Miserably Missing The Mark Series

Alliance Church

May 27, 2001

Pastor David Welch

“Miserably Missing the Mark”

Romans 2:1-3:20

Introduction to the series

My goal throughout our run through Romans is that we will more deeply understand the grand truths concerning our great salvation so powerfully presented by Paul in chapters 1-8 and having understood and internalized them, actually apply and live them more diligently as Paul encourages us to do in chapters 12-16.

Consider this series a spiritual journey intended by God to deepen your walk with Him.

Commit to applying truth as you encounter it and God enlightens it.

You will not be able to grasp and apply it all.

God has particular areas of your life He wants to address though this study.

Listen, trust and obey as we travel through this territory together.

This is more than an intellectual exercise.

This is a spiritual pilgrimage to greater spiritual maturity as individual and as a group.

Review

BASIC OUTLINE FOR ROMANS

Personal Matters

I. Receive the gift of God’s righteousness by faith 1-5

II. Apply the gift of God’s righteousness by understanding 6-8

III. Don’t miss the gift of God’s righteousness like Israel 9-11

IV. Live the gift of God’s righteousness by submission 12-15

Personal Matters

PERSONAL MATTERS 1:1-17

Paul’s Personal Portrait

Paul’s Fiery Passion

Passion to Pray

Passion to Promote spiritual maturity

Passion to Preach the Gospel

Paul’s Firm Persuasion

The Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes

The power of the Gospel lies in its message concerning the way to become righteousness before God and no longer be bound to unrighteousness.

I. Receive the gift of God’s righteousness by faith 1-5

Righteousness is a word used to indicate conformity to a standard.

God’s righteousness is conformity to God’s standard of life and behavior.

Paul presents this most remarkable theme in the first five chapters of his letter to the Romans whom he had not yet even personally met.

The gospel exposes first the unrighteousness of man.

Slide verse 18

The gospel then reveals the righteousness of God and how to receive it as a free gift.

A. Every man needs God’s righteousness because all have sinned 1-3

1. The self-centered hedonist (pleasure focused) is without excuse 1:18-32

a) Man’s ungodliness and unrighteousness

The people described by Paul are those who were both ungodly (rejected God) and unrighteous (rejected God’s standard).

• They suppressed the truth by their godless lifestyle.

• They once knew God leaving them without excuse.

They knew God intuitively because God put a knowledge of Himself “in’ them.

They knew God intellectually because God signed every aspect of His creation.

• They failed to honor God, as his Divine nature deserves.

• They failed to give thanks.

• They engaged in futile and foolish reflection resulting in a darkened, foolish heart

• They became fools while professing to be wise.

• They exchanged the true glorious nature of God for a cheap image.

• They exchanged the truth of God for a lie of the devil

• They did not approve of God in their thinking.

• They practiced things worthy of death and approved others who did likewise.

slide

b) God’s response to Man’s ungodliness and unrighteousness

• God gave them over to unbridled passion resulting in dishonored bodies.

• God gave them over to degrading passions resulting in diseased bodies.

• God gave them over to depraved thinking resulting in deplorable living.

Although unbridled sensual and fleshly behavior becomes more and more accepted today, there are still those in society who still view such behavior as destructive.

Such practices invite God’s judgment through natural consequences like incurable disease and intolerable emotional trauma and relational disaster.

Failure to live according to God’s standard (unrighteous living as opposed to righteous living), results in a continuous demonstration of faulty thinking.

All through this first chapter, Paul exposes a clouding and darkening of the reasoning powers and a definite deviation in thinking from God’s ways.

Hebrews teaches us that it is the practice of the truth that trains the senses to discern between right and wrong.

It stands to reason that it is the suppression of the truth that deadens our sensitivity to right from wrong.

All behavior flows out of belief.

Right thinking generates right living.

Wrong thinking generates wrong living.

Paul will urge the Romans believers to experience spiritual transformation by renewing the mind with God’s thinking.

Failure to honor God as God…

Failure to live according to God’s standard (godly, righteous living)…

Opens the door to any number of actions that God calls “improper” and “worthy of death.”

Let us briefly review that list once again lest we fail to grasp the gravity of our sin against God.

Filled (at a point in time and still filled) with all unrighteousness (failure to live right).