Bible Talks - Family Church (9:45am)
Series: Lean On Me - Sermons From Romans
God: Faithful or Fickle?
Sunday, 16 June 2002
Romans 1:1-17 ESV or NIV, Romans 1 - 11 ESV or NIV
Feedback:
Share using:
Post this to: Facebook · Delicious · Google · Twitter · Email
I’m sure many of you have a favourite car that you’ve owned. Perhaps it was the one that you dated your beloved in. Perhaps it was just a special car that went and went and never let you down…
I wonder though if you have ever had a ‘lemon’ of a car?
Let me share with you my own, personal ‘lemon’…
It was a 1965 Volkswagen Type III – the sedan style not a Beetle. I bought it off an Anglican minister(!) – and it replaced a rapidly deteriorating Holden which had served me well. I was training for ministry, and needed a good reliable car to get me to collage, to the parish I was working in at weekends, and to camps and youth group activities. But this wasn’t to be that kind of car!
I picked it up one rainy Monday, and by the time I had driven it home, I had about 4-5 cms of water sloshing around my feet from the leaking windscreen.
A week later, I was driving it to the church I worked at, went to put my foot on the brake to stop at the lights, and the car nearly did a 180 degree turn!
Four reconditioned brake slave cylinders later, I was going to the same church, went to stop at the same lights, and my foot went all the way to the floor! When I finally stopped, using the handbrake, the car sat there at the lights oozing brake fluid all over the road.
Then the carburettor stopped working, and despite a complete strip down and rebuild, insisted on causing the car to backfire regularly. This was quite dramatic, as the exhaust system had fallen off a few weeks earlier and I had replaced it with a cheap sports system that sounded great (to my young ears), but a backfire produced a dramatic meter-long flame from the exhaust!
And on it went for a year or two, bit by bit, the car was repaired, rebuilt or replaced. It was never reliable enough to depend on being available and working to get me to important places…
The day I traded it in on a ‘real’ car I had to poke a dozen holes on the rust-laden floor to drain all the water out from the pouring rain…
However, in all the frustration, that car taught me a valuable life lesson: It’s no use having faith in something that’s unfaithful. No matter how much genuine confidence you might be able to muster emotionally, it counts for nothing unless the thing you put your faith in is actually faithful. Trusting the untrustworthy will only bring disappointment, misery and frustration (and in my case, an empty bank account). It’s true about cars, it’s true about people, and it’s true about God.
Romans is a book which all about the faithfulness, the trustworthiness of God, and what we are going to do today is appreciate that afresh by taking a big step back from the book and take in the big picture of Romans 1-11. We’re going to look at the forest instead of the trees.
It’s a good time to do this, because the end of chapter 11 is a natural break in the letter. The last four chapters take a different direction, with Paul looking to apply much of what he has said in the first 11 chapters…
So let’s look at:
The Main Verse of Romans 1-11
The Main Idea of Romans 1-11
and see how they point us to:
A Firm Foundation For Life.
The Main Verse Of Romans 1-11
You may recall right at the start of this series (and all the way through when we sing our theme song) The key verses for all of Romans are 1:16-17…
v16 is the one we remember, but v17 is important also:
”For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17 (ESV)
This is better than the NIV, but better still, try this expanded version: “In the gospel God’s covenant faithfulness is displayed since everyone who has faith in Him is included in His covenant people” (Bryson Smith…)
See, it says that God is faithful because He has always saved people by faith. God has been totally consistent from beginning to end. This is a point that Paul keeps coming back to time after time in our first 11 chapters. Why? Because it’s such an important truth! If God IS totally consistent, then He is a God that can be trusted.
The Main Idea of Romans 1-11
So if that’s the main verse of Romans, what’s the main idea?
Well, if we quickly skate through the main topics we’ve covered, we get the picture…
From 1:18 to 8:27 Paul’s speaking about righteousness by faith.
He explains it (1:18-3:31), by reminding us how bad things are in the world, and how all this can be brought back to one thing: Sin. We are all sinful – Jew and gentile alike. No one is good enough for God, none of us can ever be justified in thinking we have it made with God. We haven’t! We’re all hard-hearted people who have been saved only by the grace of God.
Then he sets out to clarify this with regards to:
Abraham (4:1-25). God’s dealings with Abraham set a vital precedent for us: Abraham was considered righteous by God (in Gen 15:6). He wasn’t saved out of obligation, or by circumcision, or through the law. How was he saved? By faith!
He continues drawing out the idea in chapter 5, talking about our eternal hope (5:1-11) Looking at the eternal consequences for us if the Judge of the universe declares us innocent.
Then Paul moves to think about sin and it’s relation to righteousness by faith (5:12-7:6), where we are challenged to take sin VERY seriously, in our lives – even though as followers of Jesus we have been declared righteous and innocent. Why? Because while our salvation comes free, it didn’t come cheap. Jesus thought sin was so serious that he paid the ultimate sacrifice for it – how can we then treat the sin in our life flippantly?
Finally, Paul clarifies righteousness by faith with regard to the law (7:7-8:28). The law, he says, is a good thing. Why? Because it shows us that we are bad.
A few years back I was suffering increasing sinus congestion. I squirted all sorts of concoctions up my nose trying to breath easier. I would wake in the morning having breathed through my mouth all night, and with the inside of my mouth feeling like the bottom of a bird cage… Then, for a totally unrelated reason, I had a series of blood tests, and you know what? One of them came back saying I was allergic to pet hair! (Me, with four dogs and two cats – most of whom spend at least part of the night somewhere on the bed!). One squirt of the right medication each day – magically fixed!
There’s nothing worse than suffering from an illness without knowing it. If you know you’re not well, at least you can do something about it. So it is good to know we’re sinful, so we can seek help, such as: Praying – seeks God’s help through his Spirit. Reading God’s word – because that’s the Spirit’s main channel to work in our lives. Putting the ‘hard yards’ in – We can’t expect God’s Spirit to do amazing things in transforming our lives if we’re half asleep!
Now Paul moves on from speaking about righteousness by faith, to the righteousness of God (8:28-11:36).
In the rest of chapter 8 he explains what he means by the righteousness of God. He does that by pointing us forward to the glory that lies ahead, which points us to the righteousness of God. Hope is a very important part of life, isn’t it? Paul speaks in the second half of chapter 8 about the hope we have to look forward to and the way that that hope should fill us with a triumphant and positive attitude in the way we live. In v28-39, Paul explains the truth of the certainty of our future glory. Why certain? Because we’ll never need more than God supplies (v32). We’ll never be in a situation which God can’t control (v28). We’ll never be wrenched away from God (v38). Because God is a righteousness God who can be trusted to bring to fruition his promises to His people!
Then Paul moves on to clarify this righteousness of God in relation to Israel and the gentiles.
This is chapters 9-11 that we have most recently looked at, and that raised the hairy topics of predestination and election. But when we see these chapters in their bigger context, the issues become far less contentious and hard to handle, because underlying all that, are basic questions about God answered:
Can’s God’s word be trusted? Paul asks in 9:1-13
Is God fair? In 9:14-29.
Paul’s answer in both cases is a resounding YES! Because he points out that all through the Bible the ideas of God’s sovereign ‘choosing’ or election of people and our human responsibility, live side by side. [to blank]
As concepts, they can be hard to reconcile, but in real life we know that God has chosen us, and that our salvation is secure. We also know and understand from experience that our decisions matter, and that we have a very real responsibility to exercise our free will in a conscientious manner.
Chapter 11 deals with the ‘pulling together’ of the Jews and the gentiles into the Kingdom of God to make the one ‘true’ spiritual Israel.
It finishes with a powerful lesson for both the Jews and gentiles at Rome, and for us here today: We are to humbly know our place: Things work to God’s plans and we shouldn’t ever become superior or self-righteous in our thinking. We are, and should be, totally dependant on Him.
If we had to sum all this up, pulling together all that Paul has said so far, we can say that he has argued all along that being saved by faith in Jesus is quite consistent with God’s approach throughout Scripture. Nothing has changed. And God certainly hasn’t changed any rules along the way.
A Firm Foundation For Life.
So let me ask a question that Paul might well have asked the believers in Rome:
What foundation are you building your life on?
The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa apparently started leaning just five years and three storeys after construction was started in 1173. When finished, it was 55 metres high, and the tilt was even more obvious. It took them 820 years to finally stabilise the tower! Why? Because it’s built on marshy soil and it’s foundations are just 3 metres deep!
More recently, in all the soul searching that has followed the September 11 events last year, much has been said that if the WTC towers had been constructed differently, the disaster of their total collapse might have been averted.
What do we build our lives on?
At a more human level, a person who builds their entire life on their job or career, can be left feeling completely shattered when they loose their job or fail to gain a key promotion.
Women whose self-esteem is closely tied to their appearance (and ability to wear size 6 clothes), suffer enormously when age and gravity take their course.
And so we can go on… If we build our life, if we place our security and our sense of self worth in the wrong thing, there is a guarantee things will go wrong. We will suffer all kinds of emotional difficulties, hang-ups and frustrations.
Building a life on God will give us true security, for only he is utterly faithful and dependable.
The message of Romans 1-11 is just that. God is dependable and faithful. He has always been consistent and will always be consistent. If we build our lives on Him, then our foundation will always be firm and solid, equipping us to handle all that life can throw at us.
But this is about more than just feeling warm and fuzzy about God’s place in our lives.
Two applications that jump immediately to mind are:
1. Prayer.
If God really is as Paul says he is, this must impact on how much we pray and what we pray.
a) How much we pray…If God really is the only constant, faithful and dependable element in our lives, then surely that must drive us to prayer! If it doesn’t, then in reality we are saying that we know better. That we are really in control of our lives. Instead, we must throw ourselves on his mercy, in utter dependence on him, acknowledging his sovereignty in a practical, day to day way.
We must teach our children to do that by example, or the ‘Connections’ kids, members of our youth group, or whomever you minister to.
Prayer is NOT a cop out. It is not a wimpy or girly thing to do! It is in fact the sign of real godliness in a person – a quality to be much desired.
If God is the foundation of our lives, then prayer is that critical first course of bricks laid on that foundation.
b) What we pray. Have you noticed that nowhere in Romans 1-11 does Paul stop and offer up a ‘shopping list’ of prayers to God? Something we easily fall into! Paul’s prayers are always driven by gospel imperatives. He prays for his fellow Israelites, that they may come to know the Lord Jesus, he thanks God for the Christians in Rome – for their faithful witness to the gospel. Later he prays that he may be freed from the unbelievers in Jerusalem, so that he can continue the work of the gospel… and so on.
It doesn’t mean he never prays for anything else, but we cannot escape the priority that he places on prayer driven by his utter passion for the gospel as the power of God for salvation.
So must ours…
2. What about everyone else?
Are you sick of us talking about outreach and evangelism?
I hope not! We sit back here Sunday after Sunday, enjoying the benefits of lives built on the foundation of a dependable and faithful God. Oh I know that life isn’t as easy or as comfortable as some of us would prefer. Perhaps we are even struggling with major issues in our lives that just seem formidable. But that doesn’t change the fact that we are safe and secure in God’s hands – in an ultimate, eternal sense!
So as we pause and reflect how fortunate we are to have our eternal future sewn up, we have to ask: what about the millions lost to the truth of the gospel? People who have it easy, and those who are also going through tough times, struggling with all manner of challenges – except that they have no hope – “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23
One reason why we decided to preach through and study Romans at this time, was to help all of us to see that our imperative as a church must be so much more than just thinking about evangelism, more than even Lifeworks or Black, no Sugar. We must catch hold of what is driving Paul here – his passion to see people saved from their lives of sin and futility– and through the work of God’s Spirit – allow that to drive us too.
It’s no accident that after 11 chapters of spelling out how dependable and faithful God is, that in Romans 12, Paul now tells us to give our whole lives over to serving God.
But we can only do that if we take to heart the lesson of Romans 1-11. God is faithful and only He can give people eternal security if they trust Him. You and I are freed from the power of sin to live a life of true worship, serving God by serving other people, and the best possible way we can serve others is to work hard under God’s hand to bring them under the sound of the gospel…
Let’s commit ourselves afresh to doing that right here and now…
