Expound: Romans 1:1-23 - Part C

You'll never appreciate the good news to all understand the bad news.

The bad news is what makes the good news.

The bad news is the whole world to Gentile is consigned under God's judgment and wrath of God is upon unless they find themselves in Christ by his grace and believe some people believe the God of the Old Testament was a God of wrath and the God of the New Testament is a God of love today on connect with Skip Skip explores these views of God you understand God's people before we begin want to let you know about a recent courage as you explore the faith and feelings. Women in the Bible's role in the difficult narrative from Esther to Betsy Betty Priscilla we find stories of faith family explores for Queens of the Bible and her new teaching theories. Here's where we see Bernice sitting right by his side. Unfortunately, Bernice go with the flow, to peer pressure and remain silent hear more from Lynn yet.

She explores four different queens in Scripture. And when you get $35 or more today will send you the Queens of the Bible collection of teachings as our way of saying thank you. Peer pressure is a powerful thing. The crowd was watching Bernice was watching Agrippa was watching and you know you do stupid things in peer pressure, you'll say you don't like the movie really like everybody else is they don't like it, whatever it is you come peer pressure. Get your copy of the special teaching visit connectwithskip.com/offer to get online securely today or call 892 1888, which dive into today's teacher will be a woman's trip Skip to reduce the study also I learned in every state whatever state I meant to be content.

You learn that you learn contentment.

You learn Thanksgiving. I love the story about the boy who built the little boat he labored long wanted you glued it up.

He painted it up and was just a perfect day with a light breeze and he took it out to the pond near his house and he set the boat on the pond in the little sales were filled with a slight breeze and started going across the pond and he just took such delight in it is like now. I've been planning for this day. This is perfect. But while was right about in the middle of the lake.

The slight breeze developed into a strong wind and prevailing winds took over, and the little boat sank in instead of complaining and griping.

He smiled really big and he goes, what a great day to fly a kite and went home got a Skype so that's a that's a good way to look at life's good day to fly a kite didn't go as I plan but God has in store. So first I thank God. Paul said and then he made request any seven verse 11.

I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift that you may be established. In other words, I want to, and I want to serve you. But look at how he adjusts that a little bit in verse 12, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me all the great apostle was never above telling his audience. You really encourage me. I really need to be together with you. It's not just me ministering to you which you ministering back to me as well and so he's writing a letter but he longs to see them. And there's something about writing or texting or emailing. That just isn't satisfying. You can only communicate so much you want to eventually be either I and see the person to get the body language in here. The inflection and intonation. A full orbit communication when I was dating my wife before she was my wife. She was my girlfriend Linda. I lived in Huntington Beach California she lived in Hawaii and Stokes.

You know, in those days didn't have one. Like today with the cell phones was very expensive to make a long distance phone call to Hawaii.

So it was very sparing but we wrote letters and I still have those letters I've kept that correspondence and I go over it I realized by the longing in the letters that she just very unsatisfying to just write without being able to see face-to-face. Now of course we have since seen each other face-to-face and the rest is history, but so it was with Paul and the Romans, verse 13. Now I do not want you to be unaware brother that often I plan to come to you but was hindered until now that I might have some fruit among you also just as among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise so much of as much as is in me I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. I really want to go to Rome. Paul said, not as a tourist, not as a sightseer but as a fruit bearer bear fruit among you, I want to do something spiritual in your minutes.

I want you to encourage me, but I want to really be able to minister to you in the spirit as well. Interesting in verse 14 that phrase. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. Let me unravel. There's a couple of ways you can be in debt. Number one, you can borrow money from somebody.

Now you are in debt to that person. You have to pay off whatever you have borrowed from them and you are in debt to them until you pay it off as a second way you can be in debt, you can be given money from someone for someone else. 1/3 party. At that point, you are a debtor to the third party.

You have an obligation, you owe a debt in the way you pay it off as you take the money given to you and not spend it on yourself. You deliver it to them. You are in debt to them until you have given it to them.

That's how Paul uses this phrase. I am a debtor to both Greeks and barbarians, both to wise and unwise and what is the debt.

The debt is the gospel. I am in debt to share the message with people, including Romans, and my obligation is to not hoard the gospel but to herald the gospel. That's the debt I was reading it.

Just the other day. Maybe it was yesterday, and them second Kings so there was a famine in Samaria up in northern Israel middle middle part of his in the city of Samaria.

There was a famine and the Syrian army had encamped around Samaria to destroy. And so in chapter 7 it says in verse there were four lepers guys with leprosy hanging out at the gate of the city of Samaria and they had a death sentence that leprosy so eventually the disease in those days would consume their body and are starving to death is a famine in the land so they look at each other and the one leper says to his buddies.

You know what were going to die. Why should we just sit here until we die if we just stay here were gonna die if we going to the city of Samaria were going to die because there's no food in the city but what if we were to go to the camp of the enemy.

The Syrians and turn ourselves in. It could be that they let us live in the fetus. A meal now. It could be that they know they could kill us but so what were going to die anyway. We sit here with you and I were going to the city were to die, we could try going into the enemy And seeing if we could turn ourselves and then they may fetus, we may live what we got to loose so they go to the Syrian Nobodies there totally vacant. What happened is they imagine that they heard the sound of chariots and they thought an army had come in an army like of the Hittites of the Egyptians that had been conscripted by the Israelites and so they sought were surrounded and they fled the city to run away. So these four lepers come and they find all these tense filled with food, wine, water, gold, silver, they start drinking going from 10 to 10 hoarding hiding all the stuff they found the go notice this is awesome gravity heyday, and then they realized they looked at each other again and said this is the right man. What were doing is not right for this is a day of good news. Yet we remain silent. We have just found the enemy camp with all of their supplies. We owe it to the people in Samaria to tell them there's food for you. There's water for you there supplies for you. This is a day of good news and we remain silent. Folks, this is a day of good news. We have a debt to the world. We can't remain silent. Their salvation for the taking. There's grace that God is offering. So Paul said I have a debt I'm a debtor to the Greeks to the barbarians to the wife.

Let me explain that Greeks and barbarians. First of all the Jews, the Jews divided the world into two groups, Jews and Gentiles non-Jews and Gentiles us a stringent devout Jew would say God created Gentiles just to make hell hotter to candle the fires of hell.

That's why God made from and there make it nice and hot to punish bad people. That's why God made him over. The Jews were the chosen race of Paul's deal head-on with that, the Greeks also divided the whole world up into two groups, Greeks and barbarians. If you want a Greek or a barbarian.

The term barbarian is an honor mono poetic word meaning that the sound of the word is the definition of the word. The Greeks would would listen to non-Greeks speak, the Greeks believed that their language was the language of the gods. It's beautiful. It's expressive. It's very precise. There's really none like it. I think to this day the Greek language is awesome language. If you study biblical Greek the Greeks took pride in their language and their culture second to none.

So if you're not a Greek hi cultured Europe, barbarian, and they would listen to the language of the non-Greeks and it sounded them like our borrow borrow bar just gibberish. So they coined the term bar bar read somebody who doesn't speak Greek. So when Paul says I am a debtor to both Greeks and the barbarians and evils.

Also see a Jew and Gentile would eat what he means is I have an obligation to the high class and to the hick class to the gallon and outers and the and outers because they're both out. I have a debt to those who study Socrates as well as those who can't even spell Socrates and obligation to all men for the gospel.

So as much as is in me. I'm ready to preach the gospel to you were in Rome also, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Verse 16. It is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Notice this to the Jew first and also for the Greek. This is a phrase that will be repeated. Jew first. Also the Greek. That's a theological priority.

First of all, God made a covenant with the Jewish people got me promises to the Jewish people. God promised the Messiah to the Jewish people. So it is a theological priority that first you would go to the covenant people, the Jews and the gospel did go to Jerusalem and Judea and also it is a chronological priority whenever Paul going to a city, a Greek city a Roman city. He would always go first to the synagogue and preach at the synagogue, the Jew first wants them to know that their Messiah has arrived. All the promises in the Old Testament, they have been longing to see fulfilled have been fulfilled in Jesus. Then after the synagogue he would go to the Aligarh the marketplace the city enlarge the Gentile and preach to them. So, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. For in it.

Verse 17 there's that great verse, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith I told you about Martin Luther diverse that I just read verse 17 is the key verse that transformed the just shall live by faith Martin Luther as an Augustinian monk in Erfurt, Germany, was so burdened by his own failures weighed down by his own sins that he went to confession daily and his confessor, the priest could hear his confession was just sick of him coming so much as he would like confess little tiny things that were anything at all and so finally the priest said to Martin Luther, go out and commit some sand worthy of confessing.

Instead of bringing all this drivel to me. Paul then traveled her Martin Luther then travel to Rome and in Rome even to this day there is a historic church called the church of St. John Lateran, that's a very historical building from antiquity was a palace of one time of several of the Roman emperors, and it had been turned into a church by that time, and the church of St. John Lateran has a set of stairs called the Santos Carla and it was believed reported by legend to be the very stairs up to the throne of Pontius Pilate were Jesus stood trial and so devout Catholics in times past, Martin Luther did. For this reason Dick to get on his knees and crawl up the stairs and in so doing you a person will bloodied their knees and they do it on purpose, and it's a deity they will crawl up the stairs in people.

To this day, do it pretty covertly as they did it in about now, but but you can't eat at every step of the Santos Carla you get so many years off of purgatory so there's Martin Luther trying to burn all his sins off out of purgatory to go to heaven and while he's going up the steps since he was looking at the book of Romans. This verse came to my the just shall live by faith. It really was in that moment and from remembering that verse that lowered the seed of the great Protestant Reformation. I'm not. Salvation is an is a fee salvation is free. It's not something I earn.

It's a gift that's what got him up and got him back and the Reformation was on. Now in verse 18. There's a little bit of a change notice or for the wrath of God is revealed as the first section of the book of Romans. The wrath of God for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them.

For God has shown it to them. So far the book is filled with good news. Chapter 1 until this point it's the gospel. It's a good news. It's the righteousness of God revealed hallelujah but now storm clouds move in now chapter 1 verse 18 to chapter 3 verse 20 the theme over and over again is your all under the condemnation of God. The wrath of God. Why wait wait wait. You're telling us all about the good news not now you're just like going to the bad news. What up all is what up he saying you'll never appreciate the good news tell you all understand the bad news. The bad news is what makes the good news so good and the bad news is the whole world, Jew or Gentile, is consigned under God's eternal judgment and the wrath of God is upon them unless they find themselves in Christ by his grace and believe in him, so the grace of God is shown later after the backdrop of the wrath of God, so that though the theme is the righteousness of God. He showing us the unrighteousness of humanity which makes God's imputed righteousness. All all that much more awesome now a quick little tidbit of information. How often have you heard people say or the kind of the Old Testament, the God of wrath and the God of the New Testament, the God of love ever that these are people who don't know either the Old Testament or the New Testament. The Old Testament has many promises of God's grace and forgiveness and many examples thereof and the New Testament, including Romans, including Revelation have plenty of the wrath of God hears one of the wrath of God is revealed. This is in the book of Romans, because what may be known of God is manifest in them. For God is shown it to them that we explained for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so they the world people in the world are without excuse, because although they knew God, this is historically, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. He's describing their idolatry is making a very impressive argument to the Roman readers. He saying that God is invisible and unknowable, but he has made himself visible in a sense, and thus knowable. He is given you visible proof of his existence in the creation given you a conscience to apprehend the visible creation around you and so you without excuse the argument. The Paulist is touching are using we would call the teleological argument, the teleological argument is the argument of design. If you look around the thinking person and looking around at the world understands the world in which I live. Looks like it's been custom-made. It's been designed and if it indeed reveals design.

It must therefore infer a designer. So if the art hanging in the skies is impressive and it is the artist much must be more impressive. The universe in which we live that that was the argument of of David in Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows his handiwork. Night and tonight were Dan today. They reveal speech night and tonight they reveal knowledge there is no voice nor speech where there voice is not heard. The artist's like an artist reveals himself or herself by a poem or a song or a sculptor or painting. God reveals himself through his creation. He is invisible but he has a visible expression in the world around but they change. Verse 23 the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Johan Kepler some of you are familiar with the name Johan Kepler. He is the called the father of modern astronomy.

Johan Kepler said the onion gives out astronomer is mad. I want you to hear that again. The undeveloped out astronomer, the person who is an unbeliever who doesn't believe in the things of God is not devout toward God and the undeveloped astronomer is not in other words, if if you can look around at the universe, the planetary system. The balance the design and not see a creator you're like an idiot. The undeveloped astronomer is man. That's the consensus of all.

That's the consensus of David in Psalm 19, and Paul shows the stages of degeneration of the ancient world that wraps up his message expound to Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this 1 Coming Your Way to help connect others to God's word. I love the fact that Jesus was called the friend of sinners. Instead of spending time with the religious belief of his day. He reached out to the lost and the outcast's love is for everyone that's amazing news and we want to share with the entire world. God's love. You can be part of it.

When you partner with this ministry here so you can give today to change lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ, you can give online@connectwithskip.com/donate. That's connectwithskip.com/donate or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1880 thank you tomorrow Skip paycheck shares have the full weight of the gospel reveals God's incredible power and the righteousness of God is actually the righteousness whereby God inverts a sinner gives to you to you is right.

You don't earn it. You don't try to approach it works in order to get it