©2000 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
5/21/00 ROMANS!!
Several months ago
we dropped into the 6th chapter
of Paul's letter to the Romans.
We did that in pursuit of the answer
to what it means for Christ
to free the Christian from sin.
Last week we sort of ended that study.
We sort of ended it
because we will return to it again
at some time in the future.
But for now I think it will be best
for us to back off from it
for a while.
I warned you a few weeks ago
of what I have in mind for us next.
We are in and out of the book of Romans
so often in our teaching times,
dropping into a passage here,
and then dropping into another passage
somewhere else in the book,
and I think it would be helpful
if we took some time
to look at the book of Romans as a
whole.
We have some barriers to overcome
as we approach our study of this book,
or really a study of any book in Bible.
One of the greatest barriers
is our misunderstanding of
what these books are
and why they were written.
We, of course, now have the book of Romans,
and Ephesians,
and Philippians and so forth
all neatly bound in black leather,
with the words HOLY BIBLE
in gold lettering
printed on the outside.
I'm certainly not suggesting
that the Bible isn't holy
or that it isn't God's communication to us,
because it most certainly is,
but all of that black leather and gold lettering
can sometimes cause us to forget
what these New Testament documents really
are
and why they were written.
Nearly every book in the New Testament
was originally written as a letter.
Some were personal letters,
from one Christian to another,
as with Paul's letters to Timothy,
and Titus,
and Philemon,
and with the books of Luke and Acts,
both of which were written by Luke
to his friend, Theophilus.
Some were letters written by Paul
to specific local churches,
as with Romans,
and Ephesians,
and Colossians,
and Philippians, and
Thessalonians, and Corinthians.
And some were open letters to all Christians,
as with Peter's letters and John's.
But what I want us to never loose sight of
is that every one of these letters
was written for a specific purpose
to meet a specific need.
In fact, it was the need
that brought the letters into being in the first
place.
EX. Most of you know
that Sandee and I have a daughter
who is now in her third year in college.
I brought a couple of envelopes this morning
from letters we received from her the past
couple of years.
Here is one addressed to:
LRH Savings and Loan,
and then down below is printed the slogan: "If
we can't fund it no one can!"
And here is another one addressed to:
"Huntsperger's financial Help and Rescue"
and it's from JSH Accounting Inc.
Now, these letters were obviously written
for very specific purposes
with very specific goals in mind.
Every New Testament letter is exactly the same.
No New Testament writer
ever sat down to write and said to himself,
"You know, we Christians need a holy book
like other religions.
I believe I'll write THE BIBLE today."
Now, it is certainly true
that what they wrote
was directly, perfectly inspired by God
Himself,
and now carries with it
absolute and infallible authority
for all Christians.
But what I want us to understand
is that the power of what is happening in these
books
can so easily be lost
if we do not understand why the books
were written in the first place
and what questions or problems
they were intended to answer.
This is certainly true
when it comes to the book of Romans.
We will very likely end up spending
a number of months in our study of the book of
Romans.
It is a carefully organized,
highly structured,
perfectly logical piece of writing.
It is the longest of what we normally think of as the
church Epistles.
Most seminaries and Bible schools
will offer full semester classes on this one letter.
Bible teachers throughout the history of the church
have often viewed their crowning achievements
as being their 500 or 600 page
commentaries on this one book.
Young Bible scholars will often cower
at the very mention of THE BOOK OF
ROMANS.
And yet,
as it was written by Paul,
the book was designed to provide simple,
clear,
understandable answers to four
crucial questions.
It was placed into the hands of baby Christians
with no one there to guide them through
a six month study of the letter.
I am not trying to suggest, of course,
that a casual, superficial reading of Romans
will allow us to instantly grasp
the depth and power of the concepts
presented in the book.
But at the same time,
I do believe that in a very real sense
the wide-eyed ignorance
that the first readers of this book
brought to their reading
in many respects served them far better
than the 2000 year heritage of religion
that we bring to our reading today.
Those first readers did not have to unlearn
a huge pile of wrong beliefs,
and concepts,
and ideas about the true nature of
Christianity.
They had no idea what it meant to be a Christian.
They had no idea what it meant
to be the church.
When Paul told them that, (Rom. 5:1)
"Therefore having been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ,..."
they did not have to battle their way through
generations
of guilt-based religious manipulation
pumped into human society in the name
of Christianity.
They could read the words,
and relax in the remarkable truth of peace with
God.
And when Paul told them
that, (Rom. 8:1) There is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus...
they could hear the words
in the simplicity and clarity with which Paul
wrote them,
not hampered by the misunderstandings
and misinterpretations of those who came before
them.
There have been times in my life
when I have spent weeks
and sometimes months churning over
passages in this book of Romans.
And I want to share something with you
that I hope will help you
in your own personal relationship with the
New Testament.
Every major breakthrough I have ever had
in reaching a point of peace and understanding
with a passage that has troubled me
has come when I have finally been able
to unlearn and let go
of what I thought the passage should be saying
to the point where I could at last
accept at face value the clear, simple truths
being presented.
The book we are about to study
is filled with clear, incredible statements
that, if we can hear them as they are written,
will explode within our minds
in a way that will infiltrate every
aspect of our lives.
Statements such as...
...we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ...
...There is therefore now no
condemnation...
...(nothing) shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord...
...But now we have been released from the
Law, having died to that by which we were
bound...
There is a chapter in The Grace Exchange
entitled "Evil Within".
That entire chapter,
and the remarkable truth it deals with
became a part of my life
when, after months of frustration and
confusion,
I finally realized that,
when Paul talked about his physical body in
Romans chapter 7,
what he REALLY meant was simply his
physical body.
There was no secret code,
not hidden message,
no subtle, mystical meanings.
He was simply telling us
that our physical bodies
continue to have sin patterns ingrained in
them,
and it is those sin patterns
in our physical bodies
that war against the life of Christ within
us.
I know I'm suppose to be introducing our Romans
study this morning,
but I can't resist the urge
for one little side-trip along the way.
It is impossible to read the New Testament
without realizing that
the Church, the Body of Christ
as it existed in that 1st century
was dramatically different
from what we have seen existing
throughout most of church history
since that time.
I have a personal interpretation of church history
that helps me to understand why that is
and what has been happening ever since.
You see, immediately following the resurrection of
Christ,
God set about the process
of revealing to the world
and especially to His people
His plan,
and design,
and purpose for the Church.
It was (and is) a remarkable plan
in which God places His Spirit
within each of His people,
and then reveals Himself to the world through us.
He uses the illustration of a physical body
to help us understand what it means.
He tells us that Christ is the head,
and we are the individual members of the body -
the hands, and mouth, and feet, and legs, and
heart, and lungs.
And along with this revelation of the church
came a lot of other revelations
about the true nature of our relationship with
God through Christ.
Now, when these revelations
were given by God to the first century church
those who received them
had no preconceived ideas
about what God was doing.
They understood themselves
to be the literal fulfillment of the prophecy given
by God to Isaiah
in which He said:
Is. 43:18 "Do not call to mind the former
things, Or ponder things of the past.
Is. 43:19 "Behold, I will do something
new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not
be aware of it? I will even make a roadway
in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.
And when God revealed these mysteries to them
they didn't try to understand them
within the context of some old,
rigid,
established religious form.
They accepted the truths being revealed
as being true.
Of course I'm not suggesting
that they didn't at times have tremendous
turmoil within the church,
and have battles with sin, and heresy, and
so forth.
But the remarkable fundamentals
of this new work of God through Christ
were accepted at face value,
as simple truth,
in a way they have not been ever since.
And given the fact that these revelations
were being made against the backdrop
of the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus
Christ,
it's not surprising they found it easier
to hear and accept them as truth.
I'll give you just two examples of what mean.
1. When they were told that Christ Himself
in the person of the Holy Spirit
now dwells in each of them,
and is actively, daily expressing Himself through
them,
they accepted it as truth.
They didn't spend days agonizing over the will of
God for them.
They simply went about their lives
trusting that God was doing
just exactly what He said He was doing
- manifesting Himself through them in every place.
2. When God told them that,
as a result of their faith in Christ,
they were now His Holy ones,
transformed forever at the deepest level
of their being,
they found it far easier
to accept and believe the truth of their new
identity,
and to allow that truth
to reshape their view of themselves.
But then, in the years following that first century of
Christianity,
and especially as Christianity
gained wider and wider social
acceptance and approval,
subtle, but powerful changes began to take
place.
Gradually the living reality of Christ expressing
Himself through His people
was replaced by a religious form
with carefully worded doctrinal statements,
and rigid divisions between clergy
and laity,
and ritualistic forms of worship
and required religious duties.
It wasn't long before the living reality
of Christ indwelling and transforming
each person who came to Him in faith
was replaced by a clearly defined
and well-packaged religious system of beliefs
and practices
that could be easily transplanted throughout the
world.
And in that transition
the living realities of the simple
but world-changing truths
that formed the heart of the New
Testament church were gradually forgotten.
And I believe that ever since then
a major thrust of the work of the Holy Spirit
has been that of helping God's people to
rediscover those truths that we have forgotten,
truths such as:
salvation through faith alone,
and the rediscovery of the work and life in the Holy
Spirit,
and the priesthood of all believers,
and the true nature of the church
and its role as the body of Christ,
and the true nature of spiritual gifts and how they
operate within the body,
and the universal unity of the people of God,
and the literal, absolute holiness of spirit of every
Christian,
and what it means for us to be freed from the law
and joined to Christ.
EX. This past week
the phone rang and I picked it up and heard the
voice of a fellow Bible teacher
calling from his car phone near San
Antonio, Texas.
He's on our tape list
and he had just been listening to my now
famous Matrix tape
in which I was attempting to describe what
it means to be free from the law.
He called because just within the past few weeks
he, too, had been sharing the same concepts
with his people.
He wisely chose not to illustrate it with The Matrix,
but for nearly a half an hour
we talked about the remarkable way
in which God's Spirit is bringing about
a rediscovery
of so many of the forgotten foundations
of the true walk of faith in Christ.
It is a sovereign, independent work of God within
His church,
not organized by any group or individual.
In fact, most of the time
we have no idea that God is saying the same
thing,
and doing the same work
in countless other groups throughout the
world.
If God would have allowed me to choose
when I would have lived in history
I would have chosen to be in Jerusalem on
the day of Pentecost
immediately following the resurrection
of Christ.
But my second choice would be right here and
now.
Because I believe their is a rediscovery
of the true nature of Christianity
taking place among the true people of God
that is unlike anything we have seen
since the first century.
Now, I have allowed myself to get into this whole
thing
because I believe it can serve as excellent mental
preparation
for our study of the book of Romans.
This book,
perhaps more than any other in the New
Testament,
is filled with clear statements
of the life-changing truths of our life with
Christ.
It is both my hope and my prayer
that we will discover some of those truths
as a result of the time we spend in the book.