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Paul is continuing in his application of how we should live in light of the gospel, and in this often-discussed and debated passage, he explains how to be good citizens.

In Romans 1-8 Paul explained the glory of the gospel and the greatness of God — how no one can be saved by keeping the law; we can only be saved by trusting that God, because of the blood of Jesus Christ, will forgive us and solve the problem of sin in our lives.

In Romans 9-11, Paul examines how God treated Israel.  He argues that God did not fail Israel, nor reject them and that proves he will be faithful to Gentile believers as well. In a great crescendo at the end of Romans 11 he extols the living God with dynamic praise. Then in Romans 12 he turns to believers and says, “It is only reasonable that we worship this God with our bodies.” The rest of the book then talks about our practical response to the greatness of the gospel: How should it make our lives different?

Chapter 12:3 has implications for everything that comes after it: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” – Romans 12:3 ESV

In Romans 13 the issue is still learning not to think too highly of ourselves, or seeing ourselves accurately in relation to the authorities that govern any nation. There are three words in this passage that summarize its themes: submission, fearlessness, and conscience.

• Submissiveness helps give us proper perspective about ourselves.
• Submission is not slavish obedience.
• Submission is an attitude in which we are predisposed to let God, through government and other authority structures, put limits on where we go, what we do, and how we spend our resources.
• Compare with Acts 4:18-20 and James 4.
• Fearlessness is not the same thing as safety.
• Being fearless means not being guilty of anything.
• If we are going to be punished for anything, it will be for righteousness.
• Compare with 1 Peter 2:11-20.
• Punishment is one means by which we are impelled to do right. But Paul says there is a better reason, and that is your conscience.
• Conscience demands that we keep the record clear for God’s sake, and not for man’s.
• We are free to submit because God is in control.  We are free from guilt and anxiety if we practice what is good.  We honor God when we keep our conscience clear in dealings with authorities.

For more detail and explanation please listen to the podcast.

Next: 20 Romans 13:8-14 Freedom in Christ

Previous: 18 Romans 11:33-12:21 How Shall We Live?

Series: Romans: Justification by Faith

Study: Romans Resources

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In Romans 11:1-15, Paul gives five reasons why it is evident that God has not forgotten his people the Jews.

1. One of the reasons why God begin saving some of the Gentiles is that He desires to make Israel jealous. God is reaching Gentiles because, ultimately, He wants to reach the Jewish people.
2. The Old Testament promises of worldwide blessing hinge upon the restoration of Israel to God.
3. If the first Jews (the patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob) could be made holy by God, then God is able to make Jews holy after thousands of years have passed. Therefore there is hope for Israel.
4. Paul uses the figure of an olive tree. The natural branches of the tree are broken off and unnatural branches are grafted on. Jews who become Christians today are “completed Jews,” but Gentiles who become Christians become spiritual Jews.

Beginning in Romans 11:25, Paul explains the restoration that is coming to Israel.

For more detail and explanation, please listen to the podcast.

Next: 18 Romans 11:33-12:21 How Shall We Live?

Previous:16 Romans 10 Prayer & Legalism

Series: Romans: Justification by Faith

Study: Romans Resources

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How many of you have resolved to lose weight at some point?  I have attempted scores of diets in my lifetime.  Usually I start with a sense of heroic purpose!  But of course the diet never lasts, and my zealous self-discipline always falls by the wayside.

I mention diets because essentially the same issues are raised in the passage before us this morning. This type of  wrong-focused zeal is as useless in spiritual things as in physical diets.   The problem we face is not the absence of religion.  There is plenty of the wrong kind of religion (just like there are plenty of the wrong kind of diets).  The problem is the absence of the wrong kind of religion, a lack of religious depth.

In Romans 10, Paul is answering the question of why some people who have little knowledge are saved while some who have much knowledge are not saved.  He gave part of his answer in Romans 9.  All of us are born lost, and God in His mercy and grace chooses to call some people to him.  Paul continues his answer into chapter 10.

For more detail and explanation, please listen to the podcast.

Next: 17 Romans 11:1-32 Did God Reject His People?

Previous: 15 Romans 9:14-33 God’s Sovereign Choice

Series: Romans: Justification by Faith

Study: Romans Resources

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In the opening verses of Chapter 9 Paul gave us three reasons God himself gives for his actions. These are the principles upon which he acts.

1. Romans 9:1 tells us that God does not base redemption or salvation on natural privileges, like inheritance, ancestry, education, opportunity. All these natural privileges, though they may be granted to an individual and may give him great access to knowledge about God, do not guarantee that a person is chosen of God.
2. Salvation is always based on a divine promise. God himself promises to act. He never bases salvation upon what human beings are going to do.  At the heart of redemption is a promise that God has given and that we are to respond to.
3. Paul points out that God’s choice is never based on the behavior of individuals, whether good or bad. Paul proves it in the case of Jacob and Esau, in which a choice was made before the boys were born, before they had opportunity to do anything, either good or bad. God made a choice. Therefore, salvation or redemption never is based on human works.

On what is the basis does God choose then? If it is not works, if it is not the natural advantages which he himself gives, then what is it?

Paul’s answer, in the second half of Romans 9, is that it is based upon God’s sovereign right to choose.

For more detail and explanation, please listen to the podcast.

Next: 16 Romans 10 Prayer & Legalism

Previous: 14 Romans 9:1-13 Is the Gospel too Good to be True?

Series: Romans: Justification by Faith

Study: Romans Resources

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Romans 9-11 must be read as a unit that builds to a wonderful climax. It contains some of the most difficult material in the Bible.

The first eight chapters of Romans make a powerful case that the news from heaven is the best possible news.  Our problem was worse than we thought, and yet God acted graciously to save us through faith in Christ.  The news of the gospel is so gloriously good that it defies description.

But is this news too good to be true? How do we know that we can rely on these marvelous promises of God?

To answer the question, “Is the good news of Romans 1-8 true?” Paul reminds us in Romans 9 that God made promises to Abraham and to the nation Israel. Paul asks: “Has the word of God failed for Israel?”

Romans 9-11 contain a complex argument that answers both philosophical and historical arguments that arise from the experience of the Israelites, yet when read read as a unit it builds to a wonderful climax.

This is some of the most difficult material in the Bible. It is going to challenge us both spiritually and intellectually. It will assault our pride. Yet the hard questions must be answered. It is not enough to just proclaim the good news without replying to the doubts, “Can I be sure it really works? Has God’s word never failed?”

Next: 15 Romans 9:14-33 God’s Sovereign Choice

Previous: 13 Romans 8:26-39 Confidence in Christ

Series: Romans: Justification by Faith

Study: Romans Resources

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Paul argues that because of the activity of the Spirit, we can have confidence that everything that happens to us is in our own best interests.

In Romans 8:1-11, the Apostle Paul claimed faith in Jesus solves the problem of our sin.

His goal in this section is to explain how salvation can come about through Christ when it couldn’t come through the law.  The law could not make us righteous, because the law didn’t solve the problem of our sinfulness.  But because of God’s grace, He gives us His Spirit and it is through the Spirit of God we are actually made righteous.

Romans 8:12-39 is an exhortation against legalism, Paul is encouraging the Romans to give up the mentality of seeking to be sanctified through our own resources.   The point of the section is that we should seek holiness through trusting in God, not through trusting in our own resources, self-reliance, legalism.

Romans 8 :12-14 is the summary statement: Trusting yourself to gain holiness (legalism) leads to death in our present experience; Trusting in the Spirit of God to gain holiness leads to life in our present experience.

Romans 8:15-30 discusses two things that are true about  those who trust the Spirit of God to make them righteous.

1. The Spirit of God produces within believers an agonizing grief over sinfulness and a longing for righteousness.  This grief over sin and longing for righteousness is tangible evidence of belief (Romans 8:15-25).
2. We can have confidence that everything that happens to us is in our own best interests because of the work of the Spirit (Romans 8:26-30).

For more detail and explanation, please listen to the podcast.

Next: 14 Romans 9:1-13 Is the Gospel too Good to be True?

Previous: 12 Romans 8:12-25 Grief over Sin

Series: Romans: Justification by Faith

Study: Romans Resources

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Summary

In Romans 1-5, Paul argues for justification by faith.

• Romans 1:- tells us that 1) we sinned, 2) we now experience death and 3) God abandoned us to our sin and death.
• Romans 2: Neither the moral nor the religious person is exempt from the disease of sin.  No one can be justified by keeping the law.
• Romans 3: He announces the good news that we can be justified by trusting that God will forgive us and make us holy because of Jesus’ death on the cross.
• Romans 4: He argues that even Abraham & David were justified by their faith and not by their works.  And that that because justification is based on a promise it is guaranteed and open to everyone who believes, not just the Jews.
• Romans 5: He argues that justification by faith gives us a reason to boast (exult, rejoice) because we have been singled out by God to be made glorious and holy and that our hope is guaranteed because God loves us.  Our receiving the promise is up to God, not us.

Romans 6 -8 is question and answer section where the questions are objections raises by opponents to the gospel.

1. The first objection was that Paul’s gospel implies we should pursue sin to glorify God;   Paul answers no, because grace includes setting us free from sin, not just forgiveness.   To continue to pursue sin — the very thing from which God is saving us — would make a mockery of His gift and would not bring glory to God.
2. The second objection was that Paul’s gospel removes any incentive not to sin because it removed the threat of the law.  Paul says, no, sin leads to death and death is a big incentive to avoid sin.  It was our weariness of the death in our lives that drove us to God in the first place and it still provides the incentive not to sin. Further he adds that the law was no incentive to avoid sin anyway.  Because the Law forced us to rely on ourselves and we could only find sin there.
3. If the Law promotes our sinfulness, then it must be an evil thing.  Paul answers, no the Law is good.  The Law alerted us to our sinful state and our need for a savior.  And a follow-up question, if the Law is a source of condemnation for me, then how can it be good and holy?  Paul answers that the Law does not condemn me, my sinfulness does.  The Law merely reveals my sinfulness which was already present.

In Romans 7 as part of his answer about the role of the Law, Paul describes “moral paralysis”  —  the distinction between my desire to be holy and good and my inability to be holy and good.  On the one hand, I desire to be righteous, I agree with the Law, and I resolve to keep the Law.  But on the other hand, I continue to fail and sin and do the very thing that I do not wish to do.  I’m trapped in my sinfulness.  The mechanism that I thought would control my sin — willpower, muster, resolve, determination — doesn’t work.  Left to myself, there’s nothing I can do to stop being sinful.   That’s what I mean by moral paralysis.  The only solution to that is faith in Jesus and as we looked at last week Paul explains why faith solves that problem.

Romans 8 explains how faith in Jesus promotes obedience and righteousness:  The Law made no provision for giving us God’s Spirit while grace does.

For more detail and explanation, please listen to the podcast.

Next: 13 Romans 8:26-39 Confidence in Christ

Previous: 11 Romans 8:1-12 Deliverance from Sin

Series: Romans: Justification by Faith

Study: Romans Resources