On Sunday mornings at Eastridge, my home church, we’re going through the book of Romans throughout the year but breaking the 16 chapters up into smaller series. In February, we tackled the first four chapters. Now, let me say here that Romans is my favorite book of the Bible, so I’m geeking out almost as much as one can over a few sermon series.
The first four chapters of Romans are kind of like the bad news before the really good news. The Apostle Paul takes those chapters to remind us of the weight of our sin and why it took Jesus to remove that weight from us.
Keep in mind that Romans is a letter that Paul wrote to several house churches in the capital of the empire. Imagine what was going through the minds of the people in those churches as Paul’s reader, Phoebe, read the strong message of these first four chapters!
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:20-32 (NIV)
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If the first chapter rips the sinner to shreds, the second chapter reminds the follower of the law that he or she isn’t immune to sin.
…if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth — you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
Romans 2:18-23 (NIV)
Chapter 3 goes on to remind Paul’s readers — then and now — that no one is righteous on his or her own merits. We need something or someone to make us righteous.
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:21-24 (NIV)
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Finally, in chapter 4, Paul uses the story of Abraham to remind us that our faith is what saves us rather than our works.
Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring — not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.
Romans 4:16 (NIV)
The old man Abraham could only trust that God would give him children by faith, and he did believe. That same faith in God, through His Son Jesus, is what allows us to have a relationship with Him.
Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead — since he was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Romans 4:19-24 (NIV)
The weight of our sin is heavy — so heavy, in fact, that it disqualifies us from fellowship with God. It’s through faith in Jesus that we’re able to approach Him, and that’s how we become free from the weight of our sin. Rejoice in that truth.
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