"it's Never Enough"

“It’s Never Enough”

Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-31

This morning we are beginning a sermon series on the Book of Romans.

I hope we can at least get a little taste of the rich depths of this letter written by the Apostle Paul, and I hope you will stick with me.

Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians of the early Church contains some of the Church’s most important theological writings.

At the same time, they can be difficult to understand and difficult to preach, so I will try and make them as accessible as possible.

It is important to get a grasp of Romans, the reason being a lot of our understanding of salvation by grace through faith is contained in these pages.

And the reason I started with Romans 1:16-17 is that these verses contain the summary statement for the entire book.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel,” Paul writes, “because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”

This sums up the entire letter, and though it may sound simple, it is often very difficult for us to grasp.

(pause)

A long time ago there was a guy who, more than anything wanted to get to know God and know that God loved him, accepted him and had saved him.

And so he read his Bible.

He studied it hard.

He got to know all the “Thou shall nots…” and the “Thou shalls…”—the whole shabang!!!

He even went off to a really good seminary—one of the best—where he studied about God and the rules of the Church.

And then, he himself became a priest.

And he found a group of like-minded folks, who wanted to please God.

They got together and formed what would soon be called “The Holiness Club.”

And “The Holiness Club” worked really hard, trying to follow all the rules in the Bible correctly.

They figured that if they just tried hard enough they could be perfect and acceptable to God.

But this was a frustrating thing to try and do because try as they might, they were just human beings with temptations, flaws, sinful inclinations, and so forth just like everyone else in the world.

They did a lot of things.

And their intentions were good.

But ultimately, they were left feeling defeated and alienated from the God they were trying to emulate.

Eventually, the young priest who had set out to make himself the perfect Christian decided to give up.

He realized that he couldn’t achieve his goal.

And oh, was he depressed.

And oh, did he feel like a failure.

He had really hit rock bottom.

He felt that he would never, ever be able to measure up to the high standards of God as written out in so many pages of the Bible, the Old Testament in particular

One night a friend of his invited him to go to a special Bible study.

And he didn’t want to go.

He’d been to enough Bible studies to last a lifetime, thank you very much, and see where they had gotten him?

But his friend was persistent.

So, reluctantly, he went.

And this Bible study, well, it wasn’t an incredibly academic affair.

It wasn’t like his seminary classes.

There was no highly educated scholar upfront using high and lofty words.

Instead, someone was reading something that someone else had written.

It was something that a man named Martin Luther had penned some 200 years earlier—a commentary on the Scripture passages we are looking at this morning.

But as the down-and-out priest listened to these monotone and straightforward words —something started to stir deep in his soul.

And an epiphany started to come upon him.

His heart started to beat faster, and he felt perspiration begin to form on his skin.

And then something unique happened.

This man who had been reading the Law in Bible and trying to follow what it said for so long experienced something he had never experienced before.

And the best way he had to describe it is this: he said that he felt his heart become “strangely warmed,” and for the first time in his life, he did believe that Jesus Christ had died for his sins—even his—and had forgiven him and saved him from the law of sin and death.

He then, spent the rest of his life growing in his new relationship with God through faith in Christ and sharing it with others.

This man’s name was John Wesley.

He went on to lead the most significant Christian revival the world has, perhaps, ever known.