Sermon Central
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Book Of Romans
Contributed by Chris Appleby on Feb 9, 2002 (message contributor)
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1. Not Ashamed Of The Gospel
Contributed on Feb 9, 2002
Don’t be ashamed of the gospel. It’s the power of God for salvation for those who believe
What I want to do today is to look at these opening verses of this letter to the Romans and think about why Paul wrote it. What we’ll find is that Paul’s motivation comes from a sense of responsibility for the great gift God has given him in the gospel, his confidence comes from the power of God he ...read more
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2. Salvation By Grace Alone
Contributed on Feb 9, 2002
Introduction to the letter to the Romans
I feel a bit like we’ve just climbed on board a jet going from Melbourne to London, or we’re just setting off to drive from Melbourne to Perth. There’s a long journey before us, but there’ll be lots of exciting things to see on the way; lots of varied scenery. And by the end of our journey I hope ...read more
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3. The Dark Night Of The Soul
Contributed on Feb 18, 2002
All people’s efforts to be right with God have failed, because people chose to exchange the truth about God for a lie. Their only hope is the Gospel of God’s grace.
You’d have to say that there’s nothing pretty about the picture of the world that we find in this passage from Romans ch1. Here we take off the rose coloured glasses and look, with a degree of reality, at the world we live in. I was talking to someone the other day about watching television and ...read more
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4. The Jews, The Law And God
Contributed on Mar 4, 2002
Jews have an advantage in that they have God’s law in written form and were the first to receive God’s grace but it doesn’t help since they’re unable to keep the law.
There is no doubt in Paul’s mind as he writes to the Church at Rome, that the Jews are pre-eminent in God’s sight. He makes it clear in 1:16 that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Mind you he uses the same hierarchy in ch ...read more
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5. Righteousness, A Gift For All
Contributed on Mar 12, 2002
None of us can earn God’s favour,because none of us is righteous, but he gives us righteousness, unearned and unmerited as a gift through the death and resurrectin of Jesus Christ.
Can I just say how much I love baptisms. It’s great to be able to share the joy of parents and family and friends as they welcome a new person into the world and especially as we welcome that new person into the life of God’s Church. And it’s perhaps fitting that today we’re looking at a passage ...read more
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6. Peace, Perfect Peace
Contributed on May 1, 2002
God offers us peace for all time with him. His love is unconditional, entirely his own doing
"Therefore, since we are justified by faith ..." If you remember back to when we started this series on Romans, I said then that whenever we come across that word "Therefore" we need to stop and think about what’s gone before. What is it that the ’therefore’ refers to? Well, I wonder if you can ...read more
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7. Truth And Justice For All
Contributed on May 1, 2002
Justice isn’t necessarily a desirable thing. Better to receive God’s grace than to have justice applied to our lives.
I haven’t watched much of the winter Olympics this last fortnight, but I did happen to be watching the night there was all the controversy about the figure skating. I saw the Russian pair do their thing, then watched as the commentary team analysed their performance in slow motion showing all the ...read more
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8. The Voice Of History - Faith Or Law
Contributed on May 1, 2002
Righteousness has always been by grace alone, even Abraham was justified by his faith apart from works
It might be good to stop for a moment and think again about what it was that occasioned this letter from Paul. Remember that he’s planning to visit Rome but has so far been prevented. But in the meantime he wants to make sure that the Christians in Rome have a sure foundation for their faith. He’s ...read more
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9. A New World Order
Contributed on May 11, 2002
Jesus coming has brought in a new world order. His obedience to God means we are no longer tied down by the death that came from Adam’s rebellion
If you can remember back 2 weeks ago to Rom 5:1-11 you’ll recall that we discovered there that the gospel brings us peace with God. That’s because Jesus has reconciled us to God through his death and resurrection. What’s more, we also discovered that a proper understanding of the gospel gives us ...read more
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10. Dead & Alive
Contributed on May 21, 2002
Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, and in response exercise your will to put to death that which belongs to the old life, presenting your bodies to God as instruments of righteousness.
There’s a debate that’s been around for as long as the gospel has been proclaimed and that’s over the question "Does it matter if we sin, now that we know Christ’s forgiveness?" Should we punish ourselves when we succumb to temptation? Does the righteousness we now have because we believe in ...read more
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11. Slaves Of Righteousness
Contributed on Jun 3, 2002
God calls us to give up our freedom, to make him our master, to submit to a new bond of slavery, slavery to righteousness, knowing that obeying God will actually enable us to live the way God originally intended.
They say if you can remember the 60s you weren’t really there. Well, I don’t know about that. I’m pretty sure I was there and despite how long ago it was there are still things I can remember about it. I guess the thing that most memorable about the 60s for those of you who aren’t as old as I am, ...read more
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12. Law Keeping - The Real Story
Contributed on Jun 10, 2002
The trouble wit hlaw keeping is that we’re unable to do it. The good thing about the law is that it drives us back to dependence on the grace of God in Jesu Christ
Here’s what happens to people from time to time. They realise they have a problem with a particular sin or sins, so they decide to do something about it. They read something like Romans 6, that we read last week and they decide that from now on they’ll be slaves of righteousness. Whenever they feel ...read more
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13. Life In The Spirit
Contributed on Jun 26, 2002
If we wonder whether we’re truly followers of Christ then this is one way God helps us: are our minds set on the things of God, is our failure to obey, something we struggle with, do we relate to God as our father, rather than someone distant and remote?
I keep coming across people who are struggling with whether their faith is real. People whose Christian experience is something like what Paul describes at the end of Romans 7. They struggle to believe that they could be truly God’s children when their life is so full of sin. If you’re one of those ...read more
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14. Waiting For Glory
Contributed on Jul 3, 2002
As we wait in hope, in the midst of a suffering world, God is at work, bringing us through to the last day when that hope will at last be seen, when hope will no longer be necessary because its fulfillment has come.
There’s no doubt that being a Christian can be a dangerous thing in our world today. I read recently that there have been around 40 million people who have been put to death for being Christians in the past 2000 years and of those something like 60% have died in the last 100 years. Now that ...read more
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15. More Than Conquerors
Contributed on Jul 9, 2002
How do we know our salvation is assured? We know because our salvation is God’s work from start to finish. God has poured out his love on us in Jesus Christ. He’s filled us with his Spirit as the sign and seal of the salvation to come. It’s God who’s begu
Well, it’s July 7, the year is half over, and today we reach the end of the first part of the letter to the Romans. So I thought it might be good to stop and think about where we’ve come over the past five months. We began with the realisation that all of us, no matter what our background, have a ...read more
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16. The Place Of The Jews In God's Plan
Contributed on Jul 16, 2002
God’s promises have not been forgotten. God has the right to choose because he is the sovereign Lord and Creator. God’s motive is love and mercy, and the demonstration of his glory. We all depend on his mercy for our salvation
You’d be forgiven for thinking, when you read the first few chapters of Romans, that Paul has it in for the Jews. He goes to such great pains to point out that all their religious systems, all their efforts to be right with God are doomed. He accuses them of condemning others for failing to obey ...read more
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17. Transformation And Renewal
Contributed on Oct 14, 2002
God calls us to give up all we have in response to his mercy and graceshown to us in Jesus Christ
What is your life worth? I don’t mean what would you give to save your life. I guess most of us would say you can’t put a value on human life and especially on my life. But if you were in a position where you had to put a value on your life how would you do it. For example, what do you think would ...read more
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18. The Imperative Of Proclamation
Contributed on Oct 14, 2002
Unless we proclaim the gospel people are doomed to God’s judgement
We were in New York on holidays a couple of years ago and we stayed in the apartment of a Jewish woman. It was Jewish New Year the weekend we were there so she invited us to come to their passover meal to share it with them. Well, that night was one of the highlights of our trip as we took part in ...read more
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19. The Crisis Of Freedom
Contributed on Nov 1, 2002
Dealing with freedom is a tricky thing. it requires restraint and an awareness of the source of our freedom, namely the mercy and grace of God shown in Jesus Christ.
Rom 14:1-15:13 Freedom is a tricky thing. It’s something that we hold dear as members of a democracy. It’s something that people have fought long and hard to achieve. We’d hate to give it up. Yet there are times when our desire for freedom can lead us astray, even to the point of undermining the ...read more
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20. Fellowship In The Gospel
Contributed on Nov 1, 2002
Paul’s ministry, like ours was one which relied not just on the power of God, but on many fellow workers sharing the load in the fellowship of the gospel.
Rom 15:14-16:27 The King of Syria was having trouble in his war with Israel. Every time he set up an ambush, Elisha, the prophet, would warn the king of Israel. So the King of Syria decided to send an army to capture Elisha to put an end to this nuisance. The army arrived at Dothan where Elisha ...read more
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21. Fellowship And Citizenship
Contributed on Nov 1, 2002
God expectes different responses to offence depending on whether we act as an individual or as a government.
Rom 12:14-13:14 I know some of you are visitors to St Theos today, so let me just fill you in on what we’ve been looking at in our preaching for much of this year. We’ve spent most of the year working our way through the letter to the Romans. It’s a fairly complex letter so we’ve taken some time ...read more