So you hold in your hands or on your device a finely crafted theological masterpiece called the Book of Romans. Paul communicates the fundamental doctrine of salvation and sanctification in this book, and it's the section on sanctification, Romans 6 through 8, as you know, that this conference is going to concentrate on. And it is our task here this evening to set the table for that section by taking an overview glance at chapters one through five. It will be quite beneficial to you to hear and grasp the teachings of Romans six through eight. Your Christian life might just be unchained and set free. Your frustrations and the spinning of your wheels might just come to an end as you listen to the important lessons soon to come. It'll be of great magnitude, we pray, for all of us. And so before the good stuff comes, however, we have to first have the overview. But wait, don't tune out. Think of this lesson as a prerequisite for the good stuff that'll be coming. And may this lesson prime the pump for us all, engaging us in the flow and the logic of this great book so we can launch into that epic portion on the Christian life with a better chance of sensing its impact. So let's begin first by looking at a basic outline for our conference material. As we think of Romans, we're just going to review some things many of you have probably seen over this pulpit over the years. But a basic outline that we like to use for Romans 1 through 8 is the righteousness of God required. Romans has a lot to do with righteousness, how it's required, how God demands that, and then how we can receive it. We're gonna see the good news in Romans one through five. That's what the first five chapters are about. The righteousness required, the righteousness that's made available and can be received through Christ. Then during this conference, we'll be looking at the righteousness of God reproduced. In other words, practically in our lives, as well as the righteousness of God realized as we think of glorification. So if you turn to Romans chapter one, verses one through four, I'll also have this section on the screen. Here's how we begin. Paul says, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. So we'll just look at this gospel message, the central message that Paul's gonna introduce in verses one through 17, like an introduction for the book. I'll just call it Gospel Greetings because he tells us as we just read how Paul himself was separated to the gospel. So this is then telling us his mission or his ministry. That gospel was promised by God, he said, before through the prophets and the scriptures. So it is the essence of it you can find in the Old Testament scriptures and in the promises of God. And he's going to then mention, thirdly, that this gospel is concerning Jesus Christ, our Lord. So it is dealing with Jesus Christ. And notice this passage. We will look first how we have gospel concerning his son, Jesus Christ. And then Paul's gonna give us three words, how he was born, Jesus was born, physically, of the seed of David, his physical linealage, according to the flesh, according to the physical realm. So this is speaking of the humanity of Jesus Christ. Also though in this verse, this passage, these verses, we read how Jesus Christ was declared. And he was declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit. And so this is now going to indicate his deity. And so we see that Jesus Christ is fully human and he is fully God. So that is The first part of this message is gonna center on Jesus Christ, and we wanna understand who he is. And so we understand that he's God incarnate who's come in the flesh, and he came for a purpose and a reason, as we're gonna see. And that's who this gospel, that's who Romans, this righteousness, all of this is gonna center on and exalt. But Paul does not define the gospel in this passage, or even in this book. He doesn't explain terminology. He assumes that his readers are familiar with it or are understanding of the gospel. But let's, for our purposes tonight, not assume that. And so we're going to briefly just go over what is the gospel. And if you turn, I think, maybe a page or so in your book, there is something there called the gospel roadmap. We're just going to briefly go through the gospel roadmap. When you have a roadmap, again, I always like to say, it's going to help you identify where you want to go, where you are, how you get there. So if you're in Duluth and you want to get to the Twin Cities, there's a primary road that you would take. You'd say, OK, we go from here to there. We take this route. So the idea is with a gospel roadmap is how do we arrive at our destination that we would desire, which would be heaven? How can we know that we are on our way there with confidence? As you know, we like to break the gospel message down into four parts. We begin by looking at a context for the scripture, or the gospel, rather. A context is that which is surrounding information that gives meaning to the portion that we want to look at. The context is that which tells us before and after the significance of what we're reading in our passage. So when we think of the context of the gospel, there's some things we want to understand. There is the holiness of God. And so we know from the scriptures that the Bible declares that God is holy. What that means is he's without sin, he's pure, he is morally righteous and excellent all the time. So in God there is no darkness at all. He is light and he is sinless and perfect. And that's the first thing which is really good. That's a wonderful thing about God. Identify that as a, if that's what he is like, then that's what heaven is like, and that's why we have a desire to go there. We won't need locks, and we won't need doctors, and we won't need emergency vehicles, and we won't need a lot of things. that make life sometimes, or show us how frail life can be. So this is a place of perfect glorified status. But the holiness of God also brings something out about you and I, because when we compare ourselves to what God is like, we instantly see that there's a difference. And the 10 commandments which were given are actually given in a big part for helping us to see and understand our lack of holiness. So when the commandment say things like, you shall not steal, or you shall not lie, these are things we can readily, honestly admit. Well, I guess I think I've done that once. I've lied, I've stolen, or I've had a rebellion, or whatever. These things expose the fact that we are not like God. So God is 24-7, constantly, one way, never changing, and we are never like that. So the Bible will then say that the wage, or excuse me, that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. That creates then a dilemma, as you know, there's a consequence, there's a penalty for sin. As we know the phrase, you do the crime, you do the time. So what is the consequence of being a sinner, violating God's standards and his holiness? And we understand that from Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death. And that sounds awful because it is, And death is really the description then of separation. And that God then must keep his holy environs, his holy heaven and habitat will remain pure and sinless and perfect. So if he was to allow any of us in our sinful condition into heaven, heaven would no longer be holy and that's not going to happen. So God is going to have to shut the doors to heaven, and that is the bad news, that is the context that sets forth the gospel. So maybe to help explain it, since some of you are from out of town here and are staying in hotels, let's say your hotel has a hot tub that's actually working, and your hot tub, you're in it and you're enjoying it, and you're in about three feet of water, and someone walks by and throws you a life ring. And it splashes, and you look at that person like they're crazy. And you laugh. So that's one context. But let's say you're now on a small boat, for whatever reason, in the evening on Lake Superior when a northeaster storm comes. And Lake Superior can have big storms. Just think of the Edmund Fitzgerald, for example. Things can happen. And you're capsized, and now someone throws you a lifeline on that night of a stormy sea. What would you do then? My guess is we'd grab for it with everything we have. And we would see a tremendous need and a tremendous value of that life ring. So what this context of the gospel needs would want to do, the Spirit of God would want to put in our thinking is that our context is we're drowning in Lake Superior in that comparison. We have a need. And there's going to be a rescue provided, but we don't want to be lackadaisical, indifferent, or arrogant, or whatnot. It would be very good to realize that the sinfulness is a dilemma when there's holiness, and the consequence is to be shut out, and we don't want that consequence at all. So with that context, establishing a need, We then can get into the content of the gospel, as we know the word gospel means good news. So when we think of good news, we're talking about good news that comes from God toward us, it's directed toward you personally, toward me, and it's coming from God, and it's good news relative to this context of our need. That good news message is gonna center in Jesus Christ, who we've already seen, is declared to be God or deity, from Romans 1, and has a physical lineage and is human from Romans 1 as well. So he is a very unique individual. He's fully God and fully human. And that is called doctrinally the incarnation, where he becomes human and he maintains also his deity. So that's why his personage, his birth, is very unique. There's none like Jesus Christ. Which means if he's coming from heaven and he is God, he then must be holy, correct? He's holy and sinless even in his humanity. And so he is like no other individual ever that's walked this earth. What's also very significant in the good news is isn't this that Jesus came into our fallen world and became one of us, but there was a specific reason for it. We understand the significance of the message of Christ is his death. He did live an extraordinary life. He did perform miracles. He was involved in unique teaching, et cetera. But it's not his life that we really see the significance. We see his significance in his death, because in his death, we understand from the scriptures that that was done as a substitute for you and I. God demonstrated his love toward us, Romans 5.8 tells us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And the good news is to think, what kind of people did Christ die for? Sinners. What kind of people are we? And if you're not proud or arrogant or foolish, you can easily say what? I'm a sinner. So that means Christ died for you. He died on behalf of you and me. And he died because the penalty of sin was death. And so this death, which was suffered by a perfect and innocent and holy Christ who was not guilty and did not deserve that death, he could be an adequate substitute and take the death that we deserve upon himself. That then was followed by his resurrection from the dead, as this is a way of God lifting and raising Christ up and demonstrating him to the world that God is satisfied with that payment, that God is pleased with the death that Christ died because there the justice of God, the demands of holiness and righteousness were carried out and fulfilled on a substitute. And through Christ, because he's infinite in all of his attributes, then his death is infinite in the capability of being a payment for sin. So the good news, as we can say, is that Christ died for our sins. Christ paid the penalty of sin that I would have needed to pay. So the choice, really, then, we'll see is, when it comes to your sin and the barrier that you have before God, is you can choose to pay your sin and remove that debt on your own, which would take eternity, infinitely, you would never fulfill it. Your own death separated from God forever. Or you could attach yourself by faith to the death that Christ paid on your behalf, which is fully satisfying to God. As Jesus cried out, it is finished. So we like to look at this work of Christ by signifying there's an empty cross there. An empty cross because he's no longer on the cross. The job has been finished. He could say it's been paid in full. So we don't see him there anymore. He's finished all that he came to do there. And the tomb is empty. We don't see him there anymore because God has, through resurrection power, raised him and lifted him, defeating sin and death forever. So we have a living Savior who has conquered sin and death, who has successfully paid for the sins of the world, which means he has successfully paid for your sins and mine, and that's the good news. This barrier that was between us and a holy and righteous God has been removed. by this work of Christ, by his doing so because he loves us. Because there's no other way for our barrier, for that barrier to be removed. And God didn't create us to be separated from him indefinitely or forever. He created us to be loved. He created us to be in relationship with him. And so his purpose, his desire is for us to be restored to relationship with him. And that is why the provision of Christ, the message of the gospel, and the opportunity for all to put their faith in him, which is now the response to the gospel. How do we respond? We see the context. We see that, yes, I have a problem spiritually before God. I have a rescue, good news message of how I can escape and be redeemed. And now, how do we make that personal? We see from Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, we are to put our faith in Christ alone. That verse will say, by grace, we are saved through faith. Faith is to trust. Faith means I'm going to put dependence and reliance on something. And when it comes to how am I going to get in through heaven's door, if I have any kind of trust or reliance on myself, what I did, whether it be through rituals at a church or being good or sincere or behavior issues or prayers, anything that I say that I do, that I am trusting in one who is guilty. and unable to make that payment. And so that would be a tragic mistake. So by grace, we are saved through faith. Faith means I'm putting my trust in what Christ did. I'm going to put my reliance on what someone else did for me because they loved me and they provided this gift for me. By grace, we are saved through faith. It is not of ourselves. It is a gift of God. Salvation is a gift. We don't work for it. Christ has worked for it. We don't pay for it because Christ has paid for it. And therefore, we just receive it by faith, trust in him alone. Negatively, the verse will go on to say, it is not of works, lest anyone should boast. So the scriptures are telling you and I specifically what not to trust. Do not trust in yourselves. It is not of yourselves, and it is not of works. And so we're warned here. Do not put faith in yourself or your works, because we are the problem, but we cannot be the solution. The solution is applied to us and is given to us outside of ourselves. As I like to say, every story has a hero. And if you're the hero of your story, it's not a good story. But if Christ is the one who provides this outside of ourselves, we have the right object. So this salvation is not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. That then means there's a result, a conclusion to this, And that is that you have guaranteed eternal life. For God so loved the world, John 3 reminds us, that he gave his only begotten, uniquely born, one of a kind son, Jesus Christ, that whoever believes in him, exercises faith in what he did for us, well, that person shall not perish, but have eternal life. And so what kind of life do we have? We have eternal life. Can I have eternal life on Monday and then not have it on Wednesday? By nature, that just doesn't make sense. So we've been given eternal life because that's the value of Christ's death, the value of his person, the value of what he's done. It is complete and sure and secure. I have given eternal life. I will not perish, but I have everlasting life. And at that time that I receive that, I have assurance. I have a smile on my face. I know that I'm saved. Though five minutes later I might lose that assurance, I will never lose the fact that I have eternal life. The result of the gospel is that it works. And so that's the message we just wanted to clarify. That's what Paul's talking about when he says the gospel concerning Christ, et cetera. So with that behind us, we can go back to our text and we can start to look at Romans 1, where Paul expresses in verse 9 and through 13 that he has a desire now that he would like to go and visit the believers there in Rome. And he's made it his prayer, and he thanks God for them in verse 8. And he says, God is my witness. I have a desire to, or excuse me, verse 10, I make request by some means how at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you as he longs to see them. And he longs to see them so he could have fellowship with them is the idea that he could be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. So he has this desire to be with them. And notice as we look at Romans 1, I know it's small, don't worry about reading it. I'm just going to highlight the word gospel. He starts this chapter, this introduction off with his references to the gospel, several references there. And he ends this introductory paragraph with more references to the gospel. And in the middle there in the green, he expresses his desire to be with them and to visit with them. So what are they going to be mutually encouraged about? What are they going to fellowship around? Well, wouldn't it make sense, the gospel, the bookends of the paragraph. These are believers. So he's not going there in this context here to expressly to evangelize them. They are brethren. And yet in that gospel message, there's tremendous fellowship and encouragement. And you can enjoy what has happened, the realities, the results of that. Not only that, but we're gonna see in our conference this weekend that that very gospel message of Christ crucified in the cross is the bedrock of which the Christian life will take off. And so there's that mutuality and that importance of the gospel. So that moves us to Paul's perspective regarding the gospel and some important verses here in Romans 1 and verse 14. Paul says three things here. First, he says, I'm a debtor, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise. And a debtor means that he has a sense of obligation, that he has basically a message that he owes them. He's a debtor to all. He's morally bound by a sense of duty to the Greeks, to the barbarians, to Packer fans and otherwise, everybody. He has a debt for everybody and wants to share this message. Secondly, we're going to see in verse 15 that he was eager to preach the gospel. He's ready in the sense there is, he's eager. So he's willing and he's excited. He has a desire. And what triggers that? Do you think he just manufactures that? Do you think he, you know, pokes himself with a pin needle to get excited? No, what's going to trigger that is what? The good news. The good news is can't restrain us. It's, this is amazing. People need to hear how we can have freely eternal life, the gift of grace, and salvation. To know that you're loved, that God so loved you, et cetera. So as these truths get a hold of us, the love of Christ we know from another passage in 1 Corinthians compels us, or 2 Corinthians compels us. So he's eager to preach the gospel. And thirdly, he's not ashamed of the gospel. He says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Why? It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, And again, the Jew first, the Gentile, everyone. So he's not ashamed of it. This word is interesting. It means to have a sense of shame or a sense of being rejected. So he's got a negative here. He's not ashamed. So he has no sense of that concern. And the reason is is because he knows the gospel works. And it works for everyone. It doesn't matter if you're wealthy or you're not wealthy, cosmopolitan or rural or whatever, whatever your human status is, this message is for you. And so there's a message of assurance, relief, love, certainty, forgiveness, the gospel. And he says it's the power of God unto salvation. The Greek word is dunamis, which is just power or force, but the word actually has a sense of inherent power, which means the gospel message has an inherent power built within. It's like, isn't that like kryptonite? Only that's a negative thing, right? But it's this power within. And Paul is not afraid to preach the gospel and share the gospel, because that will always work. It'll always be supernaturally charged. And it's God's ability to perform as he pleases in the activity with that message. So the gospel works. It's supernatural. It's miraculous. That same idea of being not ashamed is found by Paul in 2 Timothy. Chapter 1 verse 12 when he says, for this reason I also suffer these things nevertheless, here's our phrase, I am not ashamed. And this might help give light as to why he's not ashamed. He says, for or because I know whom I have believed. And am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day. And here we see personal pronouns, whom, he, him. And so it's not just a creed. It's not just a doctrine, it's a person. And Paul has been convinced and persuaded so he can fully trust this person, which is God come in the flesh, fully human, fully God, who loved him and died for him. So back in Romans, we see then Verse 17 of chapter one, he says, for in it, which is the gospel, for in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, and he quotes from Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith. So we see in verse 16, this is the power of God onto salvation for everyone who believes. So now we see that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, from one person who believes and is converted to the faith, the next person who believes and is converted. And so it will spread and so it will go on and the righteousness of God will be revealed. And so it's not just the power of God unto salvation, as awesome as that is, it displays the very righteousness of God. So the gospel, again, for all who are willing to see it, allows us to see God's righteousness. And that's what Romans is gonna allude to over and over, the need for righteousness. And how we can have that righteousness, first in our position state, and then in our practice. And so the gospel, is on display. So that's the introduction. How are we doing on time? By the way, I forgot my phone, so I have no idea what time it is. That's good for me, that's not good for you. So we go to verse 18 and we see the description all the way into chapter three, Paul's gonna now make the character of humanity. He's gonna want us to see what we're like. And so we saw the gospel displays the righteousness of God, but he also says in verse 18, something else is displayed. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. So here, something very negative is revealed, something positive, now something negative, the wrath of God. So from heaven, this is from God, from his created sovereign perch, Wrath is revealed because of ungodliness and because of sin. So from heaven, the wrath of God is revealed. What is it revealed toward? It's against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. So it's revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness, and so those terms would be first, ungodliness means without regard for God, just to simplify it. And this would be a term that's more befitting of our thinking, attitude. Not really having time, room, or care for God. And our thoughts are our intentions. And then unrighteousness would be the fulfillment of acts of sin. This is doing unrighteous acts. So we see the wrath of God. Wrath is a holy, righteous anger. Whoops, an indignation. That was good, sorry. We're really going. I hit a lot of things there. All right, so against all ungodliness and righteousness. And then we see that that's God's wrath, his anger. But notice the end of the phrase, it's toward those who suppress. It's toward us, the humans, the natural being, the natural man that suppresses truth and unrighteousness. Suppress means just to hold down. My favorite way of illustrating that, if you're as old as we are, you remember Sesame Street and Oscar the Grouch and his garbage can, right? And he wants to come out, and now you just sit on his lid. and you're suppressing, you're keeping him in. And that's what suppression is, is God has truth and you're suppressing it. No, I have no time for that, I don't like that, it's inconvenient, I don't care for it. I would rather do some exchanging because that's what we're gonna see, we do. But first the text is gonna tell us how we suppress this truth both internally and externally. In verse 19 and 20, internally, What can be known of manifest is in them, that's suppressed. And the idea is because God's the creator, he puts his fingerprint upon our soul, we have a sense and an awareness of God, but we tend to want to suppress that. Verse 20, externally, we see that there's a created world we find ourselves in that screams about the invisible attributes, displays them clearly seen, we can see what God is like. And that is understood by the things that are made, you and I, even as eternal in power and Godhead, so that we are without excuse. So suppression occurs both internally and externally, and all humanity then is before God without excuse. We have a sense and awareness of God internally. We have an obvious display of God externally. And what do we do with it? Get in the can, Oscar. Right? We suppress it. So this is causing a moral, an indignation from God, who created everything, who's fundamentally good, made everything good in the creation story of Genesis 1, who is loving and desiring to do all that is positive and good for us, and we're saying no. And this is then eventually causing an anger. So the ungodliness consists of three different exchanges that we like to make. In verses 21 through 27, we're not going to take time on every one of them, but the first one is he's going to say how we want to exchange the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of beings. We exchange what God is like and we take that glory as beings. We're also going to exchange the truth for the lie. This would come in the exchange of the bodies as verse 21. And then we change the glory of an incorruptible God and image made that corruptible man. This is the lie. They knew God but did not glorify him and were not thankful. So these are all examples then how we're exchanging the truth of God. That's, I'm sorry, it's in verse 25. We exchange the truth of God for the lie and then We see likewise, verse 27, men leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lusts for one another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving themselves the penalty of their error which was due. So see the three exchanges. The image of the immortal God for the likeness of mortal beings. We exchange the truth of God for the lie. A lot of people like to attach the lie back to the words of Satan to Eve in Genesis. And we like to exchange natural sexual relations for what is unnatural, as Romans calls it. So this is the exchange. God has a set order. God has a way of things were to be. This all upsets what God intended to be. All three represent an overturning of God's intended order. And that's why we could say, we see no evil, hear no evil. Let's say here's depraved heart, depraved body, depraved mind. are terms that God uses in Romans 1 for the natural thinking here and the suppression. And this is the state of humanity. So we get to verse 28. Now this is all, by the way, describing the ungodliness, excuse me, yeah, the ungodliness, the attitude and the thinking. And the attitude and the thinking is to reject God, push him aside, have no place for it. This reflects in actions which then come out and verse 28 through 32, and notice these actions, we tend to always just think, well, these are the big, bad, nasty ones, but notice this list as we see, here we have unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, and they are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, trustworthy, unloving, forgiving, unforgiving, unmerciful. It's a big list. Terrible. Aren't those people awful? Those people are terrible. Look at all these things. Too bad you're like that, is how we might want to think. Until we start looking at some of these terms, we've got covetousness. That hits pretty close to home, doesn't it? Envy, strife. How many had a little strife just on the drive here? Whispers. And I don't think it just means you're whispering because you're in a library. Right? This is tail, lying, gossip. You have disobedient to parents right next to violent, proud, boasters, et cetera. And then untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. This is not good. This is hitting every one of us. There's nobody here who escapes that list in some way or another. So this list is comprehensive. And it also reflects on something else as we look at the end of chapter one and he says, that the people, verse 32, who know the righteous judgment of God, that's us, that those who practice such things, we know they are deserving of death, but we not only do the same, but approve of those and cheerlead and applaud those who practice it. So there you go. What do we know? We know that this is worthy of death. How do we know that? Well, that's a supernatural reality, isn't it? And so we just suppress that and then keep doing it. So that's the problem of humanity, of all of us. But of course, we tend to like to think we're different, we're better, we're not like as that bad, and so forth. And so when we get to chapter two then, we start to realize, therefore you are inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are, who judge. Because basically you do the same things. So he's going to take chapter two now to isolate the moral sinner, the one who thinks they're cut above, And so to kind of help illustrate that, let's look at this sequence here. Here we have an awful picture of a Nazi who's about to, there's a whole bunch of people watching like it's a soccer game or something. And they're summarily executing people just because they're Jewish. What should God do to these men? Should he do nothing? Would you be satisfied? No. Should he reward them? Of course not. Should he apologize to them because they maybe weren't cared for as a child or something? No. We would want what? Judgment. Now, in doing so, we would like to think, where do we draw the line? That picture signifies something that's very, very bad. That's gonna be on this end of the scale, and you and I, we could all find ourselves somewhere on that scale, right? You might put yourself this way more or this way more. We all have some sense, where do I fit? Where am I on that scale? And then let's say God must draw the line somewhere right around here, and we're all okay, right? But what if he draws the line right there? Suddenly this isn't so good. In fact, we could say this is X number of sins, let's say 10,000 sins. God draws the line at 10,000 sins and there you are at 10,001. And it was that time you rushed to finish your piece of pizza so you could get the last piece before the other guy. And that seemingly trivial act is now gonna cost you eternity forever separated from God in a place called hell. And if you would have just not eaten so fast, you could be spending eternal bliss forever in a place called heaven. And see, we laugh because that's really absurd. And yet, one goes to heaven, one goes to hell because of that one extra sin. Is this your God, would be the question to ask, right? Is this really how you think things are, by a just, righteous, holy, perfect, pure, fair God? Where does God draw the line? Well, we'll come back to that, but let me illustrate one more thing with an omelet. I'm not picking on Bert. I'll use Bert as an example. He makes excellent breakfasts. When we're in Africa, every morning, he makes excellent breakfasts, makes eggs and all these things for us. It's great. So I'm just pretending here. Let's say he's making an omelet in Africa. Sometimes we have people staying with us. So he's going to crack 12 eggs, and he's going to make this omelet here. And he gets down to the 12th egg, and it's a rotten egg. Now, what should you do? They're all in the bowl, right? And he says, it's just one out of the 12. So he just continues and makes the omelet, and this is the result. Because it's not that bad is the reasoning and the logic. And that's what we think as well on that time scale, on that scale. It's not that bad. Well, it is that bad when you're the one that has to have that egg, or that omelet, rather. So where does God draw the line? We'll come back and look at that in a minute. We're now seeing then that everyone in chapter two is without excuse, even moral, self-righteous people, as we're gonna see Paul takes this on. He looks at God's judgment, for example, in chapter two, He's saying, as he's now trying to show how we're all sinners, and we all have a context that's negative here as it relates to the gospel, we have a need. And in chapter two, he says, we know, verse two, that the judgment of God is according to truth, reality, not according to our perceptions, is the idea. So do you think, verse three, oh man, you who judge those practicing such things and yet do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise, notice, do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering? Are you aware of those from this text? Yeah, you're aware of them, but what do you do? There's more suppression. Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance, that's how it's supposed to work, you see Love, you see forgiveness, you see the goodness of God, and it draws a change of mind from us. But instead, verse five, in accordance with your hardness and your non-repentant heart, you're treasuring up for yourself wrath and the day of wrath. And then he explains what happens there. He will render to each one according to his deeds. We'll just quickly go over this, because it's sometimes a problem passage. But he's going to make a column. We're going to put on the left one type, eternal life, and on the right, eternal death. He says, verse seven, eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality. So we see patient continuance, doing good, but on the other hand, to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, they're gonna have eternal death. Every soul of man who does evil will have eternal death. Everyone who works what is good, in verse 10, will have life. And so we think, wow, that sounds like a work salvation. In other words, eternal life if you don't sin, eternal death if you sin. That's what it looks like, right? And we'll come back. The result is the eternal life is gonna be glory, honor, and immortality from verse seven. With eternal death, you're gonna have indignation, wrath, tribulation, and anguish, while finally on the left-hand side, we have glory, honor, and peace. So we're gonna just leave this and explain this a little bit later in a minute, but that's what's set forth in this passage. It looks like we have All you have to do is not sin and you can have eternal life. Is that pretty easy? So that's not necessarily good news at all. So he's going to now shift, we'll come back to that, but in chapter 3 verse 9, he's now going to summarize here the overall problem of humanity, all of us. And he's going to start in chapter 3 verse 9 with quoting Old Testament scripture. He's going to say, for example, in verse 10, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. And there is none who does good. So if we just made a list here, he's going to use the scriptures that will give testimony to the condition of all humanity. And so notice on the left side, we have none, which means no exceptions. There's none righteous, there's none who understand, there's none who seeks for God, there's none who does good. And on the right hand side, there's all, no exceptions, every person. We've all turned aside, we've all become useless, we've all have no fear or respect of God. So Romans 3, this passage here, is very conclusive, right? And it's showing how we are all, with no exception, in this situation. Now, This is the testimony then the scriptures have against all humanity. Now remember this chart in Romans 2, just the chapter before, that he listed in 6 through 10, these conditions. And now we have this new one. Let's put the Romans 3 chart, transpose it over the Romans 2, and you see for that eternal life qualifications, there's who? None. There's none who do those things. And for the eternal death qualifications, there's who? Every single one of us. And so that's the teaching here, when we put it all in its context, is that there's none righteous, no not one. There is no one who's going to be justified, as Romans 3 will now declare. In the summary of Romans 3, in verse 19, what do we see? Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, every mouth may be stopped, all the world may become what? Guilty. before God. Verse 20, a final declaration of God is no flesh will be justified. And that is what Paul wants to get home. That's the context of the gospel. That hits home and shows every one of us, moral, immoral, and everything in between, our need. And remember, we asked here, where does God draw the line? We were thinking here, right? But unfortunately, maybe here, even because of these number of sins and so forth. And we want to now clarify, we can't really say I'm not that bad because God draws the line way over here. In other words, it just takes one sin and you're on the wrong side of the line. So the honest assessment is what? I'm, oops, I'm, I don't know if I dare do that. There we go. I'm not that good. That's what we need to realize. When it comes to entering heaven and having the merits there, no, none of us have it. Are we the hero of our own story? Clearly not. We need a hero to come and rescue us and provide for us and do for us what we could never do. And that's exactly what the gospel is, and that's exactly what Paul is working his way through, setting forth the context up to this point. Now he's going to get into in 3 verses 21. And by the way, where does God draw the line? Hopefully now you know. Zero. One sin means you're on the wrong side of that scale. Romans 321, we're going to see that God's righteousness now is revealed. Here is again we see righteousness revealed. We saw that by the gospel in Romans 1. 17, here we see God's righteousness is revealed and made available to all in 321. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, and it's witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe, for there is no difference. God's righteousness is given to all who believe in Jesus Christ. This one who came, who's uniquely born, who's incarnate and sinless and died as a substitute and rose again, on him, faith in him. And then he goes on to say, Jew, Greek, there is no difference. In verse 22, back in that day, Paul would have risked being punched in the nose. Because for a Jew, that would have been a highly offensive statement. There's no difference between the Gentiles and us. They would have been completely outraged. But that's what Paul is saying. Doesn't matter. All of us are sinned. And that's what he says in verse 23. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. So now the solution is in verse 24, that is we are being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So first we see we are justified freely by God's grace. Freely is a term that means without cause. So God looks at you and sees no reason whatsoever to justify you. It's not your smile, it's not your cute little toes, anything about you or how friendly or how nice or how much you're sincere. There is absolutely nothing within us that gives God cause or reason. So he does it freely because the cause is within him. It's within his inherent being and his attributes, his love, his purposes, his plan. That's where it originates. That's the source. So he freely, seeing nothing in us, so that means it has to be by God's grace. Grace means what? Undeserved. undeserved kindness, goodness, favor, God's going to freely do that and he's going to do it through the redemptive work of Christ and the propitiatory work of Jesus Christ. As this is now the content of the gospel right here. God is gonna justify, declare righteous, have you then be with, cleansed and fit and able to be in heaven freely, all of him, through his grace, through the redemption, the price paid, as redemption's a monetary term, that is in Christ Jesus, with what he did. And God set Jesus, verse 25, set him forth as a propitiation or the satisfactory payment, which was through his blood or his death on the cross, and we receive it through faith, again it's mentioned. And this demonstrates God's righteousness. Remember His righteousness is on display, verse 21? Remember His righteousness was on display, Romans 1, 17? Here it is. God's righteousness is on display through the redemptive work of Christ, through the elevation of His grace, through the propitiation of Christ, and through all of that, what He does, as the spotlight's all on Him, this is then demonstrating how God in His forbearance passed over the sins that were previously committed In other words, up until the time of Christ's death on the cross on a chronological timeline, all of those sins were now paid for. And since Christ has died where we are on the other side of the timeline, they've also all been paid for. And in that, God remains just and the justifier of the one who believes in him. So we can see salvation then kind of in this way, looking at it this way. We first might start saying we have redemption. Christ dies, pays for, provides the price. A reconciliation is available. So we have redemption, the cross work of Christ. God looks upon that and says, I am propitiated, I'm satisfied. It has met the demands of justice. It is sufficient now for cleansing to be provided. And this has been accomplished. This is fact for every one of us. It all starts here. Our response then, is to put faith in this Christ who loved us and gave himself for us, in the work that he did, and then God freely justifies us, declares us righteous, and now we're qualified, cleansed for heaven. So I hope that makes sense. This is what Paul is now saying. We've clearly seen how he's laid the context for the gospel and all of the bad news, how we're all sinners. He's now, much more concisely, laid the content of the gospel, the work of Christ, on our behalf here in Romans 3. And so, this is all going to demonstrate, verse 26, at the present time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And that's a question for all of us. Do you have or have you put your faith in Christ? That's the issue. And so, here's the offer, here's the good news, here's the message, We have people like Paul who are compelled and triggered and wanting and eager to get this out and to present it. And so we hopefully have all encountered this and have heard this message and said, yes, I'll take that. That's good news. That makes sense. And I have a need. And therefore you just by faith respond and you will be justified. Verse 28, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from any works or deeds of the law. So God's righteousness is revealed, there is the content, there is the gospel. Now we move into if it's by faith, and what are some of the results of that faith? Well, one, we know there's no boasting, as he says in verse 31. We know that if Jesus Christ has done all the work, he's going to receive all the credit and glory, and there will be no boasting on our part. That's why by grace we're saved through faith. It's not of ourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. we get to Romans 4. I think we already did these. So justification comes only by faith in Christ, not by any works. So next we see letter B, on the basis of grace and faith, God imputes his righteousness on the believer who is in Jesus Christ. And this is what we call the imputation chapter. We're gonna see that's the theme in chapter four. First he's gonna show in the reading of that, he's gonna use David. and Abraham rather than David as examples of how they were saved or justified simply by faith. And God's righteousness then isn't gonna come through any rituals or works. And as we look at the imputation chapter, here's chapter four verse one, chapter four rather, and just again, we're not gonna try to read all that, just look at the words in red, and we see the imputation, the word imputation or accounted. And that's what's all over here. So what is being, Imputated, just to visualize it, we see that Adam's sin, as we're gonna see in a minute, was imputed to every one of us. So we all have Adam's sin put to our account, but what God is gonna do is take all of our sin, our personal sin, as well as Adam's sin, et cetera, and he's going to impute it and put it on Christ's account, and this is gonna satisfy the justice of God, that our sin was then paid for by Christ, and we're gonna see also that God's gonna take Christ's righteousness and in turn impute that onto everyone who believes, who puts their faith in Christ. So we not only get rid of our sin, but we gain the very righteousness of Christ, which means we're fully forgiven. This would be a way on a ledger that we would look at it. Notice on the left is, on the top rather, is Christ. What does he have to his credit? Perfect righteousness. He has no debt. We're the opposite. We have Adam's sin and all of our personal sin. We have no credit. and here's what the gospel's gonna tell us happened. That's the worst deal ever for Christ, isn't it? But why did he do it? He says, I'll take it. Why? It's God so what? Loves you. And there's no other way for us. We need a hero, and there it is. And it's the best deal ever for us. In fact, if the message we're preaching doesn't sound too good to be true, then it's not good and it's not true. Because that's what the gospel is, isn't it? So that's the imputation chapter of chapter four, in a nutshell, which then brings us to chapter five, where we see very quickly the personal blessings of salvation include, because we don't even have time, you see them listed there, you can read them in the first five verses, peace with God, access into his grace, we have a guarantee of glory in the future, we have joy in trials in the present, and the love of God is poured out in our hearts, And that's an awesome result of the gospel. See context, content, we see response. Faith was definitely part of the response there in Romans 3 and Romans 4. We now see a result. The result is further carried out in the next few verses of Romans 5, how the permanence of salvation is secured through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Romans 5, verse 5. The sacrificial death of Christ, 6 through 8. and the unfailing promises of God. You can read those. Sorry, we're just rushing through. But this is shouting out the security of the believer. So now Romans 1, 1 through 5, 11 has really illustrated for us the introduction, the importance of the gospel. It's set forth the need for righteousness. Righteousness required was then laid out in chapters 2 and 3. We see the gospel and how that righteousness then can be received. and how you can have righteousness on your personal account through faith in Christ. I know we're going fast, but there we are. And now we're into the last few verses of chapter five. I'm not even gonna do this. So in Romans chapter five, we're gonna see a contrast and a comparison for the rest of the chapter between two men. And it's gonna be Adam and Christ. He's gonna first say that in Adam, where he's like our federal head, and in Adam, his act of sin brings death. And that comes out in this chapter, the second half. Death means separation, relational separation. And this is clearly going to be a physical death in Romans 5, 12 through 14. And he says this is happening because we've all sinned. And how have we all sinned? Well, we've all sinned through Adam. Physical death, and here's an explanation that's wonderful because the science labs and the classrooms really can't fully explain why we die. They can explain, with all of our advancements in technology and everything, we can slow death down, we can understand it, we can explain entropy, we can do all sorts of things, but we can't stop it, we can't fully understand why, where this is why. Why does it say Romans 5.12, through one man, sin entered into the world, and then what? Death through sin. There it is, that's how it came, that's why it's there, and not until Christ comes and We have the second coming and the future. Will that ever be resolved? These are some words in Romans 5 that describe this one man, Adam. He is one man's offense. We'll see the word judgment, condemnation, how death reigns, many made sinners, disobedience. In contrast, we see Jesus Christ in these passages. We'll see that in Christ all live. Christ also is a federal head of all who are in him and his righteous act brings life and righteousness. So as we go to the end of chapter five and start to wrap this up, we will see, if you would, in verse 18. Therefore, as through one man, that is Adam. In fact, it's fun to read this. I do this in Africa sometimes. We read through it. And every time it's the one man, that's Adam, everyone is supposed to boo. And then when it's Christ, yay. We call it the boo-yay reading. It's kind of fun, but we won't do that. But through us, as through one man, oh, you want to do it? All right. We'll do it. We'll do it for verse 18 and 19 then, all right? If it's referring to Adam, I want to hear boos. If it's Christ, let's hear yeas. Ready? Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men. That's not good. Resulting in condemnation. Even so, through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. All right, this is good. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, to also by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. All right, so that's the contrast. That's really good. We didn't even rehearse. So in Romans 5, that's what you're going to see all through verses 12 to the end is this comparison and contrast. And so, but notice what I really want to bring your attention to just for a minute is, it is verse 19, as to one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. I love this passage, because whose obedience is everything dependent on? And who do we often hear it's supposed to be dependent upon? Ourselves. But it's through one man's obedience that everything hinges on, relies on. And that one man is perfect. and reliable where we gain our security. Okay, so we then see some terminology there that's related and that's that chapter for Christ and related to him, free gift, grace of God, justification, righteousness, reign in life, righteous act, life, obedience, and many are made righteous. So here's the two men that are being contrasted and compared. And we're either going to be found positionally and that's what's gonna come out in the next lessons now. You're either in Adam or you are in Christ. Both are federal heads representative, and it's no longer than what we have done or what our status, we're wound up in their identity. So our identity is either one who's in Adam, and in Adam, chapter five, verse 21, we see that death reigns. In Adam is the realm of sin and death, and if we're in Adam, we're Adamites, Or we're in Christ, which is where grace reigns, and where the things of Christ dominate. And God looks on humanity as if there's only two people. He only sees two people. He sees Adam, and if you open the car door of Adam, there's thousands of people in there, or millions, whatever. And he sees Christ, and when he looks in there, there's us, hopefully, the believers. And that's where we found, that's her identity, that's how God sees us. So he doesn't see, it's not about your individual sins at all, they've been paid for. This is all corporate now under a headship. So Paul speaks again as if there's only two men that ever lived, the first Adam and the second Adam. And everyone is headed up in one or the other. In him, let's just close with this thought. There you have your identity, the speaks of identity. Are you a Christ one or an Adamite? That's really it. And if you're a Christ one, that's how God sees you. He sees you in Christ. He sees you with the righteousness of Christ. He sees you as accepted in the beloved. You're there, you're wanted, you're loved, you're secure, you belong there, you're home. Jesus is your home, friends. So may we bask in that. In fact, let's abide in that, who you are now and forever. And then we have the final thought in verse 20, really one of the most radical statements, not just in the Bible, but almost anywhere. He says, verse 20, moreover, law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace much abounded more, abounded much more. Notice the law entered, grace never entered, grace is what? It's always there. And when the law enters, it makes sin abound, but what always abounds more? You cannot out-sin the grace of God. That's what that says. And you can throw tomatoes at me, but better off throw them at John who's coming next. Because he's going to defend that statement. And that's where we want to leave you, let's pray. Father, we thank you this evening for just this overview. We trust that this does What are appetites for what's coming now? What's coming for the one who's in Christ? What waits for us in understanding not only our identity, as we've just seen, but then our position, things related to that? Thank you that we can just be saying yay to all the things that Christ has done. And we thank you for him. We thank you for what we have in him. And we pray for any here who do not know for sure they have eternal life, that they would see the simplicity of not trusting their own works or their own obedience, but just him who loved them and gave himself for them. So we thank you for this now in Jesus' name, amen.