Well, this message is going to be formatted a little bit differently than my average message. I've got road trips on the mind that influence this message. Having covered 3,000 plus miles over the last couple of weeks, I want to talk about the Romans Road. Now, the Romans Road has a special place in my heart. The Romans Road is a tool, an evangelistic tool, to guide people into a right understanding of their sin, recognizing their sin, and as a result, leading them to the point of where they understand their need. And then having understood their need, receive redemption through Christ. I've used this tool many times, and I offer it as a tool for all of us. Take notes. Take good notes on the passages that are referenced. There's going to be eight particular passages that we're going to go through. These are very good. And as you evangelize to folks, as you preach the good news to them, as you share your faith, this is a very good tool. Open your Bibles, if you would, to Romans chapter 3. Before we jump into the text, we'll ask the Lord to bless this time. Father God, as we begin, our journey down this wonderful book of Romans that Paul penned under your inspiration. Lord, I pray that you will reveal to us our own minds, our own hearts, what we believe to be true, and also what your word states as truth. We want to align our hearts to what your word says. So Lord, we come at least willing. Lord, I pray that you will make us able to understand what your word says and have it applied to our hearts. I pray that there would be fruit, not just in our own understanding, but also in the understanding of others. I pray that this good tool that walks through the Book of Romans will provide us with just another tool in this work that you've called us to do. It's in Christ's name I pray, amen. Okay. Well, what's most important and starting a journey is recognizing where you're starting from. You can want to get into a place, but if you don't know where you're starting from, it's... It's all theory. You'll never actually get to where you're going. We need to understand where we're starting from. I have a picture of a roundabout up there. You know what a roundabout is. They have them in Forrest Grove, right? In Hillsborough. You just go around in a circle. Sometimes I'll take the kids and we'll just go around a couple of times and the centrifugal force will push them out. And they'll scream, yes, more! There's a roundabout that we find ourselves on at the beginning of this journey. This roundabout is what our presuppositions are. A presupposition is an idea that we hold to be true. We may not overtly say it, but it is something that defines how we think. Here's our starting point. We probably have at one time or another, or even now, believed three things, one of three things about ourself. Maybe the first one that we need to know is this presupposition, this underlying idea that I'm good. How are you doing today? Oh, I'm doing good. How is your life going? Oh, it's good. How are you? I, you know, and I share the gospel, so I says, oh, I'm good. We use that phrase to say that I don't have a need, I don't want whatever it is that you're offering. We say I'm good. But Jesus says in Mark 10 verse 18 that only one is good. Who's that? It's God. Only one is good. So we need to understand that this underlying idea of, I'm good, we need to put it off to the side. So that's one part of our roundabout. Here's a second part of our roundabout. We might argue, well, I'm not a sinner. I haven't sinned. Well, that's not true because sin is any deviation from God's law. either deliberately or accidentally by our words, thoughts, or deeds. That's sin. So any time that we have broken God's law, either on purpose or by accident, we have sinned. So we need to get that part of the roundabout put to the side. We are sinners. Maybe we would argue, I haven't done anything really bad. God wouldn't punish me. I'm not like Hitler. Well, James 2.10 tells us that if we've sinned in one part of God's law, we've broken all of God's law. So we really need to start at the beginning. The beginning is that we are sinners. And Romans 3.23 says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What is the glory of God? It's His righteousness. It's His perfection. It is His utter holiness. And you can see that in the context, in just the past two verses previously. We have not achieved God's righteousness. We need to know this before we can start our journey. Does that resonate with us? Do we understand that? Yeah, actually, just even this morning, I said, right, I can't, at any point, not sin. It is our starting point. We need to understand this before we go on our journey. Scripture confirms this. If you have your Bible open, verse 10 will tell you 10 through 12 in chapter 3 says, as it is written, and Paul cites authoritative scripture. He's citing passages that are confirmed by a Jew and Gentile alike. He says, as it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. We need to understand we are definitively categorized as sinners. This is a roadblock we have to get over. We need to understand it. Why is it so bad to be a sinner? We're gonna come back to that. We need to talk about, did my audio go out? Is it still, can you hear me okay? Okay, sorry. We need to talk about how we became sinners because some of us don't even know it. Adam, way back in the beginning, back in Genesis, he was given a command not to break. He broke the command and because he was our representative His sin is our sin, and because he sinned, the result of that is that we can't not sin. It's part of our daily existence. We are sinners. He was our representative. His name means man, Adam, man. He represented all of us. So when he sinned, we sinned in him, and we have inherited a sin nature that makes it impossible for us not to sin. That's a pretty sad place to be, because what was the penalty for that sin? Death. Romans 5, 12 says this, We're in that all. We're in that absolute category. We are all sinners. Why is that so bad? Because there's a penalty. There's a really bad penalty. Death. Physical death is part of that. Spiritual death is the end result. When Adam and Eve sinned, when they rebelled against God, when they do what we do constantly, The penalty that was assigned that is good, that is right, is eternal death. That's what we have earned for ourselves. If you have sinned, we need to understand that we have earned that. Our sins have earned that eternal death. What is eternal death? It's eternal separation from God under his righteous, holy wrath. We've earned them for ourselves. That's a sad place to be, to know that we're not any better than Pol Pot. We're not any better than Stalin. We're not any better than name your worst criminal. and the worst atrocious crime they've done, in God's eyes, we're not better. In fact, we're deserving a punishment of death, same as they will get. Does that resonate with us? Do we actually believe that? Because that's important. The gospel has no safer, if you have not understood how morally, spiritually destitute We are. We must understand this and our incredible need that this is a penalty that will be deserved and served. But if you have understood that, you are perfectly prepared for the good news. What is the good news? The good news that we love, that we articulate to our friends, that we cling to, is that Jesus, who is God, took on human flesh and did what Adam couldn't do, didn't do. He didn't perfectly represent us. What did Jesus do? He did perfectly represent us. He absolutely obeyed his own good law that he holds us to without any effort, without ever erring, without ever sinning. He's our perfect representative. He's our second Adam. And he came to pay the penalty that we deserve, that we owe, that is right that we pay. He did. He carried cross. He was nailed to it. He suffered and he died for my sins and for yours and for ours, the ones we have done in the past, the ones we will do in the future. He died for all sins. He didn't stay dead. After he was buried, according to prophecy, according to his own word, God raised him from the dead because there was no sin found in him. He became sin on our behalf, and yet once it was paid for, no sin was found in him. It was paid, all of it. There isn't one sin that hasn't been paid for, and God accepted his sacrifice. and He imputed His righteousness to us and raised us from the dead. We earned the penalty, but God gives us a great gift. The wages of sin is death. We recognize it. It is right that we earn that. And yet, the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. He extends that to us. How is this possible? How can God be so good. We need to wonder, because if I punch Bill in the eye here, we're going to have beef. Yeah, and there's going to be problems, right? If I sin against somebody, there's a problem. That sin has to be dealt with. We've got to talk about it. We've got to figure it out. God did. He did it when we were antagonistic and open rebellion against him and hating him. He loves us. How much? Romans 5a tells us that God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. How great is the Father's love for us? It's unfathomable. It cannot be understood. He saved us because of his own extreme love. God did not save us because we are inherently lovely, because we're beautiful, because we're good. He did not do that because we are not. We aren't desirable. We aren't good. We aren't worthy of redemption. Now, in a culture that tells us, you're beautiful just who you are. Thank you. It's not true. We are morally bankrupt. God saves us not because He needs us. He's not lonely. He's not pining away for us in eternity past and saying, oh, I'm so frustrated. There's a theological term called aseity. He is self-existent. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need our praise. He doesn't need our worship. He doesn't need us. God's love is so great in abundance over that that he loves those like us. He saves us not because He owes us anything. He doesn't owe us anything. Salvation isn't owed to you. How do we know that? Well, what was owed to us was the penalty, the death penalty. That's what we earned. A gift is not owed. He gives us. Great. He gives us love. While we were yet sinners, Ephesians 2 talks about how we're dead in our transgressions and sins. A dead body and corpse can't do anything. That's us. That's us. But God's love is horrible. He saves us purely as an expression of his glory and goodness. how to make much of God's love. It is far deeper than the ocean's depths. It is far more expansive than the breadth of the universe. His love is greater than all of our sins combined and all of humanity's sins together. We don't know a love like that except when we look at Christ. Greater love has no man. The one laid down his life for his friends. He calls enemies his friend. Those that have offended him, those that have wounded him, he loves us. In understanding our sin and His love, we need to come to a realization our sin must be dealt with. God can't wink at it. If God winks at our sin, if God looks the other way and says, well, let's just pretend it didn't happen, if He sweeps it under the rug, He's not good. He's not just. He's not holy. not worthy of worship, and yet he does deal with our sin. How? He takes upon himself our burden and dies in our stead. He makes sure that he is both just and the justifier. That is a good God. worthy of our worship. His love is great, and we adore him for that. While we were against sinners, Christ died for us. So then, this is an interesting passage. Turn to this passage in chapter 10. What should our response be? In these two verses that we're going to look at, we're going to see something really interesting. It may not be readily apparent from the English translation that we have before us, but in digging into it, there's a unique construction I'm going to share with you. Our response should be confessing. What is confessing? Is that confessing sin? No, it's an open profession of the reality that Christ is our Lord. Romans 10 verse 9 says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, that's boss, that's master, that's owner, that's key holder of your life, king, If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That should be our response. There's two aspects I'm gonna highlight, and the grammatical construction in the Greek is the same. This is an active voice. When it says, if you confess, this is something you put your volition behind, you intentionally do on purpose. It doesn't happen to you accidentally. You confess, you profess that Jesus is in fact your boss. And you believe, you put all your weight, all your confidence in the fact that God raised him from the dead and that that gift that he offers to you is valid, it's real, it's yours because he says so. But what's interesting is the following verse. Verse 10, it says, for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation. Believing is mentioned, confessing is mentioned. In the English, it looks the same, but when you look it in the Greek, this is a passive construction. This is something that God enables. He makes it possible for you to believe. He makes it possible for you to confess. His Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. And then as a result, we agree with him and his word, and we say, yes, I am a sinner, but you say in your word, you have a gift for me, not earned, received. This is what our response should be, and it's enabled by God. He makes it possible. We don't take the first step, He does. If you agree with this, the Holy Spirit is at work in your life. God is doing something inside of you. There may not be fireworks, there may not be exciting emotions, but if you can truly say that this is true in your life, You have a great debt of gratitude to render to God. He has done the impossible for you. Our response should be professing that He is God in our life and believing it. We have God's guarantee. I love this. Paul quotes out of Joel chapter 2 verse 32, whoever calls on the name of Yahweh, the Lord, will be saved. Why does that matter? doesn't quote that. He wants us to understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is Yahweh. He equates him with Yahweh. He tells us that Jesus is King of kings, Lord of lords, over all, ruling all, and we have his guarantee that whoever calls on him will be saved. To be saved is to be delivered from sin and its related consequences, rather its related judgment. To be saved is to be taken away from the penalty of death, to remove the guilt of sin. The stain of it is not on the Christian anymore. They are as perfect as God is himself. It's not that God just wiped away our sins. He imputed Christ's righteousness to us. That's a big deal. Christian, you are as good as God is himself in Christ. Now there's a work of progressive sanctification that takes place as we grow in our likeness of Christ. We look more and more like him as he prunes off the dead and unfruitful parts of our life. He makes us like Christ. That's a good thing, and we're wise to rejoice in that process, even though it might be hard. Take it to the bank. God's glorious guarantee, since he does not lie, he will never go back. Here's the last slide that I have. Has this message resonated? Has it made sense? Have we heard it? Well, then there's an obvious result that takes place, and we'll just look just a couple of verses down, verses 14 and 15. It says, if we understand the validity of the gospel, if we understand its truth, then it is really, really good news. We will share it. We will not hide it under a bushel, no. You don't hide the light, you shine the light. And this is one tool to do that. Verse 14 says, how then will they call on him? Remember, we just looked at calling on the name of the Lord. How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? just as it is written, authority of scripture. How beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim good news of good things. It is a joy, it is a privilege to take part in the ransom of souls from hell. To hold back the person from jumping headlong into eternity blindly without any understanding of their depravity, of their need, of the redemption that is offered, it is a joy. And friends, I know that sometimes people don't recognize up front, or maybe they don't even really feel willing to participate in this, in hearing the good news. This is a tool. to use, to draw them into the recognition that they have a really big problem. And it is your honor to be able to provide not only the scary reality, but the good news that we need. This is a good tool. And Paul, his whole letter to the Romans that he is writing is informed with this overriding desire to communicate the gospel, to ground yourself in it. Don't ever leave off preaching the gospel to yourself day by day. We need to hear this and ground ourselves in the reality that, yeah, I am unlovely, yes, I am a sinner, but you say, because of your own goodness, that I am yours and redeemed and saved. Paul says in chapter one, and I didn't put it up here on the board, chapter one, verse 16, 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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous will live by faith. If we acknowledge this, if we believe it, if we put all of our weight, all of our hope in the truth of what God has done for us, our worst problems are solved. And then we have that burden lifted. We can share unashamedly what is good. That is a privilege to take part in that work. That is a joy that the Lord shares with us. And it is our delight to speak to others about the truth of what Jesus has done. Don't let the culture, don't let the world, don't let the pressures of even social norms prevent you from reaching out to those that are perishing. I think it was Charles Spurgeon that said, if they must go to hell, they must at least go through us. Let them go with us clinging to them, begging them to be reconciled to God. Don't just passively say, well, you made your choice. I'm done with you. If they have decided, no, I will not be talked to about this. I will not be confronted. Give it a while. Come back. People change their minds. We do. Go and talk to them again and say, hey, you know, how about now? How about now? You can be calm. You can be caring. You can show your love and the love of Christ to a dying world. And it's good that you do. Let's stand and I will close and put Father God, how great is your love for us that you would take. angry, rebellious sinners, antagonistic toward you and reveal your word and your love to us. There is nothing like it. We thank you, Lord, for your grace, the unmerited favor you show us through Christ. We're thankful that you accepted his sacrifice that was comprehensive, complete, and never to be duplicated again. Lord, I pray that you would remove from us the desire to establish our own righteousness and arrogance to say, well, I'm gonna figure it out when I get there. Lord, I pray that you would remove that inclination toward us. And if, Lord, there is any here, and you know hearts, if there are any here who are not safely in your fold and are not yours, Lord, I pray that you would produce within them an overwhelming desire to respond to you. That is your work, and we rejoice to see it when it takes place. We marvel that you can take stone-hard hearts and make them hearts of flesh. So we wait on you, Lord, expectantly. It's in Christ's name I pray.