt which holds them down.

�� John Masefield in The Hell‑Hounds tells of a priest who let fear terrorize him into cowardice.� He became faithless to his duties, and he hid himself in fear.� Then he heard the message of some birds singing‑

Open the door, Good saint, they cried;

Pass deeper into your soul!

There is a power in your side

Which hell cannot control.

�� The story is fiction, but the message is one of the most essential biblical facts that every child of God must grasp.� We do not need to be controlled by fear.� We have a power within that can control fear.� This is one of the major messages that the Apostle Paul communicated in his letters.� Here in Romans 8 he makes it so clear that none can miss it.�� We can be sure, and have complete certainty, and absolute assurance that deprives fear of a foothold in our lives.� Uncertainty is what gives fear its power.�

�� People are uncertain about life, its meaning, purpose, and goals.� This leaves them helpless victims of fear, but Paul says the Christian can have certainty in all of these areas.� We can be certain of being led by the Spirit.� We can be certain of immortality of the body as well as of the Spirit.� Man fears non‑existence, but the Christian need not do so, for he can have assurance of eternal life.� Man fears to be nobody, and to be insignificant.� The Christian need not fear this, for over and over Paul says the Christian can be assured that he is a child of God.� He has a place in God's family for time and eternity.

�� Men fear that they will have nothing to show for having lived, but Paul says the Christian can be assured of an eternal inheritance.� We will be co‑heirs with Christ of all the infinite riches of God.� With assurance of immortality, identity, and inheritance, you would think Christians could march boldly on to victory unhindered by fear.� Unfortunately, this is not the case, for what is possible is not necessarily actual.�

�� William Adams Brown writes, "A noticeable feature of contemporary religious life is the loss of the sense of certainty."� It is considered to be pride to absolutely sure of anything.� Someone said that we are not even sure that we are not sure.� Men are even fearful of being certain.� Part of this is due to the false certainties of past.� Men have been dogmatic in science and religion, and they were so sure they were right that they persecuted those who came up with something new.� Certainty led to intolerance and narrowness, and a loss of freedom to pursue the truth.� In reaction to this the modern man has gone to the other extreme and says that we cannot be certain of anything.� The task of the Christian is to find the happy medium between these two extremes.

�� In the first place, the Christian must recognize that certainty is not essential in all areas.� It would be interesting to know exactly who is right as to just how God created the universe.� Did He do it in 7 literal days, or 7 ages?� Did He do it directly, or by process?� It would be interesting to know for sure, but such certainty is not necessary for effective Christian living.� It is not essential for life abundant to know if the church will go through the tribulation or escape it.� We can survive and even thrive with uncertainty in many areas over which Christians debate.� What we need to know for sure is, are we saved, are we children of God, and do we have eternal life?� If we have certainty in these areas, that is what really matters, for that gives us a solid basis from which we can fight off all the fiery darts of fear.

�� The second thing we must recognize is that certainty does not mean infallibility.� To be certain of something does not mean you possess full knowledge of it, and can never change.�� Certainty is not to be confused with changelessness.� I can be certain of my salvation as a child, but my account of it and its basis at that point may be radically revised as I get older, and grow in my knowledge of God's Word.� Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but in relationship to me He is ever changing as I grow in knowledge.� Yesterday Jesus may have been an enemy to a man, today a Savior, and tomorrow a Lord to be followed.� Our relationship, our maturity, our knowledge causes us to be changing all the time, but through it all we can be certain that we are children of God.

�� Paul states it clearly in verse 16 where he says that the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.� The value of a testimony depends upon the character of the witness.� Paul says we have the highest possible witness to assure us of being children of God, and that is the Holy Spirit Himself.� The Holy Spirit is the author of absolute assurance.� Conversion is followed by confirmation.� God does not leave His children ignorant as to their identity.� What a cruel picture is suggested by those who say you cannot know you are saved. �It pictures God as an irresponsible Father, who give birth to children, but never gives them a name to establish their identity.� If we cannot be certain that we are children of God, then fear must reign supreme, and Christianity has nothing to offer a fear filled world.� If all we have to offer is a hope‑so salvation, and not a know‑so salvation, we are not preaching a Gospel, but a gamble.� Take a chance, and maybe you will make it, and maybe not.� This leaves you yet in the grip of fear.�

�� Christians who feel assurance is a sign of pride fail to pay attention to God's Word.� If it is our spirit only that claims we are children of God then it would be pride, but Paul says there is a duel witness.� Not only does our spirit bear witness, but the spirit of God bears witness with our spirit.� Assurance is based on a duel witness, and it is not pride to accept the witness and testimony that God has given to empower us to overcome fear and live victoriously.� It is pride to refuse the witness and power of God and seek to live in your own strength.

�� Many Christians develop fear even as they read this verse for the conquering of fear.� They never hear any voice from heaven saying they are children of God.� They never have any visions or supernatural revelations, and so they fear they lack this witness of the Spirit.� What Paul is saying here is that the proof of your sonship lies in how you address God.� If you call Him Father, that very fact that you can do so is the witness of the Holy Spirit that you are His child.� Luther said, "Whoever believes with a firm faith and love that he is a child of God, is a child of God."� The child of God addresses God as Father.

�� Abba Father here is really Father repeated twice.� Abba is father in Aramaic, which was the language that Jesus spoke.� When He taught the Lord's Prayer He doubtless said, "Our Abba who art in heaven."� In Mark 14:36 Jesus prayed in Gethsemane and said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee." In Gal. 4:6 Paul uses the phrase again, "And because you are sons God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba!� Father!"� It is universally acknowledged among Bible scholars that calling God Father is the witness of the Holy Spirit to our sonship.� Even a liberal like Paul Tillich writes, "Only he who has the Spirit has the power to say Father to God."� He also says, "The whole message of Christianity is contained in this statement.� Christianity overcomes law and despair by the certainty that we are the children of God.� There is nothing higher than this."

�� When even a liberal sees that assurance of salvation is the key to power over all fear, God forbid that we neglect this precious truth.� If we serve God out of fear that He will punish us, this is a slave mentality, and not the spirit of sonship. If you have this attitude toward God, you are living on a sub‑Christian level.� Many churches in the past have encouraged this sub‑Christian living by playing down the doctrine of assurance, and the witness of the Holy Spirit.� If men are free and independent, and their assurance of salvation and sonship comes directly from the witness of the Spirit, they will not be dependent upon the institutional church.� Therefore, to maintain a loyalty to the institution people were kept blind to the doctrine of assurance.� This produced weak and ineffective Christians. Paul's approach is one that needs to be followed.� You make individual Christians strong through assurance so they can conquer fear.

These kinds of Christians are what make the institutional church strong.

�� The tragedy is that so few professing Christians have assurance of their salvation.� Many times it is due to sheer ignorance of what the Bible teaches.� The founders of all the major denominations made it clear in their commentaries on this 16th verse, but the people are kept in ignorance.� Protestants are as much in the dark about some vital biblical subjects as are Catholics.� The witness of the Spirit, and the assurance of sonship is one of the subjects.

�� Calvin said, "No one can be termed a son of God who does not acknowledge himself to be one."� Our own spirit must bear witness that we are children of God, and then we must have the witness of the Holy Spirit which enables us to say Abba Father, or as Philip has it, "Father, my Father."� John Wesley said, "This is the privilege of all the children of God, and without this we can never be assured that we are His children."� If you cannot call God Father, you need to make a decision that will open your heart to God and allow you to see Him as your heavenly Father.

�� H. Harold Kent, and architect and preacher in Canada, bought a dog from a man just to protect him.� The man beat the dog repeatedly.� The dog was beautiful, but it lived in fear, and even when he first had this dog at home he would call Wolf, and he would snare and slink into a corner in fear.� After a time of much love and no beatings he began to realize he was not going to be hurt, and so he began to greet him when he came home with a wagging tail.� He had conquered fear by the spirit of love.� He had learned that he was a member of the family.� Perfect love had cast out fear.� It works even in the life of a dog.

�� One of the main reasons the Lord's Prayer begins with Our Father is so that it might become a habit for God's children to address Him as Father.� It is one of the unique aspects of Christianity that Christians call their God Father.� God is called God by the billions through history, but Christians call God Father.� If you do not then you have not developed one of the key ways to have assurance of your salvation.� You can think of God as the Creator and the Lord of history and still be uncertain, but you cannot think of God as your Father and live in uncertainty of His love.�

�� As Christians we need to learn that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.� We are to be assured that we are members of God's family, and this assurance will give us the victory over life's most potent fears.� Let us not live on the level of I hope I am saved, or I hope I am a child of God, but let us live on the biblical level of I know.� An unknown poet wrote‑

What wondrous blessings overflow,

When we can truly say, I know‑

I know in whom I have believed,

I know the one I have received,

I know His blood avails for me,

I know that I was blind, but see,

I know that my redeemer lives,

I know the gifts He freely gives,

I know He'll keep me to the end,

I know He's my unfailing friend.

��

15. ��ABSOLUTELY PERSUADED� Based on Rom. 8:28‑39

The 8th chapter of Romans is a spiritual palace of comfort and challenge built for the children of God.� Nothing could be more optimistic than the words we find here that all works for good, and that if God is before us who can be against us.� God has given His Son who intercedes of us, and nothing can separate from His love.� We are more than conquerors.� Such an optimistic view of things seems to be more than we can believe.� We wonder if the writer is some arm chair philosopher who never got his hands dirty, and never knew what it was to suffer.� It would be easy for him to sit in his patted chair and write about life, while his servants bring him his mid‑afternoon snack.�

�� But wait!� We are talking about the wrong man.� The author of this chapter is a soldier from the battlefront.� He knows what it is like to be hated, despised, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and imprisoned.� The Apostle Paul was not writing from a sheltered life, but from one that knew the stress of constant combat and serious struggles.� It is important to keep this in mind as we consider his words.

Let's look first at‑

I. HIS CERTAINTY.� v. 28.

�� He says, "We know" and in verse 38, "I am persuaded."� In a day when nothing seemed certain, and governments can rise or fall overnight, and where text books change their contents every year, we