Romans 6:1-14
January 11, 2008

There is a cry that arises from the guards when a condemned man is taken from his cell and begins his final walk; the cry is “Dead Man Walking”.

Paul has spoken already about the identity of the Christ-follower, and at the end of chapter 5, about how the increase of sin is counteracted by an increase of God’s grace. You can’t out-sin God’s grace, in other words. Living a life that pleases God by its obedience is undergirded by a clear understanding of God’s truth, specifically here our identity in Christ as His followers. Duty follows doctrine; Christian living flows from Christian learning; Paul wants us to know the truth that we might live it.

Because of this scandalous idea of grace, many people through the years have felt that if the Christian faith actually encourages people to live sinful, immoral lives. Here’s the reasoning: why try to be good if you already know in advance you will be forgiven? Why not live like the devil, and then ask for forgiveness in the end? The French philosopher Voltaire captured this idea when he said, “God will always forgive…that’s his job.” Those who misunderstand grace can assume that it leads to license to sin. Paul writes to address this:

I. Two Questions
(Answered by Two Questions)
Paul here employs one of his favorite strategies, raising and then answering questions in order to make his point.
The Questions
A. “What shall we say?”
This question refers us back to chapter 5, of course, and involves Paul’s concern that some might immediately assume that salvation by faith makes obedience and holiness obsolete.

B. “Shall we keep on sinning?”
If we are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone, and if our good works play no role whatever in the obtaining or in the maintaining of our salvation, then why be good? Why not just sin up a storm? I’ve heard it suggested that as preacher is probably not preaching the gospel of grace if he’s never been misunderstood in this way.

The Answers
A. “How can we?”
“We died to sin” – what does this mean? I’ve heard well-meaning pastors use the illustration—probably used it myself—of how a dead person is impervious to any outward stimuli. I don’t think that’s correct at all; it doesn’t jibe with Bible or experience. It cannot mean
• Christians are impervious to temptation
• Christians are incapable of sinning
Both of these possibilities are erroneous; he makes this clear with his words in :11-14, which we’ll see, and we understand this from experience as well. What does it mean, then, for Paul to say that we have “died to sin”? Christ bore sin’s condemnation when He died on the cross; He met death’s claim and paid its penalty once and for all. Paul uses death because it is a powerful image indicating a decisive shift in state. The believer’s change of state with relationship to sin is as dramatic as the change from life to death.

B. “Don’t you know that in baptism, we were buried into Christ’s death?”
I think Paul is referring here to water baptism. I have said for quite some time that we in evangelical churches, out of our fear of dead legalism, have tended to make too little of water baptism. We have so emphasized “salvation by grace through faith that we have tended to treat baptism as unimportant; this is clearly not the way the New Testament treats the subject. Is Paul indicating that water baptism is that which saves (if so, he’d be contradicting himself), or that it is something that we add to faith in order to be saved? No, but I do believe that he understands what some of us miss, that water baptism is of such critical importance to living a life of obedience that to countenance a person professing faith in Christ being unwilling to follow Christ in baptism is simply unthinkable to Paul. And it is into Christ’s death that we have been baptized. The waters of baptism symbolize this death to the old person that we experience in Christ. Thus we have

II. Two Forms of ID
Baptism carries with it the idea of identification. This may sound odd, but if you looked up I Corinthians 10 in your Bibles, you’d see that Paul speaks of the Israelites being “baptized into Moses”, meaning that they were identified with him, recognizing his God-ordained leadership and their dependence upon him. That word “united” is a word that in the original was used to describe two branches that had grown together, bound inextricably to each other. That is true of us through our being buried with Christ and raised with Him.

A. Buried with Christ
Baptism symbolizes death; this is a key reason why I believe that baptism ought to be by immersion, for it pictures death, burial, and resurrection in a way that no other form of baptism adequately can. Frank Gaebelein writes, “Our spiritual history began at the cross. We were there in the sense that in God’s sight we were joined to Him who actually suffered on it. The time element should not disturb us, because if we sinned in Adam, it is equally possible to have died to sin with Christ.”

B. Raised with Christ
Baptism represents the resurrection of Christ and that life experience of Christ is true of us as well, as we have been raised to new life through Him. We participate with Jesus in His resurrection in that we have new life in Him. We are identified by Christ’s resurrection as people who, though dead, are now walking in newness of life.

III. Two Things We Know to be True

A. Our old self was crucified with Christ
The people we were are no longer the people we are. We might speak of our lives as being stories told in two volumes: “Volume I” takes place before Christ, and “Volume II” after coming to Christ. Paul wants us to understand clearly that the old “us”, identified with Christ, is gone, as surely as Christ died physically on the cross. And it happens in order “that we would no longer be enslaved to sin”. Paul is saying here that the old self-centered “me” has been deprived of its power, that sin has no power over me that I do not give it.

B. Christ will never die again
Sin has no power over Jesus; death has no power over Jesus. He has conquered death, and by implication, we understand that those who are his will do the same. The dominance of sin has been broken and we are free from it.

IV. Two Continual Considerations
What are we to do with what he has taught us? In the first place, this truth ought to affect how we think about ourselves. It’s critical to think correctly. We can think of the analogy of the Civil War slave set free at the end of the war. Ingrained in his mind, perhaps for his entire lifetime, is the idea that he is under bondage to another person. For at least a period of time, the freed slave will have to regularly remind himself that he is not a slave any longer, that he is truly free. So with us: we must regularly remind ourselves that we are not slaves to those passions and temptations and sins in which we used to walk.

John Stott says that “the major secret of holy living is in the mind”, and I am to make these two firm deposits in my mind:

A. “I am dead to sin”

B. “I am alive with Christ”
Galatians 2:20 tells it like it is: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. It’s possible for the Christian to act as though he’s still in “Volume I” of his life, forgetting that he’s living in “Volume II”. But it’s not natural, it’s not normal, and it’s not necessary!

• It’s not natural because that old man has died to sin;
• It’s not normal because the Christian is alive to Christ;
• It’s not necessary because sin’s power has been broken over the believer, and the only way sin can still reign is if we give ourselves over to it.

Stott says,
“Regenerate Christians should no more contemplate a return to unregenerate living than adults to their childhood, married people to their singleness, or discharged prisoners to their prison cell. For our union with Jesus Christ has severed us from the old life and committed us to the new. Our baptism stands between the two like a door between two rooms, closing on the one and opening into the other. We have died, and we have risen. How can we possibly live again in what we have died to?”

On the basis of this preventive truth Paul can issue

V. Two Commands

A. “Don’t let sin reign”
The victory that Christ won for us is a victory that must be appropriated. We are not slaves to sin, but we must live that way. We can voluntarily place ourselves under sin’s bondage. Don’t offer the parts of your body to sin.

B. “Present yourself to God”
I need to consciously say to God, “here’s my everything; control it, use it, for Your glory. My all is at your disposal.”

VI. Two Concluding Thoughts

A. “Sin is not your master”
You do not serve sin or self. You have a new Lord.

B. “You are under God’s grace”
We are not dominated by a legalistic set of rules like the law of Moses, but we are under the grace of God. We live to please God, not to obey rules, recognizing that simple rule-keeping, of which the Pharisees were the best, is not what pleases God, but rather a heart set on Him first and foremost, which will then be transformed to live a life pleasing to Him. Being under grace means that I acknowledge the grace of God in Christ to be the very ground upon which I stand.

Yes, that grace of God is so amazing that it reaches down to us in our sin and forgives us, time and time and time again. But grace doesn’t only forgive us; grace changes us. “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound”, Paul asks. And the answer is not only “no”, we are not, but by the grace of God that breaks sin’s power, we need not.

Taking it Home
Does it seems, as you read this passage, that Paul repeats himself a good bit? If you find this to be true, why do you think this is?

Since the Christian is to consider himself “dead to sin”, sin ought to be something he takes seriously. Do you think there are some sins that most Christians take lightly? Which ones? Why?

Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit as we cooperate with Him by obedience. In this passage, what are the things that God does for us, and in us? What are the things that we are to do in response?

The Puritan theologian John Owens once wrote that his biggest challenge as a pastor was persuading non-Christians that they were slaves to sin and Christians that they were dead to sin. Why do you think he believed this?

Romans 5:12-21
December 28, 2008
Delivered by Ken Chaney

I. The effects that the disobedience of Adam introduced into the world are not like the effects that the obedience of Christ introduced into the world.

II. The effects of Adam’s transgression introduced:
A. Sin -:12
B. Death -:12
C. Judgment and Condemnation -:16,18
D. Many sinners -:19

III. The effects of the gift introduced:
A. Justification to many -:16
B. Righteousness to many -:19
C. Life to many -:18

IV. The effect and purpose of the law in regards to the disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ -:20-21
A. To magnify the transgression of Adam
B. To reveal the need for the gift of God’s grace in the person of Christ

Romans 5:6-11
December 14, 2008

I am not a sinner. Is that most arrogant thing you’ve ever heard? It would be if it were not…true! I am not a sinner! Would you hold that thought for a bit later?

We have just looked at some of the amazing gifts that God provides for His children via His amazing grace. In :5, he refers to the love of God being “poured into our hearts”. We can view the next few verses as illustrations of the amazing love of God that has been showered on us. The centerpiece is :8, where we understand the purest and most undiluted picture of the incredible love of God is seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the center, the fulcrum on which the love of God pivots. Nothing demonstrates God’s incredible love for us more than the cross. Any church that makes little of the cross of Christ is not worthy to be called a “Christian” church, whether that church talks about Jesus or calls itself by the name “Christian” or not. The cross is the identifying mark for the Christian; “…far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).

The Cross Tells Me
I. Who I Was Before Jesus
Let’s remember: “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (II Cor. 5:17); this speaks of a new kind of person who has never existed previously. The “before and after” with the Christian is stark; there is a difference that is clear theologically and ought to be clear practically.

A. Weak
“Weak” speaks of a total inability to fix our own condition. The Bible says that when we were helpless—we couldn’t do anything to love Him back—Christ died for us, the ungodly. That’s our next point.

B. Ungodly
Lacking in reverence and holy awe for God, I was in rebellion against that which is holy and godlike. The image of God, stamped upon us by God, has been defaced, like some wall filled with graffiti obscures what it’s supposed to look like. That image is not destroyed, but it is messed up; that’s what sin does to us. “Image of God” to “ungodly”; that’s what has happened to us all.

And so instead of seeking the God Who really exists, we all erect gods of our own desire and design. No man naturally seeks the God Who is, unless that God draws that man to Himself and grants Him grace and understanding. A key growth point in our lives is when we stop seeking the god we want and begin to seek the God Who is. Do we want a god who will conform himself to our demands, our tastes, our wants, our wishes, a god that we fashion in our own image and to our liking, or do we want to seek the God Who really exists?

C. A Sinner
We’ve fallen short of God’s standard; everything about us is warped by our sin. In the light of the cross, I was a sinner; that used to be my identity.

D. An Enemy
Romans 8:7 says that the sinful mind is hostile to God. I don’t naturally want the authority of God over my life; I don’t like being told what to do, particularly if it cramps my style or makes me uncomfortable. Knowingly or unknowingly, I was the enemy of God.

The cross says that my sin is terrible, that I am unworthy of forgiveness…but that’s not all the cross says, nor is it the major focus of our time this morning.

II. Who I Am Because of Jesus
I began by saying, “I am not a sinner.” I was a sinner; I am not any longer. Come again? You saying you don’t sin, Harvey? Nope, not at all; I sin still, fall short, fail God in many ways. What gives? As a child of God, the Bible never identifies me by my sin. I know, people say, “I’m just a sinner, saved by grace”, and they mean well, and sound humble, but I am identified not by my sin, but by my Savior. I am who I am in the light of Who Christ is. My sin isn’t the badge I wear to identify myself; my Savior is.

Notice what the Scripture says about who I am because of Jesus; first,

A. Jesus’ Teaching
We could mention many examples. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks us to consider the birds, and how God cares for them, reasoning that if God has a loving concern for the smallest of His creations, sparrows and the like, how much more does He care for us? Of how much more value are we? Why? Because the fact of our sin doesn’t take away the fact that we are created in the image of God. Why are the current raging debates about man’s origins so absolutely critical? Because the “imago Dei”, that God-image, would not be present if a.) there were no God, and b.) man evolved upward out of some primordial goulash with monkeys and maggots as his ancestral cousins.

What does it mean that we are “in God’s image”? I won’t attempt an exhaustive list here, but we
• Are rational
• Have a sense of moral obligation
• Have a conscience
• Have the ability to act and make choices
• Have a need for community, evidencing the Trinity
• Can appreciate beauty and make distinctions
• Have a sense of mortality/long for immortality
• Have an innate need to worship, and a sense that there must be some kind of God

And the point is that Jesus is clear in His teaching that we are of significant value to God.

B. Jesus’ Attitude
Jesus didn’t believe that anyone was insignificant. An adulterous woman; a demon-possessed man; a blind beggar; a hated centurion; overlooked children; lepers—He didn’t see any of these as worthless! His attitude toward the least and the lost was one of compassion, seen over and over again in Scripture. But today’s text emphasizes

C. Jesus’ Work on Calvary
Paul lifts up the cross as the ultimate proof of God’s love. “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”, Jesus said. If the degree of love is measured by the costliness of the gift and the worthiness of the recipient, then the cross is clearly the ultimate expression of love, for “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Though not worthless, we are clearly unworthy of such love; Christ gave His everything for those who deserved nothing. Want to know what God thinks of you? Look at the cross. Jesus died for those who were by nature His enemies (:8). This demonstrates the depth and quality of God’s love for us.

And something else about the love of God is in view here: it’s on the basis of God’s love for us, not our love for Him, that we are saved. My love for God teeters and totters sometimes; it’s a precarious thing. It’s inconsistent and imperfect. But God’s love for me is steady, pure, perfect. Isn’t it a great thing that I’m not justified because of my love for God, or only for as long as my love for Him measures up?

III. Who I Will Be in Jesus
“Much more” appears twice; in :11, we see, “more than that.” Paul is employing logic and reasoning in this passage; he’s building an argument, not only in the entire book of Romans, but also here in this passage.

A. 2 Past-Tense Truths
These represent two different ways of describing what takes place when we become followers of Christ.

1. Justified
As we’ve said several times earlier, to be justified is to be declared innocent by God. God sees us as though we had never sinned. We are absolved not only from all punishment for our sin, but from any basis upon which we ought to be punished.

2. Reconciled
Reconciliation involves bringing back into relationship and fellowship those who had been estranged from each other, in this case, God and us. It involves the removal of hostility between us. You were an enemy in God’s sight, and yet despite that fact, through the death of Christ His Son, you were brought back into relationship with your Creator.

B. 2 Future-Tense Truths

1. Saved from God’s Wrath
What’s the proper answer to the question, “are you saved?” Ready? “Yes” and “no”. That’s the Biblical answer. Yes, I have been saved by the power of God from guilt of sin and the accompanying judgment of God on that sin; no, I will one day be saved from the wrath of God. Paul uses the word in both senses, but more often in this latter. And this is the sense in which he’s using it here.

2. Saved by His Life
After reminding us that we’ve been reconciled by the death of His only begotten Son, Paul finishes this passage by saying that it is by the life of Christ that we’ll be saved. The resurrection of Christ is our guarantee that eternal life and salvation await us in the end. We serve a living Savior; if Jesus is alive and in glory, then we have the sure hope of our own ultimate salvation.

C. 1 Present-Tense Attitude: Rejoice!
What do the causes of our joy say about our lives? What are the things you get excited about? And what does that say about you?

Notice the locus of Paul’s joy: God Himself! This is not a lighthearted, thoughtless joy; it is not the joy of the superficial fool who simply says, “don’t worry; be happy!” This is the joy of the person who has really stared his own depravity in the face, who has understood the ugliness of his own sin, who has come to terms with his ungodliness and been sobered by its monstrous reality. You don’t get to this joy without going through that pain; if you think you’ve come to real joy but haven’t accepted the truth about yourself before Christ, you have arrived at a phony joy in a phony God. But once you’ve seen the despicable nature of your sin, and then come to the realization that God sees you, not as you naturally are, a sinner, but as one who has been reconciled to Himself, standing before Him just as if you’d never sinned even once in your life, then you realize that that’s the kind of God Who is incredibly worthy of being the object of our excitement, our joy.

Taking it Home
• Why is it incorrect to say, “I’m just a sinner, saved by grace”? What truths are behind that statement? What misunderstanding(s)? What might be some better ways of saying it?
• List several ways God’s incredible love for us is demonstrated in this passage.
• What are some other things you know of the teaching and attitude of Christ which demonstrate how He views people?
• The theme of the Christian’s assurance comes through strongly in this passage. What are some of the things we see here which reinforce that truth?
• Read together II Corinthians 5:17-21. What are some truths we find in that passage regarding:
o What God has done for us?
o What is true of us as a result?

Romans 5:1-5
December 7, 2008

Today, we reach a new movement in Paul’s argument; he’s gone to great lengths to build his case for justification by God’s amazing grace through faith alone in Christ; now, he moves to the amazing gifts that are ours as a result of our salvation in Him.

God’s Salvation Gifts include:

I. Peace with God
A. The nature of this peace
Is this “peace” referring to feelings or fact? In this case, it refers to established fact, done deal, settled transaction. Scripture tells us that the natural man is alienated from God because of sin, and under His righteous wrath. “Peace with God” refers to the settled state between God and an individual, whereby there exists no breach at all between the two.

B. What causes a lack of it?
Colossians 1:19-22 tells us that we are by nature “alienated”, “enemies of God”. Before coming to Christ, we are positioned as the enemies of God. Before Christ, every person is in a state of either conscious or unconscious rejection of Him. What’s more, God’s righteous wrath, as we’ve said before, is directed at your sin.

C. What is the means of peace with God?
The basis is Christ’s work on Calvary and His resurrection. The means is my simple faith. I cannot accomplish this through self-improvement. God justifies the believing sinner, and in chapter 4 we’ve seen that Abraham is used as an example of this.

D. What are the results of this peace?
The Old Testament Hebrew word is “shalom”, a deeper word than our notions of peace, and it’s NT equivalent refers to the full sense of peace that we feel because of our relationship with God in Christ; it is this “peace of God” that Paul tells us we need to allow to rule in our hearts. Here’s the promise from Philippians 4:6, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

II. Access into God’s grace
“Grace” here refers to the state in which the believer lives. When I have Jesus, I have all I really need to live life. Listen to Scripture:

“In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

“We have been made complete in Him” (Colossians 2:10).

Scripture has been given to us in order “that the man of God may be mature, completely adequate for every good work” (II Timothy 3:17).

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good work” (II Corinthians 9:8).

We have access into this grace in which we stand. The Greek word histemi means a permanence, a standing firm and immoveable. We need to learn to live in relation to what is true of us through Christ. I have no legitimate reason for feelings of insecurity. I have no reason to fear. I don’t have to prove myself. I don’t have to put on airs, or try to be something I’m not to impress someone. I don’t have to boast, and I don’t have to grovel. Why? Because on Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand.

And that word “access” is a particularly precious one as well, for it indicates that we as followers of Christ have unfettered access, ability to go directly to God through Christ, our Mediator. God is so holy as to be unapproachable, but when Christ died, the veil of the Temple was torn in two top to bottom, indicating that the Holy Place of God, closed off to all but the High Priest and he only once a year, was now open to all. Jesus is the only Way to God, but when we say that, we affirm that through Jesus, there is a Way to go directly to Him. That’s one reason why we pray “in Jesus’ name”; it reminds us that it is only through Jesus that we can come into God’s presence and address Him as our Father.

III. The ability to rejoice in our certain hope
Here’s what Paul says is true of us by birthright: we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and when he uses the word “hope”, he doesn’t mean some “hope so” kind of hope, but a sure and settled hope in the reality of seeing God in His glory. And what’s more, we will share in that hope; Romans 9:23 says that “He makes known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy.” The cause for hope: the God with Whom we as His children will spend all eternity has already gotten a jump on the project by working to show forth His glory in and through you right now.

IV. The ability to rejoice in the midst of suffering
Paul, this sounds a little nuts: we can rejoice when we are suffering? Yes, because nothing ever really goes against the believer. Put another way, nothing eternally bad can ever happen to the follower of Christ!

I know that God is working in me, and I am here
• By His appointment
• In His keeping
• Under His training
• For His time

Suffering’s by-products:
The word for “suffering” here is a Greek word used for squeezing grapes to produce juice, or olives to produce oil. We can “rejoice when the squeeze is on”, in other words. Now, grapes and olives don’t have feelings, but the fact is that when they are squeezed, something good is produced. II Timothy 3:12 says that, “all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution”. Sometimes suffering is God’s choice tool to refine us and produce in us things which could not otherwise be produced. Notice the things Paul says are produced (and I don’t believe this to be an exhaustive list):

A. Endurance
Staying power, the ability to say, “I’ve seen God come through before in tough times, and I am confident that He will do it again.”

B. Character
One commentator wrote that, “the wind of tribulation blows away the chaff of error, hypocrisy, and doubt, leaving the genuine element of true character.” And character produces

C. Hope
God’s promise is that there is nothing I can’t handle. And that gives me hope, knowing that no matter how dark the night, how severe the trial, how difficult the circumstance, I have hope. We rejoice in sufferings!

V. The love of God
He poured out His love for us in Christ, but beyond this, He has poured His love into us as well. I John 3:16-18 tells us that about God’s amazing love that is demonstrated toward us and must be evidenced through us as well. And it happens because of the last gift of God mentioned here:

VI. The Holy Spirit of God
Though the Holy Spirit, Whom the Bible says lives in us, we can love others. Sometimes, that’s the only way we can love people whom we’d otherwise not be disposed to love!

Taking it Home
• Could you explain to a stranger the difference between peace with God and the peace of God? What would you say?
• Read Colossians 2:1-15. What are some of the truths you can mine from this passage regarding our status as followers of Christ?
• Do the same exercise with Ephesians 1:3-14.
• Rejoicing in the midst of suffering (different from rejoicing because of suffering) is possible because we know that God is in control and working His purpose in us through suffering. Someone has said, “the view from the mountaintop is beautiful, but the fruit grows in the valleys.” Do you have a testimony to share about the truth of this in your own life, of a time when God used difficult circumstances to produce growth in you?

Romans 4:13-25
November 30, 2008

What is faith?
• Bertrand Russell, in Why I am Not a Christian: “Faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence.” Is it?
• H.L. Mencken: “Faith is a conviction which cannot be shaken by contrary evidence.” Is it?

Philip Johnson, in Defeating Darwinism, wrote that evolutionists exploit the supposed contradiction between faith and reason, painting all Christians as backwoods, Bible-thumping rubes whose faith in silly superstition renders them impervious to the “higher truth of science”. And thus the question, “is faith contrary to reason?”
• We all place faith in certain things; it’s unavoidable.
• Faith is buttressed by reason and evidence.

The kind of faith that is commended in Scripture is faith like Abraham’s: a reasoned faith that, given all the factors involved, makes more sense than non-faith! Let’s deconstruct the anatomy of Abraham’s faith .

Paul uses chapter 4 as an illustration of chapter 3, as we saw last week: the examples of Abraham and David are introduced by Paul to buttress his claims. Salvation, the rich blessings of God, come by faith, and as Paul has demonstrated already, not by works, or by circumcision.

I. The Realization of Abraham’s Faith – :13-17a
After arguing that justification does not come about by either good works or by circumcision, Paul here states that salvation does not come about by law-keeping either. Paul writes of “the promise” God had made to Abraham; we find that promise in Genesis 15:5, where God tells him that his posterity will be as numerous as the stars. It was a promise unconditionally given, and simply accepted at face value by Abraham. Keeping the law did not play into this equation at all. Proofs Paul offers are from three sources: history, language, and theology.

A. History
The law was not given until 430 years after God had made the promise to Abraham. Abraham, as a simple matter of history, was not an adherent of the law, and so either Abraham was justified in some other fashion, or he was not justified at all. A promise is not an unconditional promise in the event it requires law-keeping to ensure its fulfillment—but that’s exactly what God’s promise to Abraham was in Genesis 15: an unconditional covenant.

B. Language
“Law” and “promise” belong to different categories. Galatians 3:18 says, “if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.” Law-language demands obedience; it says, “you shall” or “you shall not”. Promise-language demands faith; it says, “I will—do you believe that?” What language did God use in Genesis 15? Promise-language, for He says, “I will!” But in verse 16, we see words that belong together as well: “faith”, “promise”, and “grace” all fit together. We make a linguistic mistake when we try to mix words from one category with words from another.

C. Theology
The law divides into the “haves” and the “have-nots”, separating Jews from Gentiles. But Genesis 17 describes Abraham, not merely as the father of the Jews, but the “father of many nations”. He is father not only of the Jews, but of Gentiles as well who come to God by faith in Christ. The gospel of Christ unites, leveling the ground at the foot of the cross and breaking down the wall that separates Jew from Gentile, making Abraham the father of the faith-ful. So what do we understand about faith? Is it reasonable, or not?

II. The Reasonableness of Abraham’s Faith – :17b-22
Faith goes beyond reason, but it has a rational basis. Faith is reasonable if its object is reliable. It is always reasonable to trust the trustworthy. It is unreasonable to trust in people or institutions or things that are untrustworthy. Faith is endemic to the human condition; the only question is the trustworthiness of the objects of our faith. Paul, in verses 17b-22, gives two reasons Abraham’s faith is reasonable:

A. The Power of God
If God is powerful, then it’s only reasonable to place our faith in Him.

1. “Life to dead”
2. “Calls into being…”
The greatest fears of the existentialist involve the lack of meaning if this life is all there is and death is the end. Modern man lives life trying to vest it with meaning, but the grave is the great abrupt goodbye, the one event we can’t control nor escape, and if there is nothing beyond this world, then indeed human life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, as MacBeth suggested. Nothingness and death leave modern man hopeless. But these are the exact points upon which Paul touches here, for he says that God has no problem with either. Nothingness? God has called into existence things that do not exist. He created the world out of nothing.

And death? That proved no problem for God either, because the resurrection of Christ, God’s bringing life to the dead (:17), answers this question. Together, creation and resurrection bespeak the mighty power of God! And it is God in Christ Who must be the object of our faith. Faith is only as good as its object. If God said it, then we must believe it and act upon that belief. Abraham banked his faith in God, not only on God’s power, but also on

B. The Faithfulness of God
If God is faithful, then it’s only reasonable to place our faith in Him. Behind every promise lies the character of the person making the promise. If that person is one of trustworthy character, then we can be confident that the promises will be fulfilled; if that person is of dubious character, then we have reason to doubt the promises. Abraham had been able to count upon the character of God, and he was fully convinced that God would be faithful. He had walked with God, seen His goodness, understood His loving care. So he was faced with a decision: believe God, or doubt His promise? Note what he did:

1. Faced the problem
This was a real problem, and he didn’t try to wish it away or minimize it. The facts were the facts: he was an old coot, nearly 100, and his wife Sarah was 90 years old. 90 years old, and having a baby? It doesn’t work that way…and Abraham faced that very real problem.

2. Faced the character of God
He knew of God’s power, and He knew of God’s faithfulness. He knew God’s promise to him. He knew that God could keep His promises and that He would keep His promises. He had experienced those things.

3. Compared the two
Problem vs. power; fruitlessness v. faithfulness. And then, in light of the circumstances, this man of faith did the reasonable thing: he trusted God! Faith is not burying my head in the sand of wishful thinking; disengaging my brain in pie-in-the-sky dreaming. Rather, faith is a reasonable trust in a reliable God!

III. The Relationship of Abraham’s Faith to Ours – :23-25
This truth of justification by faith is not for Abraham’s benefit alone, but for ours as well. Paul ties everything up by saying, essentially, that the Scripture, this story of Abraham and the rest, was written for our benefit. He ties our stories together. Abraham’s faith looked ahead, forward to the providence of God despite incredible odds, forward to the fulfillment of God’s promise, trusting God in the face of Abraham and Sarah’s own woeful inabilities. Our faith, by contrast, looks backward in this sense: Jesus Christ has fulfilled the work of salvation.

A. Jesus was delivered up because of our transgressions
We remember this in baptism and in the Lord’s Table, that the Father God willingly handed Christ over to pay our sin-debt. Jesus was delivered up by God for our transgressions.

B. Jesus was raised again for our justification
Yes, Jesus died—but everybody dies. His death was for our sins, but what did a death prove? How could we know that what He said was true? The resurrection, an event skeptics have been unable to explain away despite repeated trying, validates everything that Christ said. And faith in that provision of a faithful and powerful God is the most reasonable response that a person can make!

Lessons for Life

• How big is your God? Faith can be strong, or weak (:2); what is your faith like? Insecurity…defeatism…worry…self-pity…pessimism…the belief that you are alienated, that nobody cares, that you’ll never change, or that someone else is beyond change: do you struggle with any of these? How big is your God? Powerful? Faithful? All-knowing? Caring? Able?
• How does faith grow? God grows our faith through the faculty of our minds. As our minds are renewed by the Word of God, and as we trust God and He meets our needs, our faith grows. And this is fundamentally reasonable, because it happens on a human plane as well. The longer a person proves trustworthy, faithful to his word, a keeper of one’s trust, the more one’s faith in that person grows.
• Where is your focus? We are faced with the decision to either allow the problems or the promises capture our focus. The challenge is to focus on God’s good promises instead of on the problems we face—but we grow in our faith as we trust and obey God even when the problems loom large.

Faith—is it unreasonable? Is it contrary to reason and evidence? Not Abraham’s kind of faith. Not the Bible’s kind of faith.

Taking it Home
• If it could be conclusively proven that the bones of Jesus had been found in a cave somewhere, what would that do to your faith? Reconcile your answer with I Corinthians 15:14-19. How does the truth of this passage serve as a “point of no return” or a dividing line between truth and error?
• “Faith goes beyond reason, but it has a rational basis.” How is this true?
• Faith can be “weak” or “strong” (:19-20). Can you think of a circumstance in your life when your faith in God grew?
• “No distrust made Abraham waver”, and yet Genesis 17:17 paints a picture of a man who isn’t demonstrating “unwavering faith”. How would you reconcile the two?

Romans 4:1-12
November 23, 2008

Imagine the surprise you’d feel if you were to one day open up the family photo album and find a bunch of strangers inhabiting its pages! “Who are those people, and how did they get into our lives?” Something like this is what’s going on when we get to today’s passage, because Paul makes the bold suggestion here that Father Abraham, revered by the Jews as the patriarch whom God used to bring about the very existence of the nation, has a “family photo album” filled with non-Jews—and further, that there are a whole lot of Jews who do not find themselves in that family album!

Paul has argued that his doctrine of justification by faith is buttressed by Old Testament examples and teaching. Now he supplies proof that that is the case, using “Father Abraham”, and supporting his usage of Abraham with the words of David, the king. Why Abraham? He was “the rock from which Israel was cut. The basis of the Hebrew nation was the covenant promises God had made to Abraham, and that scenario takes place beginning at the end of Genesis 11 and stretching through Genesis 22.

Four “faith episodes” of Abraham’s life:
1. God’s calling and blessing of Abraham (Gen. 11/12)
2. God’s promises to give Abraham the land of Canaan and to make his posterity large (Gen. 13/14)
3. God’s confirmation of the promise of a son, when Abram was 99 and Sarah 90 (Gen. 17)
4. God’s testing of Abraham, and upon passing the “Isaac test”, reconfirming His covenant (Gen. 22)

I. What did Abraham do? – :1-5
How was Abraham justified? Two possibles that Paul sets forward: by works, or by faith. Problem with the first idea: Abraham would have grounds to boast before God, but the unrighteous can in no way establish their own righteousness before God.

In verse 3, Paul uses the term “counted”; a synonym is “credited”, as in making a deposit to one’s account; it means to account to a person something which previously did not belong to him. This can happen in two ways: wages or gift. The two are incompatible. God credited Abraham’s account with “faith as righteousness”.
• What does that mean? It is not that faith and righteousness are equivalents, but rather that the means by which we are declared righteous is faith.
• How did it happen? It couldn’t happen as a matter of God’s grace plus man’s works, because one invalidates the other; as we said, they’re incompatible. If I earn it, then I deserve it. If it’s a gift, then I didn’t earn it, by definition.

If anything is clear from verses 4-5, it is that God’s crediting of righteousness to Abraham’s account comes as a result of God’s grace through Abraham’s faith. Genesis 15:6 is the verse to which Paul is referring here.

The Bible calls the natural man “ungodly”, that we are totally ungod-like; this is man’s basic problem. And yet in this passage, Paul says that God “justifies”—defined a few weeks ago as declaring to be totally without fault and undeserving of punishment—the ungodly. This is what might be termed the “Protestant understanding” of God’s dealings with man, in a nutshell: God declares “righteous” those who are “ungodly”, rather than the Catholic understanding, which suggests that God makes righteous and then, and only then, declares them such. It is the wicked whom God justifies (you and me), and not those whom He has already prepared. But the question about 4:5 is this: is God just, is He right, to declare “righteous” those who are patently not so? This is one of the most startling verses in the entire New Testament. Is God not guilty of an injustice? The answer is found in “imputed righteousness”, the idea that Christ’s righteousness, “credited” to my account, makes me in the sight of God to be one who is without fault. On that basis, God seeing Christ’s goodness when He sees me, instead of my badness, God can declare me “justified”.

II. What did David say? – :6-8
Now, Paul moves to David’s words in Psalm 32:1-2 to make the same point. David “says the same thing”. Here David is talking about God crediting righteousness to the account of people, and he speaks of it in contrast to God holding sin against people. He refers to evil deeds three times, using Hebrew parallelism; once he uses the term “transgressions”, and twice “sins”; these two words give us two complementary pictures of what sin is. One picture is that of “stepping over a boundary”; the other is that of “falling short of a standard”. Both those things are true of sin, of course; God is the boundary-setter and the standard-maker; we’ve stepped over the lines many times, and missed the mark. But what does Paul say is true of our sin, according to David? “Forgiven, covered, and not counted against us”! The righteousness of God, revealed in the gospel, is God’s just justification of the unjust. He will never count our multitude of sins against us, but He will credit the righteousness of Christ on our accounts. This is Paul’s summary of David’s words, and they bolster his argument.

III. What does circumcision gain? – :9-12
Regarding Abraham, the first question is this: how was Abraham justified before God, on the basis of works or faith? The second is when: before, or after, undergoing the ritual of circumcision? And further, what ripple effect will the answer to that question have on the relationship of circumcised Jews to uncircumcised Gentiles, who had previously been enemies? The Jews prided themselves on this rite, introduced by God as the symbol of covenant-keeping which faithful Jews needed to observe if they were committed to the covenant. Was Abraham justified only after he underwent the ritual, or was he justified before (and then underwent circumcision as evidence of the reality of what was already true)?

Verse 10 answers the question: Abraham is declared righteous on the basis of “believing God” in Genesis 15, and circumcision comes in, in Genesis 17, with at least a 14-year (possibly as much as a 29-year) gap between the two! And what’s the point Paul is making? Two-fold: one, Abraham is the father of all of those who are people of faith, circumcised or uncircumcised, Jew or Gentile. The children of Abraham are us, folks! Things like circumcision, ethnic heritage, and the like are no more relevant to our justification than it was to Abraham’s. Second, Abraham was spoken of by Jews as “the great dividing point in the history of mankind”; according to Paul, Abraham is the great rallying point of unity for all who believe, for where the ritual of circumcision divides, faith unites! Jew and Gentile are one in Christ, and the upshot for us is simple: nothing ever ought divide one sincere believer from another.
Lessons for Life

The Holy Life of the Believer
Paul will later deal with an objection to this idea that we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone, one that people today will still ask, “why then be holy?” The answer, at least in part, is this: God “outwardly” declares us to be righteous, but His “outward” work is not the only thing He does, because once He does this, He begins an inward work as well, and His inward work in us will necessarily yield outward results.

The Identity of the Believer
In contrast to the unbeliever, the Christian bases his identity, not on what he does, but on who God declares him to be. The Christian understanding is that I do what I do on the basis of who God says I am. The Christian says, “I am what God says I am: a child of His on the basis of God’s grace and my faith in Christ’s saving work. I then act in keeping with my identity (or I should!).” I do not do things in order to become, nor identify myself by my actions; I understand what God has done, and take my identity/direction from that.

The Open Disposition of the Believer
We ought to consider how, as individuals and as a church, to do the work of breaking down the barriers that divide us as people. We ought to consider how to make the church at Red Oak look as much as possible like the church universal, how people who are different in many ways come together in genuine fellowship irrespective of outward differences.

Two of the most-revered figures in Israel’s history were Abraham and David; if the witness of their lives and experience is that God declared them righteous only on the basis of faith, then the same will be true for all those who in simple faith call upon Jesus today.

Taking it Home
Read Genesis 15.
• What was the object of Abraham’s belief?

• Abraham asks God some questions.
o How does God respond to Abraham’s questions?
o Is faith incompatible with questioning God?
o What kinds of questions does Abraham ask?
o Are there questions we might ask God which would be wrong to ask? Why or why not?

God credited Abraham’s faith as righteousness. How is this compatible with the idea that God declares us “righteous”, rather than makes us “righteous”?

Romans 3:27-31
November 16, 2008

Pity poor #144,001. Jehovah’s Witnesses are sincere people, but part of their aberrant belief system is the idea that Heaven will be populated by 144,000 people. Wouldn’t you hate to be #144,001? We can imagine Maxwell Smart wistfully saying, “Missed it by that much!” How silly—and yet in a system based upon good works, wouldn’t that be something like the way it worked?

Think about it: what if the gospel were about works, and not about faith? What if a person were convinced that his good works played into the salvation equation? What are some things that would be true?
• How would I ever know if I’d done enough good works, or if the good I’d done outweighed the bad?
• Why would Jesus have had to die on the cross?
• What kind of place would Heaven be like?
o “Here’s what I did to make it!”
o Lots of bragging; think about the egos!
o Would God receive the glory, or would we get some?
• Faith would become irrelevant

By contrast, we believe that because of our indwelling, innate sinfulness, there is nothing that our good works can accomplish when it comes to the achievement of our salvation. Paul lists several key truths about the faith-alone gospel:

I. Excludes boasting – :27-28
Paul goes back to his “diatribe” form of teaching, that of imagining a conversation between two individuals. He asks three questions: first, “what becomes of our boasting?”

We love to boast about ourselves! Some of us may do it in a more modest fashion, rather than in a boisterous way, but we all naturally want other people to like us, to think highly of us, and frankly, we want to think highly of ourselves, and so one of our bad habits is boasting. Paul betrays the fact that he himself was a religious braggart; in Philippians 3, he lists the credentials of which he’d have boasted in his days before Christ. But for the Christian, the fact that we are believers is never cause for boasting in ourselves. Our problem is our focus on ourselves, but the cure is focus on Jesus, and Paul says that those who boast ought to boast in the Lord (Galatians 6:14).

Paul in verse 28 sets two possible paths to salvation alongside one another. One is the way of faith; the other is the way of works. The two are mutually exclusive. The person trying to earn his way to Heaven through the performance of good works will never have any certainty that he’s made it, that he’s done enough, that God has accepted him as His child. This person is constantly looking at himself, asking, “am I good enough?” Contrast that with the faith-walking follower of Jesus: we look to Him, for we know both that we have nothing in ourselves to offer Him, and that He alone has made the way by which we can be redeemed.

II. Establishes God as God over all – :29-30
Note Paul’s second question: is God the God of Jews only, or of Gentiles, too? Paul has been arguing for the exclusiveness of the gospel, that it is the only way, the only path.

Let’s put it this way: man-made religion might say, “Jesus and…” The spirit of this age says, “Jesus or…” The gospel says, “Jesus only!” Paul now uses the argument of the exclusiveness of the gospel to make a different argument, one for the inclusiveness of the gospel. Since there’s one God, there must be one way of salvation, and the deciding factor is faith, then if the Jews come by faith, so must the Gentiles be able to. The dividing line is not between circumcised and uncircumcised, between clean and unclean, between Jew and Gentile, between moral and immoral, between good and bad, whatever that means; the dividing line is between faith alone in Jesus alone and any/every other system in the world.

Paul puts the Jews on the horns of a dilemma. They prided themselves, of course, on being God’s chosen people; “hear, O Israel, the Lord is One”, and that One was their God, Yahweh. They also prided themselves on confining to themselves salvation, that Gentiles did not possess salvation, indeed only could come to God through coming into Judaism. But if there is only one God, then who is the God of the Gentiles? Must it not be this same God, Yahweh, the God of the Jews? The same God Who justified the “circumcised” Jews by faith will justify the “uncircumcised” Gentiles by faith as well.

The Jews had forgotten God’s promise to Abraham, recorded by Moses, that He would not only make of Abraham a great nation, but that through Abraham’s seed, all of the nations of the earth would be blessed. The benefits and privileges of salvation were for the blessing of the Gentiles, not for the exclusion of the Gentiles. Do we ever make the same mistake? The point of our salvation is the blessing of others, not merely our own blessing! We make that mistake
• Every time we extend to sinners the pointing finger of judgment instead of the hand of love
• Every time we make of some “opposition group” an object for our hatred
• Every time we show a blithe unconcern for people without Christ

III. Explains the purpose of the law – :31
Paul asks his third question: do we overthrow the law by this principle of faith? Paul has already tackled the fact that the law does not produce a right standing before God, the righteousness of God. Now, he answers the opposite objection: there was a philosophy that took root in the early church called antinomianism. From the Greek words meaning “against” and “law”, this term is the opposite of legalism, which is the attempt to use obedience to the law as a means of salvation. This philosophy said, basically, “since we’re saved by grace through faith, and keeping the law plays no role in our salvation, we are now free to pitch the law and live as we please, indulging whatever desires we see fitting.” Paul says that this kind of thinking is not consistent with the gospel, though some try to make it such.

A fair question is then raised: what do we make of the OT law? Is it of value, or is it rendered null and void by the gospel? Paul says emphatically that the law is still of value, that we “uphold the law”. What does this mean, though? Douglas Moo suggests there are several ways we could possibly interpret Paul’s emphatic statement that the law, far from being undermined or rendered useless, is upheld by the gospel. All of these possible interpretations are true; the only question is “which does Paul have in mind?”
• The law is a testimony to the gospel (ch. 4).
• The law brings conviction of sin (3:19-20).
• The law is a source of guidance for the Christian life (13:8-10).
• The law is God’s standard for holiness, and has been perfectly fulfilled in Jesus (8:4).

Moo opts for the last option on the list, that it is Christ Who fulfilled the law’s demands. Stott has a variation of this, believing, from the same passage in 8:4, that it is believers who themselves are seen to fulfill the law by virtue of being in Christ. Christ Himself said that He had not come to do away with the law, but to fulfill it, and then He did, living a sinless life and dying a sacrificial death to demonstrate the truth of what the law was pointing to all along.

What’s the upshot for us? Practically speaking,
• No boasting
o Boasting stifles worship

o Boasting of our works ignores their inconsistency and imperfection

• No discrimination

• No lawlessness
o I will remember that while Christ fully met the demands of the law, I am one who has been bought with a price, to glorify Him.

o I will use my freedom in Christ to serve others.

Romans 3 is arguably the most essential chapter in the most essential book in all of the Bible, because it articulates in such clear terms the way God has worked to provide salvation to sinful man. We come to its conclusion today in our study, but again I would stress that the important thing is not that we understand its truth intellectually, but that we by faith alone confess as our Lord and Savior the Jesus to Whom Paul’s great teaching points.

Taking it Home
• Galatians is the “companion” book to Romans; Paul there tackles the problem of false teachers who try to add law-keeping to the gospel of grace. Read Galatians 6:12-14, and answer the following:
o What does Paul say are the motives of these teachers?
o What do they fail to do themselves?
o Where does Paul place his “boast”?
o What do you think he means by the second phrase of verse 14?
• The gospel of Christ is both “exclusive” and “inclusive”. In what senses are these things true?
• The Jews forgot that one key purpose of their being blessed was to be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12:3). How do Christians today sometimes make the same mistake?
• Antinomianism (lit. “against law”) was a prevalent misunderstanding of the gospel of grace, suggesting that a plan of salvation that did not require good works in order for a person to be justified would encourage the saved person to live a lawless life.
o Why is this teaching wrong?
o Why is this teaching dangerous?
o What would you say to the person today who would espouse that kind of thinking?

I Corinthians 12:12-27
November 9, 2008

The body of Christ is a beautiful thing. In Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians Paul makes over 30 references to the body of Christ. It seems his favorite metaphor for the church. Christ loved the church, Paul writes, and Paul loves it as well and sees it as a beautiful thing. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have its problems; it does. But despite struggles and problems brought on by the fact of our innate sinfulness, the church—the body of Christ—is a beautiful thing. Let’s read Paul’s words together today!

The context of today’s passage is one of a church that is pretty messed up. The Corinthian church was diverse when it ought to have been unified (“I am of Paul; I am of Cephas; I am of Apollos: I am of Christ”), and tried to be uniform when it ought to have been diverse (conforming to the same spiritual gift). There were attitudes of spiritual superiority; there were attitudes of economic superiority; there was probably a good deal of envy going on. While some claimed that their particular spiritual gifts were superior, perhaps others claimed that they had nothing to offer, no spiritual gifts to give to the body of Christ. But note Paul’s words:

I. Nobody is a Nobody Because Everybody in the Body is a Part of the One Body of Christ. :12-13
Gk. “Melos” – a “member” is a part of the body; that’s what the word means. We have watered down the word, so much so that we think in terms of our watered-down version of it, and not in terms of the original meaning. To be a member of Red Oak, Biblically-speaking, isn’t to have your name on a moldy roll somewhere, or to belong to an organization; it’s to be a body part. What it means is that you are assuming your position of responsibility in the body of Christ, contributing to the ongoing health of that body, and of each of its other members. And when you think of it in those Biblical terms, “membership” is a richer, fuller, far more meaningful thing than simply signing up and paying dues or something.

A body is a living thing. Paul is writing about the body of Christ to one particular expression of that body, the church at Corinth. There is one body of Christ (Red Oak is a local expression). I live out my commitment to the body of Christ through my commitment to this local expression. Some of the language Paul uses in this passage would make no sense if the only context were the broader body of Christ, and so while he has in mind the broader body of Christ, he also has in mind the local expression of the church universal.

My bodily parts have one thing in common: me! I am what is common to all my body parts. Christ is Who is common to every one of us who are part of the body. If a person doesn’t have Christ, that person is not a part of the body. Every member of the body of Christ has Christ in common, even if nothing else! And Jesus is enough!

:13 – Spirit baptism is an experience that takes place when we “all” (regardless of spiritual gift) are placed in the body of Christ. The Spirit is the universal common denominator of all God’s true children. We all, alike, have received the Holy Spirit, at the moment of our regeneration. It is the Spirit Who brings life; it is the Spirit Who binds us together. Paul mentions some classes of people: Jews/Greeks; slaves/free. He could mention more. The Spirit of God is the One Who brings us together! And because the Spirit has brought you into the body of Christ, and because you are a contributing member, you are not a nobody!

II. Nobody is a Nobody Because Everybody is Different. :14-20
I need the various parts of my body in order to live and function as I should. In :17, Paul envisions a monstrosity, a huge eyeball or a huge ear, something out of science fiction, suggesting that that would be weird beyond words; in :19, he asks how that would work out in practice.

Note, in :18, that it is God Who does the arranging! If you’re a Christian, you’re a part of the body of Christ, but the only way you function as you ought is in vital connection to other members of that body, and be sure of this: it is God Who has placed you where He has. Since there is one body, it’s critical that all the members of that body be united in purpose. The health of the body ought to be our paramount concern, as we take direction from the Head, Christ. Bodies are healthiest when every member is functioning at peak capacity; a body is sick when its members aren’t. When its members don’t contribute to the health of the body, the body suffers. Nobody is a nobody because every member is different and every member contributes something that the rest of the body needs, which is my next point:

III. Nobody is a Nobody Because Everybody Needs Everybody. :21-27
Paul personifies an eye and a head, saying to other parts of the body, “I don’t need you!” This is ridiculous, of course—but no more so than one part of the body of Christ adopting that attitude toward another! Listen, if you’re a member of Red Oak, you need every other member of Red Oak. I gain something from each of you that I gain from nobody else, and the same is true, at least in a church this size, of everyone, I believe.

A. Everybody in the body is treated with appropriate value and care. – :21-24a
So we recognize that some of the most vital parts are delicate, ones that could not survive and function on the outside, but that doesn’t make my guts less important than my pinkie; the fact that I can see my pinkie doesn’t make it more valuable than my intestines. And there are parts we cover for modesty’s sake as well; this is showing honor to the entire body, and to those parts in particular. That’s altogether appropriate, and in the body of Christ, it is the same: we recognize that it’s not necessarily the “out-front leaders” who determine the ultimate success of the church!

B. God brings everybody into the body – :24b
We said this earlier and won’t belabor it here, but it’s God Who has done the work to bring the body together as it is. You are here, in this place, at this time, by divine appointment. God has placed you here. And it’s up to you to find that role that God has placed you here to perform, with the purpose that

C. God expects the body to act in unity – :25a
Division in the body is a killer, whether it’s the human body acting at odds with itself, or the church of Jesus Christ acting at odds with itself. Jesus said that all men will know that you’re my disciples if you have love for one another, and that leads to the final point for the morning:

D. Unity is achieved when everybody cares for everybody – :25b-26
Look at the picture here: the body works together for the benefit of every part of it. When one is hurting, everyone hurts and everyone helps. Question: do you know of needs in the body here that need meeting? Have you asked? Have you considered? Are you close enough to others in the body that that can take place? Are you functioning as a caring member of the body of Christ here at Red Oak? Look around; who’s not here? Who will care for that person? Who’s hurting? It’s not up to the pastor to do all the caring, but to every member of the body.

A member does not consider merely his own interests, but the good of the body. Philippians 2:4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And yet Christians, church members, make decisions all the time and act as though they think it’s all about them, that nobody else is affected by their decisions. When one organ in the body acts only in keeping with its own supposed well-being, we call that “sickness”. When you sign on the dotted line, you are committing yourself to something bigger than yourself, to the overall health and wellbeing of the body of Christ here at Red Oak. And the attitude you ought to take into church membership is this: “what’s in it for…HIM!”

Considering the good of the body equates to considering Christ. So note the recap Paul gives:

Recap!
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Taking it Home
• Do you think most church members today understand the concept of membership in the way the Bible describes it? When members don’t see themselves as parts of a living body, what are some of the negative consequences?
• Read Romans 8:9-11. We said that it’s the Holy Spirit Who brings life to every member of the body. What are some things we understand from these verses about life in the Spirit?
• Why is the analogy of the body representing the church such a fitting analogy on so many levels? Even besides the points Paul makes in our passage, what are some other ways in which the human body and the body of Christ parallel?
• “Unity is achieved when everybody cares for everybody”:
o Give an example of another Christian caring for you in a way that made a real difference.
o What are some things that conspire against everybody caring for everybody?

Romans 3:24
November 2, 2008

Redemption: A Definition
“buying back out of slavery that which was bound”

We do hear of this happening today; in some African and Middle Eastern nations, freedom for slaves has been purchased by the payment of a price. But in a theological context, redemption is God at work, buying back that which is rightfully His own, and He does so in order, not to enslave us or to demand His pound of flesh, but that He might set us free. In fact, the Greek word implies just this, that not only has a ransom price been paid, but it has been paid to obtain the release of the one bound.

Last week, we were in a courtroom as we considered the biblical picture of justification. Today, the scene shifts to the marketplace, from judicial proceedings to business transactions. And what has taken place in redemption is this: though I am a slave, “under sin”, I have been purchased and then set free!

I. Redemption implies a previous state of freedom.
Here’s a basic Bible truth: God created Adam and Eve to live free. He didn’t give them a long list of rules and regulations; He said, “do anything you please, except for this one thing Freedom is God’s design, but bondage comes in as a result of sin; we read of that in Genesis 3.

This runs counter, of course, to modern ideas of the state and situation of man. We’re evolving upward from the primordial goulash, from the impersonality of pond scum to a better and better state of humanity. We’re not getting older; we’re getting better! And as proof of this, look at the advance of technology.

But a fair question is, are we better people? Might I suggest that we are now able to sin more efficiently and more creatively than ever before? We can exterminate life much more efficiently; we have more tools with which to satisfy our prurient desires; we have more substances with which to intoxicate ourselves; we have more toys with which to amuse ourselves. At the same time, we have less moral authority than ever before, less tolerance for any voice which suggests that some things are ‘wrong’, less interest in right thinking and more interest in telling ourselves those sweet little lies which keep us mollified and pacified. Lacking a moral compass, our increased technology leads us to increased brutality, increased immorality, and lessened inhibitions. We have much more learning, but were we smarter when we were dumber? And are the things that we are sold as liberating really just bonds and chains by another name?

II. Redemption implies a perilous plight.
Sin enslaves us. The more willfully I practice sin, the more enslaved I will be. We hear of addictions—I’ve never been altogether certain of what I think of that word, because it uses psychological terminology to describe spiritual issues—but we know what we mean when we use that word. A more biblical word would be “slavery”, and while we think of drugs and alcohol and pornography, among others, as things to which people are addicted, the fact is that sin enslaves every one of us. We are all, if you will, “sin addicts”, fallen beings who naturally do not choose God, but who choose sinful ways and practices.

III. Redemption implies the payment of a price.
Redemption is not merely “rescue” or “deliverance”; redemption involves the payment of a ransom, as we might think of a kidnapper demanding a payment to secure release of a hostage. Jesus said that “the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Christmas is so critical: God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, to live among us that He might die and pay the ransom for us, entering the human condition, He Who was God from eternity past. Galatians 4 tells us that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” And I Peter 1:18-19 says that “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Ransomed…purchased from the ways of sin, from the bondage that sin brings. And the purchase price was that of the blood of Jesus. B.B. Warfield said that “Redeemer is the name of the Christ of the cross. Whenever we pronounce it, our hearts are filled with remembrance that He paid a mighty price for our redemption.”

And if Jesus paid the price on the cross, there’s nothing to be added; to try is an insult to God. His was the once-for-all-time payment for our sin.

IV. Redemption implies the proprietorship of the purchaser.
“Blessed Jesus, Thou hast bought us; Thine we are”. I Corinthians 6 reminds us that we are not our own, for we have been bought with a price. If I purchase something, it’s mine. Jesus is the Lord and Master, for He has paid the price to buy the merchandise! We, slaves to sin by nature, are now bought by Christ to serve Christ.

Sin will be a cruel taskmaster; we all know that by experience. Sin promises much but delivers little; pleasures for a season, but anguish for eternity. Serving Jesus, on the other hand, brings true freedom. We all will serve somebody, but serving Jesus brings us the freedom for which God designed us. If Jesus loved us enough to die for us, will we prove we love Him enough to live for Him?

Jesus has paid the entire price for our redemption—but a price paid for a pardon is ineffective if the pardon is not accepted. The only response is faith-acceptance of Jesus Christ!

Taking it Home
• Read Hosea 1. Though we see God’s judgment there, what signs of redemption do you find as well?
• How does the first verse of Hosea 2 bear this out?
• Why do many people seem to misunderstand that God’s desire is for our freedom, rather than the bondage of legalistic rule-keeping? What factors might play into this misconception?
• What are some evidences of the way sin enslaves us?
• Why is “redemption” a stronger word than “rescue” to describe what Christ accomplished for us?
• How do we reconcile the freedom that comes through redemption with the fact that we “serve” God?

Romans 3:23-24
October 26, 2008

Said Martin Luther, “The doctrine of justification by faith alone is master, prince, lord, ruler, and judge over all kinds of doctrine.” There are other important doctrines besides the doctrine of justification, but none is more critical to us, and we need to know only have an intellectual grasp on it, but we also need to check the condition of our own hearts to make sure that what we’re talking about when we speak of being justified is true of each of us as well.

We’ve all watched courtroom scenes on TV, either true life stories or those invented for our entertainment. But have you ever imagined what it would be like to be the defendant, to stand accused of some terrible crime, to hear the airtight case woven by the prosecuting attorney, the desperate attempts by your overmatched defense attorney attempting to win an acquittal, knowing all the while that the evidence was incontrovertible, that you were guilty beyond a single doubt—and that everybody in the courtroom knew it. The trial is wrapping up; closing arguments are over; the judge is about to pronounce his verdict, and everyone knows what it will be: “guilty on all counts”; the conclusion is foregone. And you rise at his bidding, inwardly cringing as you await his words. “I find the defendant…not guilty!” Waves of shock ripple through the assembled crowd; you drop to the ground with astonished relief, wondering how it could be that you’ve been declared innocent, free from guilt. This is the picture of justification.

I. The Definition of Justification
“to declare, accept, and treat as “innocent”, and as “righteous” in the sight of God”

It is a declaration of utter and complete innocence in the eyes of the judge; its opposite is condemnation, the judge declaring “guilty”, ringing the gavel down, and preparing to pronounce sentence. But beyond this, justification gives to the guilty sinner a positive declaration of “righteous”; in other words, it is more than full forgiveness, though it includes that. It’s not just that God is unwilling to send you to hell for the sins you’ve committed; it’s that He sees you as though you’ve not committed them, and thus that there is no basis for punishment at all.

II. The Need of Justification – “All have sinned”
We have all failed to live up to the glory of God, the glory in which we were all made (in God’s image), the glory of His eternal presence, the glory of His righteous eternal standard. Condemned, you deserve nothing but judgment for your many transgressions, and yet the judge rings down the gavel and declares “innocent” despite the fact that you’re dead-to-rights guilty.

III. The Nature of Justification – “Gift”
Cement this into your minds as well: justification is a gift (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8). Innocence is a gift, and thus the title of today’s message. The significance of this is that a gift is something which is not, indeed cannot be, earned or merited. When Scripture uses this terminology to describe our justification, it’s not throwaway language, but rather is stressing a critical concept: justification is not, indeed cannot be, earned, but rather is received as a gift.

IV. The Source of Justification – “Grace”
The Giver of the gift of justification is God, and the source is His amazing grace. He is under no compulsion other than that of His own character; He is not under obligation to you or to me.

Remember that we spoke last week of the fact that it is God Who seizes the initiative in our salvation; any formulation of theology that denies this is sub-Christian, indeed anti-Christian. God’s grace is the source, for it is God Who takes the lead in bringing about our justification.

V. The Cost of Justification – “Redemption”
Justification is free, but it is not cheap! “Redemption” is the word which refers to the act of paying a price in order to set free one who had been in bondage. Jesus is the One Who paid a great price and purchased us out of the slavery to sin that Paul has already described when he said we were, by nature, “under sin”.

VI. The Grounds of Justification – “His blood” – Romans 5:9
According to Paul in Romans 5:9, we have been “justified by His blood”, and by this, as we see from the preceding verse, He means Christ’s death on the cross, His blood sacrifice for our sins. God’s justice demands that payment be made for sin, and when we look at the cross, that’s what we must see, Jesus by His voluntary death satisfying the demands of God’s holiness and justice.

Justification does not equal “amnesty”; this is no pardon without principle, no overlooking of sin or sweeping it under the rug; instead, a great price was paid for your justification, and so while it is free to you, it is anything but cheap. God is not saying, “ah, your sin isn’t that bad a thing”; He’s saying that it is a terrible thing, and that’s why nothing short of Christ’s death could atone for it. Jesus identified with me and died for me, in my place, taking my punishment and shame.

VII. The Authentication of Justification – “Resurrection” – Romans 4:25
Christ was “raised for our justification”, Paul writes in Romans 4:25. In what sense is this true? Without the resurrection, Jesus Christ would have been another man dying, no reason for us to place faith in Him, no reason for any confidence that He was anything more than just another teacher who walked the countryside with delusions of grandeur. But the resurrection provides proof, authenticates the teaching of the Bible, that He is indeed the One Whose death secures our justification.

VIII. The Means of Justification – “Faith” – Romans 5:1
“We have been justified by faith”, Paul says in Romans 5:1, and he’s doing nothing more than echoing what he’s also said in the surrounding context of today’s passage; we note that same type of phraseology in :22, in :25, and in :26. We are saved by faith, and when we say that, we believe that what Paul means there is to say that it is by faith alone that we are justified, that our good works play no role in it, that if they did, the word “gift” would be meaningless to describe how God does it. That’s what God is looking for from you today: faith, period. He’s looking for you to simply receive the gift that He freely offers, to take from Him what you can’t otherwise attain, and what He alone can provide: justification through faith in Christ.

Taking it Home
• We defined the act of justification thusly: “to declare, accept, and treat as “innocent”, and as “righteous” in the sight of God”. Why are all three of those verbs important? What do they each teach us about God’s actions and attitude toward us?
• The old song “The Solid Rock” has a verse that says that we are “dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.” If this is true, how does possessing the righteousness of Christ take justification to a deeper step than merely being pronounced “innocent”?
• Justification takes place “as a gift”. In what way(s) does this fact make the gospel easier to hear for people without Christ? In what ways might it make it more difficult?
• If this verdict on my sin regards sins past, present, and future, then what does justification say about my security in Christ? On what basis am I secure in Him?
• Look at Romans 8:33 and the surrounding context. What are some of the things that are true of those who are justified by God’s grace?
• Next week, we look at the topic of redemption. What is your understanding of that word, and how does it impact us?