We have been going through the entire book of Romans together as a church since the beginning of 2023, or for about 8 months. We would be remiss if, after reading this grand letter, we didn’t ask ourselves in light of the previous 15 chapters, in light of the past 8 months in it together, “How then shall we live?” As a church; as people. We find in this final chapter and a half the answer to that question, “How then shall we live?” The answer to the questions we pose to God, “Why am I here?” and “What do you want me to do?” So join us this morning for our final sermon in the book of Romans.

Does it seem sometimes like no matter what you do there is always someone out there who will criticize or judge you for it? Even the most trivial things? No one likes to be judged, but we all like to judge don’t we? The Bible has a lot to say about judging and being judged. Sometimes judgement or criticism have their place, but those times are few. Join us this morning as we look at what Romans 14 has to say about Christian judgment within the community of believers, and the call to unity.

According to recent statistics, American household debt hit a record of $17 trillion at the end of 2022. With all of that debt it’s no surprise that a popular topic in church circles is what the Bible has to say about staying out of debt. And that is great. But there is one place in Scripture where it tells us explicitly to stay in debt; to take joy in our debt. And not just that, but it tells us to try to get into more debt! And furthermore, to rejoice as you watch your debt grow into an out of control debt spiral! Let’s see what kind of debt the Bible is talking about as we continue in Romans 13.

There is no topic as divisive today as politics, politicians and political parties. The world around us is sharply divided around the area of politics, and each election promises to be more divisive than the last. And in the past number of years the Christian community—the body of Christ which Jesus commanded to show the world His love by their unity—has also been sharply divided around the area of government and politics. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. Today, and especially after the COVID crisis, many Christians are quick to dismiss Paul’s command to have “every person be subject to the governing authorities”, rather applying it ONLY if the one governing is thought to deserve honor and respect. But is that really what it says? If so, it wouldn’t be any radical new teaching by the Bible, but just another human doctrine; respect those in authority when they deserve it. But the book of Romans tells us something different, so let’s see what Paul has to say to us in Romans 13.

Sacrifice is not a popular word today. There are few things as foreign to modern man as sacrifice. In a culture where we make our own truth, where we reign supreme, and we rarely say no to what our heart or our bodies long for, the idea of living a disciplined life or a life of sacrifice sounds like a prison. But the ancient wisdom of Scripture tells us that when it comes to our bodies and our souls, the things that really matter, we owe God total sacrifice rather than just lukewarm commitment. I believe that our passage today is the key to understanding what it means to be a human being, what it means to worship God, and what it means to belong fully to Christ. To live the satisfying and abundant life Jesus talked about, and to save our souls from the wide path of destruction that constantly beckons to us and our children to follow down its road. Romans 12 invites us into the life of being a living sacrifice to God.

Some of the most dreaded words for any parent are: “But you promised!” And trying to weasel out of it with a spineless “maybe” always backfires. “You promised we would go to the park!” “No, I said maybe we would.” “You promised we would have ice cream after dinner.” “No, I said we might.” “You promised I wouldn’t get a shot at the doctor!” “No, I said it was a slight possibility.” So what about God? Does God try to weasel out of his promises by making His Word vague? How often my accusation against God comes when something doesn’t turn out how I thought it would. Romans 9 and 11, our texts for this morning, were written to answer the accusation against God: ”But you promised!” Or an even more probing question, “Can God’s promises fail?” Because sometimes it looks like they have. Let’s read because this is God’s Word, and we need His help in understanding it.

As we read the Bible from start to finish, it shows itself to be a lot of things. It is a story of creation. A story of wandering and loss. A story of redemption and glory. But it is also, and maybe most of all, an adoption story. An adoption story with unexpected twists and turns. A hopeful beginning, a devastating middle and a glorious, redemptive ending just as we are tempted to give up hope. This morning we look at one of the New Testament’s best descriptions of our own adoption story in Romans 8.

“You are no longer condemned.” That is the opening line of what has been called the crowing jewel of the book that is often called the pinnacle of the New Testament: Romans 8. And it opens with, “You are no longer condemned.” How does that phrase make you feel about yourself? About God? “You are no longer condemned.” We all have times when peace is fleeting, when hope is a phantom. When life’s pressures mount, when our sins and failures are put on display. When joy seems so buried it would take a lifetime just to uncover it. And in those times, our first thought is often, “How did I screw this up?” “What did I do wrong?” “I’m sorry, God.” We often don’t quite know how to let this opening line settle into our soul and quiet the accumulating accusations of failure that condemn us throughout our life. Therefore, we often don’t experience what Romans 8:1 is saying to us on the page of God’s written Word. Let’s read the whole passage together and ask God to help us see what He has for us in here this morning.

Last week we looked at the glorious truth of Romans 6 that all those in Christ Jesus are no longer slaves to sin. We don’t have to obey it anymore. We can be alive to God in Christ Jesus and live as a new creation. And yet, I still struggle with doing things I don’t want to do. I still struggle with some of my past sins even as I consider myself a deep follower of Jesus. So what’s the deal? If sin is no longer my master, and the Bible keeps telling me I am free to pursue the goodness and righteousness of Christ, why does my life still seem like a tug of war between victory and failure? A battle between my sin and Christ’s righteousness? Is my life really an equal struggle between sin and obedience? Is it anyone’s guess which one wins on any given day? Is there any reason why I am a patient father one day, and a grouchy perfectionist parent the next? Why am I jealous, vindictive and insecure one moment, and full of faith the next? Let’s see what God’s Word says as we proceed to Romans 7.

Medical studies over the years of single, double and triple bypass heart patients, post-surgery, have found an astounding truth. Nearly 90% of heart bypass patients return to their former lifestyle and eating habits post-surgery despite the doctor’s warnings that doing so could lead to death. Why would they go back to something that they now know most certainly will lead to death? The Bible says we treat sin the same way we do many of these kinds of things. We keep returning to old things we swore we would never do again. We just celebrated Easter together; the wonderful truth of Jesus triumphantly leaving the tomb. And yet we so often willingly crawl back into the tomb of the sins that lead us into death even though we have been raised to new life with Christ. This morning we are back in our series on the book of Romans, looking at Chapter 6.

Everyone loves a good love story. And all good stories, and especially all good love stories, have a moment of tension or uncertainty when all could be lost. We love stories of people being pursued and loved against all odds. Or stories of an epic hero or champion fighting to protect those they love. An orphan girl finding out who her real father is after a lifetime of feeling abandoned. A last minute rush to the airport as the girl is about to fly away forever. The guy seeming to end up with the wrong girl all the way up to the altar. Every good love story has a moment where it seems like it all could fall apart. Last week, in the first verses of Romans 5, we got a picture of one of the greatest acts of love of all time: “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The bride in this love story was not beautiful, but marred and scarred by a lifetime of sin. In fact, she was living as an enemy of the one who loved her: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.” The Champion in this story comes to save His enemy. And this morning in the verses that follow, the author of Romans takes us back to how that love story began. When all was held in the balance, and when all appeared lost.

In the first four chapters of Romans we have been talking about the amazing reality that the God of the universe, perfectly holy in His being and in all His actions righteous and just, with a right and good wrath against our unrighteousness, chooses to pour out His grace and mercy on those whom He saves by sending His Son to stand in our place. The verdict of heaven against our sin is “guilty” but the verdict of heaven when it sees us through the merciful sacrifice of Jesus is "righteous by faith!” What a gracious and merciful verdict from the judge of the cosmos to declare! And for these four chapters Paul has been saying that we are not made righteous by our own good works because they still fall short of the glorious perfection of God in whose presence we were created to be; rather we are saved out of the judgement of God only by faith that Jesus has paid all of our debt to God. Faith that God’s chosen sacrifice on behalf of His people is enough. The wrath of God that once rested on us has been taken away for all who accept Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. This is what is called the doctrine of justification by faith alone. But doctrine should always lead us to deeper praise, to deeper worship. So, in our chapter this morning, Romans 5, comes the “so what?” of all of that truth. What does it mean for us? It gives us peace to know that we can stand before God justified—judicially, legally, and forensically not guilty anymore by His grace and by our faith in Christ. But is that it? Does the judge of the universe free us from the penalty and guilt of sin but still look at us with contempt, suspicion or disgust? Or does the sacrifice of Christ show us something more about our relationship with God?

There are two important aspects of a trust fall: both the catcher’s A-bility and the catcher’s RELIA-bility to catch the faller. When either of these things fail, bad things happen. When it comes to trusting in God’s promises, we also need to be sure of both His ability and His reliability. Can we trust Him? Most people don’t have a problem with His A-bility (CAN He give me what He promises?) but we often have trouble with His reliability. We doubt, “WILL He give me what He promises?” When it comes to trusting in the promises of God, perhaps no one has been called on to trust God more than Abraham. Abraham’s trust of God when he was asked to sacrifice Isaac so captured the existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard that he came to define faith as a blind leap into the absurd. But faith in God’s promises doesn’t have to be a blind leap of faith. I think we can do better. The key is knowing both God’s ability and His reliability when it comes to fulfilling His promises.

We are in the midst of studying the book of Romans in the Bible as a church family. The Bible often pits two ideas against each other when it comes to our right standing before God, our eternal life, and our being saved out of our sin and restored to life with God: these two ideas are wages and gift. A gift is something we didn’t do anything to deserve; it’s simply an act of kindness, while wages are what we are owed for our work. Why does Scripture want us to get this idea right, this difference between wages and a gift? Pastor and theologian John Calvin wrote of the doctrine of being saved by God’s grace alone and not our own work: “Whenever knowledge of grace is taken away the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the Church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown.” Indeed, it is this idea of grace and justice mingled together that is so antithetical to our nature as human beings and so opposed to all other religions except that of Christ. So let’s take a look at our passage this morning.

There are two major extremes that Christians are tempted to go to when it comes to what the Bible calls the Law: some say now that God has shown us His grace and forgiveness in Jesus, we can just discard God’s Law and live free of it. Others treat God’s Law as if it should still be something to be kept in its old place where it has always been before grace came to us through Christ; something that we still need to cling to in order to make sure we will be saved. We read things like Galatians 3 that make it seem like maybe God’s Law is something we don’t need anymore. But then we also read things like James 1:25 that declares blessing for those that follow the Law. So it seems like if the Law still is perfect, and brings freedom, and gives us blessing, why would we not want to still live by it? So which is it? Can we discard the Law of God in light of grace? Or does it still have a place in our lives? And why does it even matter? Let’s continue in Romans this morning.

According to one recent Barna survey, when asked to describe Christians, 78% of Americans responded with “judgmental.” According to another survey, that number jumps to nearly 90% among Americans ages 16-29. That statement may be true but it also comes from a culture that itself judges and cancels a person without mercy for the smallest perceived infraction against the court of popular opinion. It seems that passing judgement might be a universal human problem rather than a problem only isolated to communities of faith. Why do Christians and human beings in general struggle with sitting in judgement over others? Let’s look at our passage today and see what judging others reveals about ourselves as human beings and if there is a way that the Bible says to put judgment in its proper place in our lives and in our world.

If you have been with us for the last month or so, you know we are going through a book of the Bible together as a church. And I love that because it is easy for me to figure out what to preach each week: we just go where Scripture takes us. This week, we are still in Romans 1 and it is going to talk specifically about homosexuality. And homosexuality is a difficult issue because it is such a divisive issue in the church. And it’s a prominent conversation in our culture: how should communities of faith interact with the gay community? What does the Bible say and what does it not say? Can we love those in the gay community without affirming the behavior? Or is not affirming homosexual relationships in itself an act of hate? And the modern world and increasingly the modern church have both typically had the same spectrum of responses when it comes to the issue of homosexuality: on the one hand, the response is to hate those in the gay community. And the other response is to accept, affirm and advocate for the expression of homosexuality in all of its forms in the growing acronym LGBTQIA+. I believe that the Bible does not allow us to go to either of those extremes of either hate or affirmation. But I believe the Bible and the witness of the early church presents a third way. Let’s see what that way might be together.

We are in a series going through the book of Romans together in the Bible. In Romans 1:16-17 Paul, the writer of this book of the Bible, says: “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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” Most commentators believe that it is the thesis statement, or the driving statement of the whole book. What does it look like to not be ashamed of the gospel? What does it look like for a follower of Christ to not be ashamed of the message of the cross? And why would a follower of Jesus be tempted to be ashamed of the gospel in the first place, if, as Paul says, it holds the power to save? Let’s look at our passage together this morning as we continue through the book of Romans.