©2000 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
|
6/4/00
|
I Can Get An A How?
|
Romans 1:16-18
|
6/4/00 I Can Get An 'A' HOW?
I spent most of one morning this past week
staring at a blank computer screen,
churning over the best way for us to proceed
with our study of the book of Romans.
In the end I decided it would be best
for us to keep ourselves focused
on the major statements
and the major concepts throughout the
book,
even though it will mean
we will have to pass over
some remarkable treasures along the
way.
This was not an easy decision for someone
who spent something like 3 years
teaching the 4 chapter book of Philippians,
and who felt a genuine sense of loss
when we left the book,
knowing there was so much more we should
have covered.
But with Romans it will not be that way.
Certainly there will be passages
where we will spend some considerable time
looking more closely at what is being said,
but when we finish the book of Romans
I long for you to have established a friendship
with this remarkable book.
The flawless logic with which Paul moves through
his ideas
is designed to build into our lives
solid foundation blocks of truth,
blocks that can and will hold us secure
when all sorts of lies,
and fears,
and doubts,
and deceptions intrude into our
thinking.
I have heard it said that it is impossible
for any Christian who understands
and accepts the truths contained in the book
of Romans
to ever get caught up in a religious cult.
I believe that to be true.
God's approach to protecting us
against the power and the lies of Satan
is not complicated,
but it is extremely effective.
Rather than attempting to educate us
in all of the different lies and deceptions
used by Satan against us,
He simply, clearly, powerfully tells us the truth.
And once we know the truth,
the lies become obvious,
no matter how skillfully Satan tries to dress
them up in new clothing
for each new generation.
If you know what your Lord looks like
you won't confuse Him
with the deceivers who use His name.
I can say best what I'm trying to say right now
by beginning our study of the book of Romans
with Paul's final benediction to the book
found at the end of chapter 16.
After writing this remarkable document,
he concludes by saying,
Rom. 16:19 ... I want you to be wise in
what is good, and innocent in what is evil.
Rom. 16:20 And the God of peace will
soon crush Satan under your feet. ¶ The
grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
That, by the way, is the only reference to Satan
found anywhere in the book of Romans.
And in that statement
Paul tells us that our power over evil
will never result
from our learning more and more about
the evil we are trying to overcome.
Our power over evil
comes from learning the truth.
Now, in keeping with my commitment
to keep us focused on the major concepts in this
book,
we are going to spend almost no time at all
on the first 17 verses of the book.
In those 17 verses Paul introduces himself,
reveals to his readers
his purpose in writing this letter,
and then shares his longing to visit the
church at Rome personally at some time in the
future.
The one thing I do want us to chew on a little bit
is the purpose Paul states
for writing this letter.
It's found in Romans 1:5, and then again in verses
16 and 17.
And it is the purpose not just for this letter,
but actually Paul's stated purpose for his
entire life.
In verse 5 he talks about Jesus Christ his
Lord...through whom we have received
grace and apostleship to bring about the
obedience of faith among all the Gentiles,
for His name's sake,..
And the key words in that statement are those four
words, "the obedience of faith".
With that phrase he opens up a window
that allows us to see where he wants to take us
and why.
And then he comes back to it a once again
in his bold affirmation in verse 16 and 17
where he says,
Rom. 1:16 ¶ For I am not ashamed of the
gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the
Jew first and also to the Greek.
Rom. 1:17 For in it the righteousness of
God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is
written, " But the righteous man shall live
by faith."
...the obedience of faith...
...But the righteous man shall live by faith...
Now, at this point in the book
we have no idea what that means.
In both of these statements
Paul is telling us
that there is a kind of faith in God
that will actually result in our becoming
righteous.
And already our 2000 years of church heritage
is beginning to work against us.
When we hear Paul talk about "the obedience of
faith"
most of us do not understand what that means
now
any more than the first century Romans did.
But our problem is
that we THINK we do,
or at least we think we should,
or more likely
we tend to tuck it away
in the mental file marked, "Meaningless
religious words and phrases that I cannot doubt or
question".
EX
And just so you understand
how little we really understand here,
let me see if I can put this into a
different context
and show you how we would respond to this
phrase
or this concept
if we weren't hampered
by our religious past.
I want you to picture yourself as a college student.
You are one semester away from graduation
and you are enrolled in a class
that you must have
in order to graduate and receive your
degree.
The first day of class
the teacher explains the requirements of the
class.
The first thing he says
sends a shock through you.
He says that there are only two possible grades
a student in his class can get - an 'A' or an 'F'.
Then he hands out the syllabus for the class
and begins explaining the course requirements.
Everything you've hated most about college is
contained on that syllabus.
There is a 25 page term paper required.
There are smaller research papers due weekly.
There is a two hour mid-term and a two-hour
final.
There are pop-quizzes weekly.
There are at least 4 other books to be read apart
from a hideous textbook.
Then, after going over everything on that sheet in
detail,
the professor makes the following statement.
"There are two possible ways
of getting an 'A' in this class.
The first way is to complete everything on this sheet
to my satisfaction.
The second way is for you to have faith in me.
Either way is equally acceptable.
Either one will fulfill the obligations of this
course.
I will leave it to you
whether you choose to pursue your 'A' through
the syllabus requirements,
or through faith in me."
Now, if you were in that class,
how would you respond?
If I was there
my hand would shoot up in an instant
and I would be demanding some more
information
on just exactly what it means to pursue
an 'A' through faith in the prof.
And if we weren't hampered by our heritage
I believe we would respond the same way to
Paul's opening comments in Romans.
And I think that is exactly how the initial readers
responded -
"Obedience of FAITH?! What in the world does that
mean?"
"The righteous shall live by FAITH? I don't get it!"
Paul wanted his readers hungry
for the truths he was about to share.
He wants them locked into his communication with
them
as he moves into his letter.
And what he does between 17 and 18
is calculated to create that hunger.
Now watch this -
he ends verse 17 with that remarkable quotation
from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk,
"But the righteous man shall live by faith".
Oh - and just a fascinating little bit of Bible Trivia -
there are 232 references to faith in the Bible.
228 of them are in the New Testament.
Only 4 of them are in the Old Testament.
One of those 4 is this Old Testament prophecy
quoted here by Paul in Romans 1:17.
I mention this simply because
I want us to understand
how lulled we have become
by the endless faith babble
that swirls around us
in the religious world in which
we live.
There are two equally effective ways
for Satan to blind us to the power
of a critical truth in Scripture.
One of them is by hiding it from us,
making it difficult or impossible
for us to see its existence.
I think he has attempted to do this
with the concept
of the living, eternal reality
of our inner holiness of spirit.
Stand before a mirror
and say to yourself,
"I am God's holy one, eternally righteous and
pure, not just seen as righteous,
but truly holy forever...",
and then tell me if you believe it.
The truth has been hidden from us by Satan,
even though it is right before us in Scripture.
The second way Satan blinds us to truth
is to deluge us in a certain word or concept
until it ceases to have any real meaning to us.
This is what he has done
with the concept of faith.
In our current religious world
we have FAITH everywhere.
We name our churches Faith Baptist,
and Faith Lutheran Church,
and Faith Episcopal.
We name our children "Faith".
We all know we are saved by faith,
and we are suppose to grow in faith.
Most of us were all too familiar
with Paul's proclamation that "The righteous
man shall live by faith..."
We know if we have faith we can be healed,
and if we have faith God will answer our
prayers...
We are swirling in a world of faith talk,
and yet...
and yet we have no idea what it means.
The first Christians
brought no such baggage with them.
The Old Testament had numerous references to
God's faithfulness to us.
It had numerous references to our obedience to Him.
But there were almost no references
to our faith in Him.
And when Paul stepped onto the scene
and began preaching "an obedience of faith
among all the gentiles"
and when he began affirming
that the righteous man
shall become righteous by faith,
his audience wanted to know more...
LOTS MORE.
And I want us to conclude this morning
by seeing the way in which
Paul intensifies this hunger in his readers
by what he does immediately after
making that statement, "But the righteous man
shall live by faith."
He sets up a contrast
so sharp,
so intense that it is certain to lock the reader
into where he is going
and how he's going to get there.
In Romans 17 he tells us," But the righteous
man shall live by faith."
And then, the very next thing he says is this:
Rom. 1:18 ¶ For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,
who suppress the truth in
unrighteousness,...
Those two statements
are placed side-by-side
in order to create a longing within us to
understand.
In the first statement
he fills us with a hope -
the hope that there is some way to become
truly righteous
not through our performance,
not through our productivity,
not through our perseverance and
determination,
but through what he calls "faith".
And then he immediately switches
to remind us of the consequences that will result
from the absence of absolute righteousness
in our lives -
the wrath of God will be poured out
on all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men.
We have done strange things
with Biblical truth
in the church world during the past 2000
years.
We have smeared and blurred all the edges
so that truth and error and confusion
all sort of run together
and mingle with one another.
We claim to believe
that we are saved through faith in Christ,
and that we now share in the righteousness
that comes through faith,
but then we spend most of our lives
running and hiding from a God
we don't trust,
and a God whom we are certain must be irritated with
us
because we are not behaving the way we should.
Paul is not going to let us get away with that kind of
sloppy, illogical thinking in this book.
Repeatedly we will see him
take the two choices offered to us by God
and set them side by side
so that we can see the choice clearly.
We can enter into the righteousness
that comes to us through faith alone,
or we can seek to find our security with God
through our ability to be good.
If we choose the first
then our performance
at any time,
at any level
ceases forever to be the basis
upon which we relate to God.
And if we choose the second,
then we must recognize
that the wrath of God will be poured out on
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men...
Sure, we may have some nice things we have done
tossed in here and there,
but it doesn't make any difference.
There is no scale
with all the good on one side,
and all the bad on the other.
There is no way we can ever compensate
for any act of unrighteousness
with any amount of good.
God's wrath is poured out
on ALL unrighteousness
and we are helpless,
powerless to escape any of it
through anything we do.
Do you know what this is?
This is the professor telling us
that we can choose to get our 'A' through faith
in him.
But if we choose rather to pursue it
through fulfilling the work listed on the
syllabus,
we need to know
that only absolutely perfect work will
qualify.
The only test score that qualifies for an 'A' is 100%.
If there is a missing comma,
or a misspelled word on any paper,
it will not receive an 'A'.
"...the righteous man shall live by faith.
For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness."
Welcome to the book of Romans!
There is an intensity,
a power to the book of Romans
designed to compel the reader into the truth.
I warned you last week,
and I'll mention it again now
that this first section of the book
is designed to create within us
a desperate desire for Christ.
It is written by Paul
to answer the question, "Why was it necessary
for Christ to come and die as He did?"
And he answers that question
by forcing us to see
what our world and our future looks like
without Christ on the scene.
The first step in finding our way home
is to come out from our hiding places
and admit we are lost
and hopeless without someone to show
us the way.