The Riches in Romans
Part 1
"Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?"
We’re going to study one of Paul’s greatest works for the next couple of weeks.
While the four Gospels present the works and words of Jesus Christ, Romans Explores the significance of His sacrificial death.
“I want to start this sermon with a slogan that you will hear a lot the next few weeks: The good news of Jesus Christ is more than facts to be believed: It’s a life to be lived – a life of righteousness befitting the person, justified freely by Gods Grace through the redemption that is in Christ”
A Intro
Mat 11:1-3 Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities.
2. And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples
3. and said to Him, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?"
Here we have John the Baptist asking Jesus whether He is the one who was prophesied to come.
·John ask this question and I sense a feeling of doubt with him
·Forgotten are the day when he baptised Jesus
·Forgotten are the day when he himself saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus
·Forgotten are the words from heaven “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Notice one thing if you might:
·John is asking this question from behind bars.
·He is in jail, he is like the church in Romans will be, Persecuted for their faith
·He ask the Question: “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another”
With this question in mind lets go to the book of Romans
B Study:
Romans 1:1-7 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God
2. which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures
3. concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,
4. and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
5. Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name,
6. among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ;
7. To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We’ll do these seven verses today. There are lots to say about them.
We notice in v7 and 15 that this letter was addressed to the church in Romans.
·Romans were founded in 753 BC next to the Tiber River.
·Since then until today it has become ons of the best known cities in the world. We all know about the colosseum that was built there. It spreaded out to fill seven hills with about 4 000 000 citizens in 14AD
By the time – 57 AD – when Paul wrote this letter, there were general peace from the Roman Empire with the church. The Roman Empire was the most famous and far-flung Empire of Christs time He was born under this Empire, Lived and was Crucified by this empire.
They – the Romans generally left religious action over to the Jews. They had their own gods, Emperors etc.
But then came the conflict between the young church and the Roman Empire. Now, the characteristic of the Romans was patience, and the Church characteristic was kindness. This was ideal for them to work together, but they could not.
The Christians swore allegiance to Christ whereas the Romans did not like this. The Christians believed that if you want to become saved then you need to change to Christ way of live. A live that was but forth in the scriptures. They soon find out that the world was no friend of Grace. The Christians were charged with being the most unsocial people, They were hated for their simple and modest way of living, They would not go to the games that was held, They started condemning the Romans for their pagan worshipping.
This brought tension, when something went wrong the Christian were blamed. Great persecution broke out.
This forced them to hide in catacombs Catacomb was a network of tunnels 2-3 miles out of Rome.
Being caught up in this like John was in Prison, the question might have come to them.
Why are we doing this? Was Jesus the Real One who had come? Or was there another one?
And although this letter to Rome was dated before all these things happened they now could relate to it.
We today in the year 2002, although not being persecuted the way they were can relate to this.
We are in a way worst of! We are persecuted by rejection. People don’t want to be with you because of your faith. Even in this church here today, there might be people who have family trouble because of your faith in Jesus Christ and your way of living.
Paul reminds them and us today whom it is about.
He starts this letter by explaining who he is and whom it is about.
He says I am:
I.
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God
I’ll give you word explanations for time purposes
Bondservant One who is entirely out of own will the property of another?
of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle Jesus called Him to be Apostle on Damascus RD
the gospel of God This is what it is about
What is the Gospel of God? – It is Salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.
Now he shows us that Jesus is Lord:
II.
2. which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3. concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
God himself promised through the scriptures that Jesus would come
I can’t name all the prophecies now, due to time, but the first point made is that Jesus was Prophesised about
III.
who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,
Nobody denied this when Jesus was alive.
His bloodline was out of David to become the King of Israel
John 1:14 say that the Word became flesh and lived among us.
IV.
4. and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness,
This happened when John baptised Him.
A voice came from heaven and declared that He was God’s Son
V.
by the resurrection from the dead.
Jesus rose from the dead on the third day
VI.
5. Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name,
6. among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ;
Paul says that it is through Jesus that we have received Grace
and we need to be obedient even when things are not going good.
Even when we are persecuted,
It is good to know that we have a reason to believe.
Because He lives we can face tomorrow
Look at the answer Jesus gave in Mat 11: Matthew 11:4-6
Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: [5] The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. [6] And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.
Paul confirms it here in Romans.
How do we relate to this. We can be encouraged to know that all is not in vain.
