Romans: The Master Key To Scripture

First John 3:2 says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; but it does not yet appear what we shall be," (1 John 3:2a KJV). That is the theme that Paul brings to a focus in Verses 18-28 of Romans 8. He deals with two themes: the sufferings of believers, and the glorification of believers. First John 3:2 has always been a comfort to me, as a pastor, because it reminds me that, though we are all sons of God, sometimes we don't appear to be his sons. Sometimes when I am beset by saints who come to me and criticize various things that are going on, I have a difficult time relating to them. Then I have to remind myself, "Well, they are still children of God, even though it does not yet appear what they shall be." As I see the increasing decrepitude in people's deteriorating physical bodies as they grow older, I have to say again, "It does not yet appear what we shall be." Things are moving toward a great day, but it is not here yet; and until that day, we have to put up

Last week, when we looked at a section from Romans 8 under the title of The Agony and the Ecstasy, none of us knew that this very week a family among us would be passing through an experience of deep and heart-felt agony, and that mingled with that agony would be the joy and ecstasy of a new life. Little did we know that a baby girl would be born to a couple from this church on the same day that they suffered the death of their son. But life is like that -- a strange intermixture of good and bad, of heartache and joy, that we oftentimes find very hard to understand. But the glory of Christianity is that, whether our hearts are aching or rejoicing, there is no incident or circumstance -- no matter how trivial -- that is without purpose or meaning. God has declared that "all things work together for good to those who love him, who are the called according to his purpose," (Romans 8:28).

There is a verse in the book of Jeremiah that comes to mind as we begin to study the ninth chapter of Romans. On one occasion, when Jeremiah was very troubled about some things that were happening to him, he came to God and told him how he felt. Instead of being comforted, as he thought he would be, the Lord said to him, "If you have fainted when you run with footmen, how will you contend with horses?" (Jeremiah 12:5). If you had difficulty handling Paul's arguments in Chapters 1 through 8 of Romans, what are you going to do now that we are in the ninth chapter? For, in this chapter, the apostle brings before us some of the toughest questions ever faced by man as he contemplates the actions and workings of God. All the bitter and denunciatory accusations that man brings against God are faced squarely in this chapter. Perhaps it will be helpful to remind you of the divisions in this letter to the Romans:

There was a time when almost everybody on earth believed that the earth was flat. At that time, this was a very comfortable theory to live with. It was safe, easy to understand -- it was comfortable. Now, believing this did not make it true, but it was easier to handle and it made life more predictable. In reading accounts of the time, we learn that people got rather upset when some evidence that this was not true was presented. As more and more scientists began to say that the earth was really round and not flat, contrary to the way it looked to their eyes, and that it was spinning on its axis and floating in a great sea of space, people got very upset. Religious people, especially, were upset, for they believed with all their heart that the Bible taught that the earth was flat. They would quote certain passages that seemed to indicate this. So there was a great deal of controversy over the issue. It was a long time before people began to realize that the new evidence really made God appear more wonderful an

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1 NIV)

This section of Romans 10 brings before us the answer to the most frequently asked questions we hear, especially from non-Christians. That question is, "What happens to all the people who never hear about Jesus?" That question in phrased in a variety of forms, but basically it is the expressed concern of many -- especially when they hear Christians talking about the uniqueness of Jesus. When we say, as Paul so strongly says in this passage, that Jesus is Lord and it is only through him that men come to God, immediately it raises the question, "Well, what about those who never hear of Jesus?" We are going to come to the answer to that in Verses 14-21 of Romans 10. In the first part of Chapter 10, the apostle said that in order for any individual person to be salvaged from the wreck of humanity, he must call upon the name of the Lord. Notice how Paul quotes the prophet Joel in Verse 13:

The eleventh chapter of Romans deals very strongly with Israel -- its hope, its promises, and its relationship to the church.

In the eleventh chapter of Romans the Apostle Paul is tracing for us a very strange connection between a largely Gentile church and the nation of Israel. Through the centuries many have wondered about the tie between these two remarkable peoples -- the church of God, which is made up now largely of Gentile believers, although there are Jews among us -- and the Jewish nation, that strange nation which now occupies a prominent place on the stage of the world.

I believe it ought to be against the law to read or quote the first two verses of Romans 12 without having read the last verses of Romans 11. They belong together. But unfortunately these two verses have been cut off from the ones in the preceding chapter. The two verses that open Romans 12 are an appeal from the Apostle Paul to bring your body to God and give it to him to use. But all the great reasons for doing this are in Chapter 11. There Paul says,

Last week we saw that the only logical and sensible thing that a Christian can do with his body is to turn it over to the Lord, present it to him, and ask him to use it in everything he does. We have quoted these words from Scripture many times: "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus," (Colossians 3:17b RSV). That means by his strength and by his power. That is what Paul is exhorting us to in Romans 12:1-2. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1b RSV), not just to come to church in, but to do everything in terms of that power and strength which God supplies to you. There are two things that are necessary to make that happen:

I want to comment briefly on the title of this message, How To Hug. This was suggested to me by a story I once heard about a man who was walking down the street. He passed a used book store, and in the window he saw a book with this title, How To Hug. He was taken by the title and, being of a somewhat romantic nature, went in to buy the book. To his chagrin, he discovered that it was the third volume of an encyclopedia and covered the subjects How to Hug.

Our study in Romans has brought us to that famous passage in Chapter 13 that deals with the Christian and his relationship to the government. It isn't very hard to think of President Jimmy Carter as a servant of God. His personal profession of a new birth has been well publicized. But I wonder if you have ever thought of Leonid Brezhnev as a servant of God? Or Idi Amin? Or even Adolph Hitler? And yet the amazing thing that this passage declares is that men like that are, in some sense, servants of God.

I am sure that many of you feel like I do about Easter. I love Easter -- the triumphal notes of the music, the joy it expresses. I love the hope for which Easter stands, and even the time of year in which it comes, with the beauty of the springtime flowers around us. I always look forward to Easter. Even though I have sung the hymns nine times over this morning, I still love and enjoy them. But I never go through an Easter without feeling, at the end of each year, that something has been missing. Some great truth has remained unexpressed. Somehow or other we focus on some of the great and well-known themes of Easter and miss this one which, in many ways, I think, is the greatest note of all in the Easter Message:

We are back in the fourteenth chapter of Romans this morning, and we are going to be discussing the favorite indoor sport of Christians, that is, trying to change each other. As this passage indicates, this has been a major problem in the church for centuries. All through the history of the church, the problem arises from the attitude that most of us share, I am sure, that God is clearly pleased with the way we live -- but there are those others around. They drink beer and play cards; they go to movies; they smoke cigars; they work on Sundays; they wear lipstick; they dance; they play musical instruments; they use zippers instead of buttons. There is an endless list of things that can be included, debatable matters that the church has never been able to settle because of a misunderstanding of the principles that are set forth here in this very passage.

In our study in Romans 14, we are facing again the troublesome question of different views on such matters as dietary restrictions (whether it is all right to eat meat at certain times or days, or whether we should be free from that); on ritual regulations (such as observance of Sunday or other special days, such as Lent); on ceremonies; and especially, personal preferences in the matter of drinking wine and beer and alcohol, smoking, movies, cosmetics, or whatever.

We are in the fifteenth chapter of this epistle of Romans, and Paul is concluding his discussion of the different views on what is wrong and what is right for Christians. Is it morally right for a Christian to drink wine, beer, or cocktails, or is that wrong? Is it morally wrong for a Christian to keep special days, such as Lent, or is that right? Is it morally wrong for a believer to smoke, or is that right? Is it morally right to eat pork, or is that wrong?

We are drawing to a close in our study of this great epistle to the Romans, and this letter closes just as it began, with a personal word from the apostle about himself, and about the church in Rome. There are two themes in the closing section of Chapter 15 -- one is the church at Rome, and the other is the ministry of the Apostle Paul. I hope you will follow in your Bible, for this is a rather extended passage, and one that I am going to have to move rapidly through. The apostle says (Verse 14):

We have finally reached the last chapter in our study in Romans. Some of you are old enough to remember when we started! I am not going to finish it today, however. The last paragraph is reserved for next Sunday and our Communion service. Many people ignore this chapter, I think, because they see in it nothing but a list of names of people long since dead and gone. But in many ways this is one of the most exciting chapters in Romans, as I think you will see.

We have seen that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Romans from Corinth. And now we have come to the very last paragraph of the letter. Very likely at this point, Paul took the pen and wrote the closing paragraph in his own hand. Paul tells us in Second Thessalonians that this was his custom (2 Thessalonians 3:17). He did this to protect his letters from forgery, for one thing, but also to bear a personal greeting to those to whom he was writing. I think almost all scholars agree that the apostle probably suffered from a serious eye problem. The letter to the Galatians suggests that. So Paul wrote these marvelous words in large letters with his own hand, Verses 25-27: