Sermon Central
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Romans
Contributed by Tom Fuller on Jan 4, 2009 (message contributor)
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1. Knowing Your Place
Contributed on Jan 4, 2009
Paul the Apostle knew who he was (and was not) and his job in the kingdom. It’s his passion for his job that led him to write to a group of people he’d never met, in order to introduce himself and the theology of grace to them. It encourages us to know ou
I think it is great to study the book of Romans just after leaving Acts. Much of Acts is devoted to what Paul did—whereas in Romans we get to see how Paul thinks. Paul wrote the letter in about A.D. 57, which coincides with one of his visits to Corinth (Acts 20). Paul was looking ahead to the next ...read more
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2. Man Is Basically Good
Contributed on Jan 18, 2009
Thought that might get your attention. The debate about the goodness of man rages, as does the arguments for the existence of God. Paul takes on both in this very hard hitting section.
How can you know you are dying unless someone tells you ‘you have a terminal disease’? How do you know you need to be set free unless someone tells you ‘you are a captive’? How can you tell something is wrong unless someone tells you what is right? That’s the essence of the rest of Romans 1. Before ...read more
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3. Judgment
Contributed on Jan 26, 2009
Many people have a hard time understanding or accepting the idea of God as a judge. We learn about judgment and the nature of God in this section. The news actually is good!
There’s probably one question I get more than any other from those who do not yet know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior: “How can a loving God send anyone to hell. How can a loving God judge anyone? Didn’t Jesus say ‘judge not lest ye be judged’?” Judgment is a very difficult subject to ...read more
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4. Justification
Contributed on Feb 1, 2009
How do you know if your good is good enough? What do you compare your goodness with to know? Get answers to these questions as Paul bursts some "human" bubbles.
Many years ago, prior to 9-11, as a reporter I would need to go to crime scenes or get into events in order to get good shots and interviews—do my job essentially. But sometimes there were security types who somehow didn’t believe that a news truck, news camera, and reporter/photographer made up an ...read more
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5. Humanity's Greatest Folly - God's Great Gift
Contributed on Feb 8, 2009
Do you know what are human’s three great faults? It leads us to know why we can never reach God ourselves. But we also see in chapter three how God does what we cannot.
There are three great faults in humanity—three great reasons why we have such a hard time as a race accepting the good news of Jesus Christ. Those reasons are that we are self sufficient, self justifying, and self focused. Self sufficient means we can do it ourselves, we can create goodness, we can ...read more
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6. The Audacity Of Simple Faith
Contributed on Feb 15, 2009
Abraham didn’t have much to go on - God’s promise. But what Abraham did, when he did it, and through what agency speaks volumes to the Jew and Gentile alike how to have trust in a God you cannot see.
Despite the good news that God gives new life free of charge, we humans have a hard time accepting such a gift. We, by nature want to earn or buy what we get. For the Roman Christians reading Paul’s letter, that would also have been true. In fact, many of them were Jewish Christians, and thinking ...read more
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7. The War Is Over!
Contributed on Feb 23, 2009
You may not have even known you were God’s enemy. You started the war, but you couldn’t end it, only God could. And how He did it and what He did for you will blow you away!
We are in a war. We don’t see many signs of the war, at least not that we equate with this war. It’s one we can’t win but have committed to anyway, or at least have been committed to by others. We started it but cannot end it. It could be called “The War of Independence.” It’s not independence from ...read more
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8. A New Race
Contributed on Mar 1, 2009
All that Adam did by his willful disobedience to God’s command - infecting the human race with sin and the resulting death - Jesus undid by one sacrifice. Learn about the new race He created and how you can be a part of it.
To understand what Paul is talking about in Romans 5:12-21 we have to go back to the beginning, not of creation, but of sin. 12 – 14 Sin is basically independence from God. Genesis 2:15-17 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord ...read more
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9. Addicted To God
Contributed on Mar 9, 2009
So what’s your addiction? We all have one or another. As a pre-Christian you might have several in fact. How’s that working out for you? I know it sounds funny, but trusting in Jesus actually leads to addiction-but a really really good one!
What we have seen in Romans thus far has led us on a real roller coaster. Chapter 1: you can’t escape accountability to God for the evil in endemic in us as fallen humans. Chapter 2: God is right in his condemnation of that evil so that, Chapter 3, whether we choose to ignore God, try to be as good ...read more
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10. Addicted To God
Contributed on Mar 9, 2009
So what’s your addiction? We all have one or another. As a pre-Christian you might have several in fact. How’s that working out for you? I know it sounds funny, but trusting in Jesus actually leads to addiction-but a really really good one!
What we have seen in Romans thus far has led us on a real roller coaster. Chapter 1: you can’t escape accountability to God for the evil in endemic in us as fallen humans. Chapter 2: God is right in his condemnation of that evil so that, Chapter 3, whether we choose to ignore God, try to be as good ...read more
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11. The Battle Of The Flesh
Contributed on Mar 15, 2009
One of the most underrated struggles we have as Christians is that between the Spirit of God in us and the flesh trying to pull us back into ways that are not like God. If you experience that dissonance between what you want to be like and what you are li
We are conceived in bondage to a liar who wants only to steal kill and destroy us. He wants us to stay as far away from God as possible. We do what is not like God by default, it is our programming to do so. You would think that laws telling us how to behave would lessen the chances that we would ...read more
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12. Abba
Contributed on Mar 22, 2009
Do you discouraged and even condemned by your failure to live up to God’s standards? Then you need to hear the encouraging words from Paul about your real position, your real relationship, your real destiny, and your real ability to not only overcome evil
Romans 8 begins with the words “there is therefore…” It refers to that which has come before the therefore. “Because of all that other stuff” you could say. What is that other stuff? We’ve learned in Romans that there is good and God is good. Satan introduced evil into the human genome with our ...read more
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13. Change Management
Contributed on Mar 30, 2009
Many of us have a hard time managing change. But God is the change management expert of all time. He uses a special secret to help bring about change that is just awesome and answers some basic problems we have with living life here.
Chapter 8 of Romans is all about how to live a life dedicated to loving and serving God while living in a fleshly body in a world opposed to Him and facing an enemy bound and determined to thwart your efforts and God’s to change you from your image into His. Seems like the cards are stacked ...read more
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14. Fear Of Failure
Contributed on Apr 7, 2009
Ever feel discouraged that life is too much? Fear of failure is common, but God has a secret weapon to deploy on your behalf!
Atychiphobia is the fear of failure. While I don’t subscribe to their philosophy, PsychologyToday.com posed an interesting question recently: “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” Fear of failure is closely associated with the fear of criticism and the fear of rejection. This is ...read more
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15. Entitlement Mentality
Contributed on Apr 19, 2009
Humans by nature feel a sense of entitlement, that by our very existence we are owed something - and that includes by God. Romans 9 is controversial in that it totally blows the entitlement mentality out of the water, but also surprising when we learn of
The word “entitlement” has become a part of the public discourse in America these days. Some people suggest that the United States is becoming a society of entitlement, where everything we need or want is owed to us. When we don’t get what we want we feel we have been treated unfairly. It’s a ...read more
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16. The Word Speaks Louder Than Actions
Contributed on Apr 26, 2009
Has God really rejected Israel forever? It’s a touchy subject, but one Paul deals with strongly in these chapters. If God has not cast them away forever, then how do they, and us, reach God? By the Word.
We’ve been talking about Israel. There are many believe that God has turned His back on those who were His people. I believe Romans 9-11 provide proof that this is not the case. Paul was so concerned about his brethren that if would have become accursed if they would come to faith. He continues ...read more
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17. The Living Sacrifice
Contributed on May 4, 2009
Are you being impressed upon by the outside, or motivated by an inward change in character? That’s at the heart of these first very important verses of Romans 12.
God’s mercy leads us to give ourselves willingly into His hands as a sacrifice to be used in God’s service. This happens by a two step process: stopping the process of conformation to the world, and encouraging the process of transformation into someone who thinks like God. As we move forward we ...read more
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18. Finding Your Place
Contributed on May 10, 2009
How do you get a sense of well being, identity and purpose? Is it by how you feel inside and how you compare to others outside? Paul gives us some wonderful advice on how to deal with this as a member of the body of Christ.
Last time we talked about how to respond to God’s mercy—by making ourselves available to God by putting ourselves on the altar as a living sacrifice, shunning the molding of the world on our character externally, while embracing the transformation of our character internally by the presence of the ...read more
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19. Show Or Show Off?
Contributed on May 25, 2009
Many times when we think of God using us and us using spiritual gifts we think of some pretty impressive stuff - miracles, prophecy, healings and the like. But Paul gives us some great instruction about the color of the ways God uses us.
We’ve come to this point in our study through Romans by seeing that since God has had so much mercy on us that it is only reasonable for us to make ourselves available to Him to help spread the truth of God’s love and gift of salvation. Last time we saw that we need an accurate look at ourselves ...read more
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20. Living Life Upside Down
Contributed on Jun 2, 2009
One of the hardest things we as Christians have to deal with is people who don’t like us and who do bad things to us. We think we know how to react but Paul turns life upside down as he gives us the real way to overcome our enemies.
Here are a set of principles that many of us live by without knowing it. • Each negative action towards us should be met with an overwhelming opposite reaction so that those that oppose us will be crushed and humiliated. • Be happy when others are happy. Be absent when others are ...read more
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21. Love Your Government Neighbor
Contributed on Jun 14, 2009
As Christians many believe government is an evil that should be avoided or opposed. Paul encourages us to be a redemptive force for the gospel by actually getting along with governmental authorities.
As we get into chapter 13, let’s sum up where we’ve been. Chapter 12 marks a big change in Romans—going from the theological to the practical—how do we live out what we’ve learned about God and us and God’s plan? Chapter 12 could be summed up like this: “The only reasonable thing to do in ...read more
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22. Loving Your Rights Or Your Right To Love
Contributed on Jun 22, 2009
What distractions keep you from being an effective witness for Jesus Christ? One of the chief distractions is focusing on the minor differences between us, instead of building each other up in love. Paul takes this topic head-on in Romans 14.
We’ve been talking about making ourselves available to become like God and be used by God in his Great Story. Have you ever had an important task to do—a paper to write, an assignment at work to complete, a check book that needs to be balanced? As you set yourself to that task, the phone rings, you ...read more
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23. Loving Your Rights Or Your Right To Love Part 2
Contributed on Jun 28, 2009
We continue to look at how the Lord desires us to live in the war zone of this age - compliant with government as long as it doesn’t force us to violate God’s Word and loving to others who are not as far along as we in their walk with God.
Living as a believer in this age is like being in a war zone. It’s hostile territory. In chapters 12-15 Paul explains how we can not only exist, but do God’s will and even thrive in enemy lands. We do it by knowing our place and purpose. Our place is as a part of the body of Christ and our purpose ...read more
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24. Be Encouraged!
Contributed on Jul 5, 2009
Paul’s final theological words to the Romans hold a lot of weight. But in some ways Paul says to ’lighten up!’ when it comes to dealing with people who are different than us in the body of Christ.
We’ve been talking a lot about getting along in a hostile environment. That, to use an old adage, honey attracts more flies than vinegar. To be a compliant citizen of your nation, even when it doesn’t reflect the character of God very well, is a good thing because it allows the spotlight to be on ...read more
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25. Making Connections
Contributed on Jul 13, 2009
For some, Paul’s greetings at the end of Romans might seem boring and not relevant. To the contrary, Paul’s connections with other believers offers us a rich tapestry of life and service in the 1st century church.
Paul’s letter to the Romans was not merely a theological treatise on God’s plan to rescue mankind from evil. He wrote it to people he had (mostly) never met, in a city where he had never been. The purpose of his letter was that of introduction. “Hi, I’m Paul, and this is what I believe.” In ...read more