The Book of Romans, Part 2

The last time I started into a study of the Book of Romans, and we'll plunge back into that tonight, I said at the time that we're not going to be going through verse by verse just every point and detail of the Book of Romans.

Otherwise, we would be going through this for quite some time. And on a monthly Bible study, I don't think that that's necessarily the thing to do if we were meeting every week or whatever. But I will be giving... we will be... what was that? Puddle. Oh, okay. We will be going through continuing in chapters 3 and 4 and 5 here as we go along tonight. I got to reading ahead the other day and went through chapter 8 and gave a sermon on chapter 8 last week in Indianapolis.

And so I'll probably give that as a sermon up here this Sabbath. So we'll cover chapter 8 in a sermon that will jump ahead a little bit, but that's okay. It'll still flow together. But I'm taking kind of an overview, kind of a macro view of the Book of Romans. Romans is a book that is very dense, very heavy, theologically. There are a lot of subjects such as grace, justification, baptism, the Holy Spirit, relationship of the Jews and the Gentiles. And you can really just dig and dig and dig into those subjects and get quite detailed before you even begin to exhaust the subjects and almost impossible to do.

And we're not going to be able to do that. It's not my intent. So I'm going to just try to be hitting some of the high points. And I think there's an advantage even to that. While you can talk about the law a great deal, and we will talk about the law in general, there's a value, and especially to this Book of Romans, I think, of looking at taking a high view of it rather than going through all the minutia and trying to dig out all of the understanding that is there in every verse.

Because you can study a book like Romans and many of the other writings of Paul for doctrine. And really just doctrine, doctrine pull out various understandings about doctrine, and they are very important for that. And there is a great advantage to us in doing so. There's also an advantage of taking a study or an approach to a book and try to hit the main themes and get the overview and grasp an understanding, kind of a Cliff Notes version of the book, kind of a synopsis of things rather than all of the detail.

And I think in terms of just understanding some of the broad themes and maybe even understanding some aspects of what Paul was really trying to address and what God is telling us through these books, that can be an advantage for us as well. So at least for this study, we will try to stay out of the details as much as possible as we go through here.

I think last time I got into Chapter 3 and we had brought this down. A few things that I had mentioned just by way of review. This book was written by the Apostle Paul to the church at Rome. He had not been to the church. He did not start that church. And he was writing it at a time in his travels and ministry when he had a pause. And he had the time to address himself to the church and what he knew of the church in the city of Rome and being the Apostle to the Gentiles.

It was on his mind. He had intended to go there. And he tells us that in the last chapter he told them that he intended to go there, which he eventually did, but not in the way that he wanted to or thought that he would. You may recall how Paul did go to Rome. Does anybody remember how he finally went? He was a prisoner. So he got an all-expense paid trip to Rome courtesy of the Caesar and the Roman Empire.

That's not how he intended to go. He intended to go just as a minister. He ought to catch a boat, go over, freedom. But he went as a prisoner. And if you remember at the end of the book of Acts, we find at the end of the book of Acts, which is just a page or two behind us here, that he stays in Rome, had a hired house, and he taught the kingdom of God, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence. And he stayed there for about two years as a prisoner, kind of under a house arrest, and he was able to receive people and probably had limited mobility.

So that's how he went, which tells us that, you know, sometimes God has different things in mind as to how things are going to work out than what we plan, organize, and think, even in our own lives. That's one big lesson to take from Paul's overall approach to writing a letter to the church at Rome. He intended to go there in one fashion, and he wound up going in a different way.

God had something else in mind, and that's often the case. And so I encourage you, as you read along, as you listen tonight and take notes, go back over some time, or spend some more time in the book of Romans, to look at the book as a book that helps you develop a relationship with God and understand what God is saying, doing, working in your life. And use that time, use this study, and look at this book not so much from a heavy doctrinal point of view, and to try to prove something, or to, you know, there's a time and place for that.

I'm not discounting that at all. But I'm just saying, look at it as a means of just understanding what Paul is telling us about how God is and how he works in this world and what he is actually doing. Because I think that that is a major theme that I am pulling out of it, kind of in my own mind. I want to keep coming back to it. He starts off on a very high level in the first chapter. He talks about the gospel of God, the first verse of chapter 1.

It's a unique approach to it. The gospels talk about the gospel of the kingdom of God, the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. Paul uses this term that he was separated unto the gospel of God. And that is a different term, and it's all encompassing in one sense. It includes the gospel of the kingdom of God. But through this message here, he is revealing something. Remember the word gospel means good news. And he is revealing something about God.

And God's overall plan of bringing people into his family through the various things that he talks about. So keep that in mind as we talk about these real heavy topics like the law, justification, grace. And relate that to the gospel of God and the message that is here about what God is doing. And how God works with us, how God is working in this world.

Because that is how Paul in a sense unfolds this. And he may be doing a brain dump on this. I mentioned last time that the book reads like something that was probably dictated. There are sections that kind of go back and forth, thoughts that go back and forth. There is even one section, you may get to it tonight, where he kind of ends the thought and really doesn't complete it. Where he is talking about the sin of Adam up in chapter 5, I believe that is.

He doesn't really complete the thought. So it is like he is pacing up and down in a room, dictating it to a scribe who is writing things down. So it has that approach and that flow to it. Sometimes as I have been looking at it, it reminds me of the sense that maybe Paul is just kind of unloading everything. He is doing a brain dump into his scribe. He is writing this out. And God's spirit has moved him to do so because God again has something else in mind rather than Paul just putting down a dissertation.

God had in mind putting down some very deep and profound thoughts about what is being done here. So let's jump into chapter 3. He starts by talking about what advantage has the Jew or what prophet is there of circumcision.

And he is writing to a predominantly Gentile church at Rome. And so he has talked about mankind as a whole in the first couple of chapters. Man did not like to retain God in their knowledge. And now he is talking about the Jews. He is making this contrast between the Greeks and the Jews, or the Gentiles and the Jews. And he says they do have an advantage because to them we are committed the oracles of God. The Old Testament, the law, that covenant, that relationship, that is something of prophet. It is an advantage that they have.

They were chosen through the seat of Abraham to have the oracles of God. That was given to them. They were in charge, if you will, of the Old Testament and those scriptures. And that is who God was dealing with. And yet they had their problems of unbelief. And he says that does not negate the faith of God.

It does not make it of no effect. Verse 4 says, let God be true, but every man a liar. God is true no matter what human beings do. So God's word stands, even though the Jews failed, and Israel as a people failed in their God-given destiny, that does not negate the plan of God. God even knew what was going to happen. He foresaw that because of the primary fact that He didn't have the Holy Spirit, which He's going to show later on in the book, is the key ingredient that is needed to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law and that way of life by His Spirit.

So, again, God's word is true. It is not changed. Verse 7, for if the truth of God has more bounded through my lie to His glory, why am I yet judged as a sinner? And not rather, as we would be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation or judgment is just. What then? Are we better than they? No, and no wise. For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is no right and unrighteous, no not one.

There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable. There is none that does good, no not one. And so, again, that speaks of Jew and Gentile alike in that sense. Verse 18 kind of sums it up, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things so ever the law says, it says to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law defines what is sin. Sin is the transgression of the law. So this is here talking about the fact that laws defines what sin is and he says that by the deeds of the law, there will be no flesh justified in his sight.

So he begins to talk about this concept of justification, which we'll come back to. For now the righteousness of God without or apart from the laws manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets. The righteousness of God, which is by faith of Christ, unto all and upon all that believe, for there is no difference. All have sinned, come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This is a very fundamental point right here that justification has been done freely by the grace of God through Christ, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.

Then down to verse 28, he says, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without or apart from the deeds of the law. So what he is saying here is that the works of the law do not justify anyone. Now let me talk for a moment about justification. This is a major term to understand. And essentially what it is talking about, justification is being made right before God. It is forgiveness. It's a process of being made righteous in the sight of God. It involves forgiveness.

It involves repentance. It involves the grace of God. It is bestowed by God. It is done freely, as verse 24 tells us. It is given freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ, through his blood, faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed.

So when we come to the point, essentially when a person comes to understand and to be convicted of sin, and guilt before God for transgression of the law, and recognizing that we all, like those that stood before Peter on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, who were convicted because they understood at that moment in time that they were responsible for the death of Jesus, whom you have crucified, they were convicted.

And they said, what shall we do? Peter said, repent to be baptized every one of you for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2.38. That sums it up in one sense, and any and all from that point on who come to that point of repentance, such as I think all of us in this room have done, we then are made just before God. We are justified. Not by anything we've done, not by any law-keeping, not by any of our own righteousness, but because freely by the grace of God made possible through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And that's what he is saying here. He says again in verse 28, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the needs of the law. So no Jew is made just by their works. No Gentile is made just by their works. No human being is made just or righteous in God's sight by any works that we can do. And this is one of the themes that really begins to pick up at this particular point in the book of Romans, that Paul spends some time analyzing and showing very clearly that the gospel of God is not about self-salvation, self-salvation, self-help, self-works.

It isn't about that. So many of the pagan religions of the ancient world that people would have been familiar with felt that the gods that they worshipped had to be appeased. Sacrifices, even human sacrifice had to be done to appease the wrath and the actual anger and human emotions of their God. And it was a whole system of works and penance in that sense. And don't confuse the sacrificial system of the Old Testament with anything like any of the pagan sacrifices and works and deeds that were done at that time.

There is no just comparison whatsoever. And Paul is showing here that this process of coming into a relationship with God that is called justification that eventually leads to redemption is not done by anything we can do. No amount of Sabbath-keeping. No amount of any other righteous deed. Whatever you want to call it. Whatever you want to think that it is, that you and I do.

Whether it's by the cardinal points, the Ten Commandments, or just loving or being a good person, that doesn't earn us anything. That doesn't mean we don't live that way. That doesn't mean that's not the path of life that we live.

And Paul doesn't do away with that. It's just that by your doing it, or my doing it, any work like that does not gain us one measure of righteousness. I think we all understand that. I hope we understand that. That is essentially what he's saying.

It's not by the deeds of the law. Verse 30 says, Seeing it as one God which shall justify the circumcision or the Jews by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. It is God that justifies us, not the works of the law. Now again, I mentioned this last time.

This is why you read the book of James in one sense before you read the book of Romans. Because James very clearly shows that faith without works is dead. He said, show me your faith and I will show you mine by what I do, how I live. So James is very elemental, very fundamental, and it is important to read and understand before you read the book of Romans. Maybe we should have done that, but we're at least covering that in this particular point.

Again in verse 31 he ends this section. He says, Do we then make void the law through faith? It's almost like he knew that as he's preaching or talking to his scribe, that he says, you know, I better answer this question because some are going to misinterpret what I'm saying. Do we make void the law through faith? No. God forbid. We establish the law. It is by keeping the law that we establish it.

At this point I would just turn over to chapter 8 and verse 4. We'll probably come back to this verse many times. Romans 8 and verse 4 says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. There is a righteous requirement of the law. And the law is righteous. Holy, just, and good, as it says in one of the points. But Paul goes on, will later say that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

There is a righteous requirement of the law that is inviolate. It cannot be done away. It cannot be thrown out. But that righteous requirement is not done by our human effort, human works. It is done by God's Spirit in us as it writes His law upon our hearts, which is the essence of the description of the New Covenant. I will write my law on their hearts. That's how that is done. And that is done through faith in Christ. And if Christ lives His life within us, that righteous requirement is done.

And we know how to live before God, to honor Him, to obey Him. And we do it not thinking we're earning anything, even after we're baptized, but we are doing it because we know that is how it works. That is what God expects and does require. And that it is still a matter of if it is not done, it is unrighteousness and therefore sin, and not according to what we have. So Paul, verse 31, makes this pause and says, don't think I'm doing away with the law.

It's not voided through faith. It's established. We established it. Now, in chapter 4, he begins to talk about Abraham. Actually, he's going to talk about Abraham and David. Chapter 4 is a very interesting section as he begins to talk about our father, Abraham, our father pertaining to the flesh. What shall we say that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he has whereof to glory, but not before God.

Was Abraham justified by works? Well, he says if he was, then he would have something to glory, to boast about, but not before God, only before himself, to whatever degree he had accomplished that. Abraham, he's going to go on to show, was justified by faith. He was the father of the faithful. And so he's drawing, going back into the Old Testament story, Paul wasn't thinking Old Testament in that sense. He was just going back to the example of Abraham that he well understood, showing what that really means in light of the Gospel of God, what's being done.

He says what says the Scripture? What's the story of Abraham? He believed God. He was counted to him for righteousness. Now to him that works is the reward, not reckoned of grace, but of death. If you try to work up the ladder and climb that ladder of salvation on your own, then it's like something that's old to us, and we then have earned it. And that's not how he says this, but it works. He says to him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Abraham obeyed God, as we know, because he had faith in God. The faith was increased by his obedience.

That's what he did throughout his example, whether it was to pack up and leave his home, go to where God showed him to go, whether it was to have faith in his promise to provide a seed, to even sacrifice his son Isaac and to take him to that point where he was willing to do that.

And all the steps and all the episodes of Abraham's life show his belief, also shows his weaknesses, too. There were moments that Abraham didn't have perfect faith when he lied about his wife Sarah, when he went into Hagar and conceived a child by her rather than having faith that God could open the womb of Sarah. So he was very human and didn't do it all perfectly, didn't negate his faith, didn't negate what God was doing with him. But the things that he did were counted to him for righteousness, even as David also describes, the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, or counts righteousness without works. As it says back in verse 3, it was imputed to him, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

I'm quoting from Psalm 32 there. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will impute no sin. And then he says, Comes this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or the Jews, or upon the uncircumcision also, the Gentiles. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness sake. How then was it reckoned when he had been circumcised or prior to being circumcised? He says, not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

In other words, he's saying that Abraham was justified before God while he was yet uncircumcised. He was obeying God in faith before the actual command to be circumcised was done when you go back and put it together there. So he's saying, look, he was justified or walking in faith before that. So it's not the matter of the cutting of the flesh that did anything. There's merely a sign of that covenant. He said, and again, by this time, the Jews had made a very, very big part of that tradition and that ritual, and that sign of circumcision, which was a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised.

That just merely affirmed it. It's like being, you know, when you and I are baptized, when we go under into a watery grave, which is a physical rite ritual, just like circumcision is, you know, there are two different things, obviously, and women are not circumcised, so it's only a male thing. But it's still in the sense that it is a physical act that one might do to fulfill a part of a covenant, an agreement, relationship, or command of God.

In our case of baptism, that is merely an outward sign of something that has already transpired in our hearts. You've already come to the point of repentance. God knows the attitude. That baptism by itself doesn't do anything. It is something that should be done, and it is a step to take. We look at it as a physical ritual, and just like anything else that's physical, it doesn't merit us anything, but it's already the faith that we have, and it professed. You remember when you were baptized? You were in that water, and the minister asked you if you'd repent of your sins, and you had accepted Jesus Christ?

We all said that. We weren't baptized. We had not been put under the water at that moment. You're sitting in there. You're professing your faith at that moment. I did, and we all did. You accepted Christ as your Savior, and you'd repent of your sins. So you had the faith before you got all wet. And by getting all wet, you didn't really do anything other than get you wet. We should do it, because it's an example. But I'm just trying to use that as an illustration here to show us that Abraham had faith imputed to him before the circumcision, and he went through that physical ritual.

We had faith prior to being baptized. And so this is what he's saying here in terms of, again, this concept of self-salvation. We have to understand how and why we do the things that we do, where it fits in the plan of God, and not worship the thing, but realize we worship God. Verse 12 says, And the father of circumcision, to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.

So he was faithful before, and he was faithful after. The promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to a seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. That's how that happened. God honors our attitude. He does not... He honors our attitude. Not a perfect record of obedience. Certainly a good attitude, one of desire to obey God, one of faith, is going to produce good fruits, fruits of righteous fruits.

But that's what God honors, and that's what he wants. He said at one point, sacrifice an offering I don't want, but sacrifice of a converted heart.

For the promise that he would be... I've already read that. If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of no effect. Because the law works wrath. For where no law is, there's no transgression. If there were no law, there would be no transgression. But there is a law, so there is a transgression. Therefore it's of faith that it might be by grace. To the end the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. Keep in mind he's talking to a group of Gentiles who did not look to Abraham as their physical father. Only the Jews did at this time. And they took great pride in that. And he's saying that he is... we look to him who is the father of us all. And as we walk in his example in faith, that is how that works. As is written, I have made you a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickens the dead and calls those things which be not as though they are.

When God says he's going to do something, it's as good as if it's already happened. And when Abraham had to look at his wife's barren body and come to understand that God could bring life out of that, which he did.

When he did take that son, then Isaac, up on the hill to sacrifice him. He did so. Remember he told his servant, he said, wait here. I and my son will go up and we will come back. You have to imagine that he knew he was going to be coming back with Isaac, even if it was going to be by way of bringing him back to life. He had come to that point by that time that he knew that God would do those things that are not as if they were. If God said it, then that would happen. He knew that through Isaac the promises would be fulfilled. And so God told him to sacrifice him. He, having this relationship with God that is far beyond really anything that any of us probably have or could understand at this time. I don't mean to belittle any of us in our faith, but he took his son up on the hill and bound him down to that altar and had the knife raised. He knew that God was going to be true to his word. He didn't know how, but he knew that he would be. And that is where he became the father of the faithful. He just knew that God said something that is as good as done. And that is at the heart and the essence of faith, which is what this whole section here in chapter 4 really is talking about. Faith. Verse 18 says, Who against hope believed in hope? You know, sometimes all you have to believe in is hope, because the physical evidence just isn't in front of us. We don't know how it's going to work out. Use whatever example you want from your life, from anything we might deal with.

And it can be a personal trial, it can be loss of a job, it can be a health issue. And we don't see how it's going to be any different from some type of a major, major trial and bad situation. And all we may have at any given moment in the depth of a trial is just hope. Because as he says here in verse 18, Who against hope believed in hope? And at the moment, in Abraham's case, when he was, to use the example of his son and sacrificing him, he believed in hope, but he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken. So shall thy seed be. At that moment, that's all, he just hoped in hope.

And you and I sometimes come to the point where that's all we have, is to believe in hope.

And nothing else, because nothing else is in front of us to show us deliverance, a way out, to the sunrise of the next day or next week. And all we might have is just a belief in hope. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body, now dead. He was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.

And being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform.

Faith is a positive attitude that all will work out fine, although all the signs at the present point to the negative. Faith is realizing that the future cannot be judged by the physical surroundings of the present, and believing that as long as God has promised to do something, he will do it. And we are able to look beyond the present of our physical circumstances. And when we are, we're living like Abraham. And that's why he says in verse 22, And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was written, it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe, on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. So that's a very powerful chapter on faith, using the example of Abraham to show how he was justified by faith, not by anything he did. And that is a far better system than trying to work out things, our own salvation, with our own efforts.

He's shown here by this example with Abraham that faith is God's one way to salvation. Both the stories and examples and the teaching of the Old Testament and the New Testament show that. And to everyone it's the same. It's the same to the Jew as to the Gentile, to the circumcised and to the uncircumcised, to everyone. Keep in mind when Paul talks about that he was separated to the gospel of God, he's now revealing that gospel of God to everyone. What is that news and that announcement to everyone? All peoples, all ethnicities. And that is how you come to this solid relationship with God in hope and in trust of what he is doing. So, he goes on now into chapter 5.

He says, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope for the glory of God. Now, that's a pretty powerful two verses right there. We are justified by faith, just as Abraham was. Again, that is a belief that in the sacrifice of Christ, who quickens the dead according to verse 17 of chapter 4, and that Christ is the sacrifice, propitiation for all of our sins, we are justified by that, and as a result, we have peace with God through Christ. We have peace as well because we come to a point of repentance. If you go over to chapter 8 and verse 6 again, where he uses the same thought and different words, in 8 and verse 6 he says, to be carnally minded is death.

To walk solely by the flesh, without God's Spirit, relying on ourself, that's death. And all the agony of death, but to be spiritually minded, is life and peace. To be led by the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, to seek the spiritual matters of life, that is life and that's peace. And so again, this concept, this thought of peace, to go back now to chapter 5, verse 1, as we walk in the Spirit, we can have peace with God through Jesus Christ. So this peace here is really and truly, you can talk about the sacrifice of Christ as a peace offering. You know, the Indian culture had a tradition where they smoked a pipe of peace between each other. We've all seen that in the movies, where they would pass around a peace pipe and smoke it. And that was their symbol of ending their hostilities, reconciling their issues, sealing a truce. And we talk about a peace pipe in that sense. A peace offering, we might give somebody a peace offering whom we have offended or have had conflict with, and we bake them a pie. We come over next door to their house. There's a peace offering, you know. And it opens a dialogue, and we're making a genuine gesture to have a peaceful relationship. Well, there was a peace offering in the Old Covenant that was meant to bring peace between the offer and God. It would have been given after a transgression of some sort. And perhaps if you went back into it and understood it, it was probably referring as well to where you may have had something against someone. You had to go and make an offering to begin to bring about peace with another individual. But the ultimate peace that Paul is showing here is with God. And where we become at peace with God in our minds and in a walk of faith, that we're confident, we're not at war with God, we're not blaming God, we're not holding something against God in our minds.

I don't know how you view God, what your God view is, if it's of a God of wrath, if it's a wrathful father figure. Sometimes we have these images of God in our mind put there because of past relationships, maybe with a parent, maybe with a father. But they're by our culture, wrongly so. Sometimes that helps us and sometimes that hinders having a truly peaceful relationship with God where we have confidence in God, we trust Him, we love Him, we go to Him as a friend and look at Him as a friend. Remember, Abraham was called the friend of God. And when you really look at the stories of Abraham and how he talked with God, and try to really walk that through and put yourself there or bring it into your own life and really understand what that means, that's a very, very deep relationship. I mean, first of all, Abraham somehow heard a voice and knew it was a different voice when God said, Get you into a country that I will show you. Genesis 12, 1. And I will make of you a great nation. You know, what Abraham did then was he acted completely out of character for a man in the ancient world.

People didn't leave their home territory and go hundreds of miles into a distant land that they had even read about it, much less seen pictures of it or heard about it. They knew nothing about it. The ancient world, they didn't know anything beyond the confines of their village or their town, whatever it was. They had no concept of travel and vacationing and taking a Sunday excursion. That was totally foreign to a mind of the ancient world. And so for Abraham to leave his home and go was completely out of character and it was a revolutionary action. He did it by faith. That's all he had to go on. And somehow he knew that voice and what he was being brought to understand was his destiny.

You know, some of us have a hard time leaving our own home today. How many of you are within a few miles of where you were born and raised to this very day? How many in this room? Okay. Think about it. Think about it. You've not left. You stay where you are. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm just saying you didn't want to go anywhere else. Now how many of us are in different places than where we were born and raised? I mean radically different. I'm not talking about the other part of the state or the part of the county. Oh, that makes a difference, huh?

I left and came back. You left and came back? How about the Oliver's? I saw you shaking your head back there. How far are you from where you lived and grew up? 300 miles. My daughter, however. Oh, I knew you were just waiting to get that.

I knew we were going on a shaky ground.

Hey, I can relate to your daughter. I'm more than 300 miles away from where I grew up, and I've been further away, too. I left home when I was 19, and I haven't gone back to live. I rarely go back home. I need to. I'm trying to work out even this summer. I can go back for even a day or two, and so far that hasn't happened.

But in another sense, there was more than I left. I left my home. I left my family.

But there was a leaving. Over the years, I've come to realize that there was a leaving, even when I still was there. When my mother came into the church, into the faith, we left our family, and we were still in the same town. When you don't go to Christmas dinner, and you start pulling away from that, you're leaving. I didn't really fully understand what I was a kid at home, but we had begun to leave my aunts and uncles. There was a gulf. I didn't realize how big a gulf until I was an adult and went back. I've tried to reconnect in some ways, but it's been very difficult.

But my mother, when she came into the faith, she literally pulled us up and out of that world. It wasn't just the Methodist Church, but we didn't go to my grandma's until Saturday or Christmas afternoon after they'd opened their presents. We'd go out and be a part of the family reunion, and other family reunions. We just looked at it on Christmas, it was just a family reunion for us. But there was a pulling away.

In our church hall down in Indianapolis, it's Adventist Church that we rent from. After we'd been there a year or two, back in 1996 or 1997, one of the early hymnals we first had in the United was this real thin blue one. I remember being at the church one day doing some work there, and the Adventist elder that we were liaison with at that time was there. He was looking at our song book. He was in the music big time, and he was showing me the Adventist hymnal. He was looking at ours, and he didn't recognize any of those songs because they're white Armstrong songs. They don't have those in the Adventist hymnal. He recognized America the Beautiful, battled him the Republic, and he was looking at it. It was like a foreign text book to him. He made a comment to me. He said, Herbert Armstrong really pulled you guys out of the mainstream, didn't he?

I said, yeah, he did. Mr. Armstrong said, we're not going to sing those Protestant hymns because you're singing. To sing a lie is to mouth a lie.

And so that's why that was behind the movement for our own hymns in that sense. And as we have even produced our own hymnal, we've had to go through and make edits in the ones that we have in there that are not written by any of us. So that we're not singing a lie. We shouldn't. But that thought has always been with me because, yeah, Herbert Armstrong yanked us out of the mainstream theologically, even musically. And what we were a part of, my mother and you and others, there was a movement. It was a movement away from false religion, whatever, to the truth. And that's a walk of faith. And what I'm trying to do is help us to understand that what we did has been a radical departure for us. And for some people, they've not been able to handle that well.

Peter Eddington and I, we were talking about this in a recent meeting. Peter Eddington was there. He was talking about how, in recent times through Facebook, he's been reconnecting with family members, cousins. In Australia, through Facebook. Because when his mother came into the church and their family and his dad, there was a gulf that began to develop in their family. And now as an adult, he's reaching out through Facebook. Facebook's a great thing in many ways for finding old friends and family. And so he made that comment. So I bring that out just to show us that what Abraham did when he left Ur of the Chaldees and went to the land God showed him. That was out of character. He pulled himself up as God commanded him. And he left his family, his familiar surroundings, his culture to follow God, the voice of God. We have done that. Some of us, you know, some of you, you're still in your hometown or in your home area and that's fine. And it's not that God requires us to do that. I've sometimes thought that, had I, I'm glad that I did leave my hometown. When I went to ambassador, I never really went back. And I have to realize, I've realized many times over the years, had I not done that and stayed and tried to... I don't know what my walk of faith would have evolved into. Obviously I wouldn't have been administered and who knows, you know, it didn't happen. But I've thanked God many times over the years as I have gone back home and would visit with my mother and dad when they were alive. And, you know, you walk the streets and the familiar surroundings and after a while you realize it's not my home anymore. I love my parents. And I would love to sit down with my aunts who are still alive. All of my aunts are still alive, my dad's sisters. And talk for a little while. But after a while you realize I've got my own life. I've got to go home. And home is not Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Home is Indiana. And home is the Church of God, God's people. This is my family. But, you know, as long as we're in the flesh, there's going to be these tugs and pulls. You don't think Abraham went through some of that himself? I'm walking us through this to try to help us understand the thinking of a man from the ancient world. And how in one sense we're not all that far different. But we've had to do all that, as he did it all by faith, we've done it all by faith, too. And it is all part of what brings us to a relationship with God that is one of peace. Through God and through Jesus Christ. And it is by this faith, verse 2 says, we stand in this grace and rejoice in hope for the glory of God. So here we get into the thought about grace. Big time thought. You know, grace and law. Grace and works. The grace of God. And this is a term that is really at the heart, in one sense, of understanding what Paul is saying through this part of Romans. Grace is more than just forgiveness. Unmerited, undeserved pardon. It is that. But it's far more. He's saying here, we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We have to carry this thought again back to chapter 8 and verse 1.

I'll do this in reverse on Sabbath when I start in chapter 8 and go back to chapter 5 and verse 1. But chapter 8 and verse 1 says, There is therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For those who walk after the Spirit, we are in Christ. And there's no condemnation. There's no judgment in that sense. When we are in Christ and we walk after the Spirit, Paul is really bringing the thought forward from chapter 5 and verse 1 and 2. We stand, we have access by faith into this grace, and that's where we stand. And there is no condemnation in there. So when you live by grace, when you live within the grace of God, when you stand in this grace, there's no condemnation. Which means that you don't have to worry that when you sin, you still will sin, but you're not condemned. You don't lose the grace of God for an hour, for a day, until you somehow get on your knees and repent. Or if you were an Israelite under the Old Covenant, until you got home and had, you know, or got down to the temple and, you know, killed a $500 cow.

And for the time you'd sinned and the time you made that offering, you were condemned. No, you really weren't. And you and I aren't today. You sinned. We're not condemned. We don't leave the grace of God, is what I'm trying to say.

And if you understand that, you don't have to fear God. You don't have to fear God's judgment or look at God as a wrathful God. We still have to repent, and we will still suffer the penalty of that sin and the fruit of that sin. But we haven't left the grace of God. We use the example of an umbrella. We're still under that umbrella. We stand in that. And when you again understand that, you recognize that as a great source of peace, which is our strength and comfort and encouragement, no matter what we may be going through. And we have access by faith and to this grace. We stand there and we rejoice. That's three or four things right here in chapter 2 that he mentions. And those are all good and great. And then he goes on to verse 3 and he says, Not only so, but we glory in tribulations. No, we don't. We don't glory in trials.

He says we do, which means we should, but also we know we don't, knowing that tribulation works patience. The trial works something. So we have to take this bad with the good. And that's where the problem comes in. He says in verse 4, And the patience works experience, and experience hope. And hope makes it not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us. So again, we get back to the love of God in our hearts. This is our fortress. This is where we live. This is describing, if you will, what you come into and how we stand, if you will, in the temple of God. Psalm 15. If I can just quickly go back and draw something from Psalm 15.

Who shall abide in your tabernacle, Lord? Lord, who will abide in your tabernacle? Who shall dwell in your holy hill? Do you live in the tabernacle, in the temple? Do you really live there? Because this Psalm describes the man who is a citizen of Zion or whose residence is the temple. That's really what it is. It goes on to talk about the character of that individual. You walk uprightly, you work righteousness, you speak the truth in your heart. We've got a psalm interheminal on this, as you know. So I ask you the question, do you really understand that you live in God's temple? That is our home. We are the temple of God's spirit. God's spirit dwells in us. I've talked about the fact that that is the holy of holies, which is true. We go back to Romans, and the first five verses of chapter 5, in a sense, describe the frame of mind, the faith, the grace, the patience, the hope that we have, as we understand that we live and dwell on God's holy hill, Zion, where the temple is, that that's our home. That's our fortress. If you want to call it a fortress of solitude, you know, Superman... How many of you read Superman when you were young? Where did he go when he needed to get it all together? Fortress of solitude. Fortress of solitude. All the ice crystals, yeah. That's where Superman went when he had to regroup. And, you know, if you saw the movies, he had his own fortress of solitude. It's pretty neat, pretty cool. You know, we all need a place to go to recoup when we get knocked around, and we don't have some place far in the north. It's interesting. Superman was far in the north, and God's throne is described as being in the north. But, you know, we have to have a spiritual fortress. And, you know, the temple is the best image of that to understand it, but wherever we are... And certainly, as God's love is shed abroad in our hearts by His Spirit given to us, that's where we go to remember these things, to draw strength from this, from that. From that faith, from that hope, from that patience, the love of God. That's where we go. And we all need to have that concept in our mind as we walk in faith and as we move forward in our life, because we have many, many opportunities to do that.

Chapter 5 is a pretty heavy section.

And I think I'm going to stop right there. With that thought, we'll cover 5 and 6 and 7 next time. And I'll cover Chapter 8 this week. And it'll be a bit of a review, but we'll go through Chapter 8 on my sermon on the Sabbath. And that'll leave us then, after the next month, prime to go into 9, 10, and 11, which is a section all to itself. And see where we are after that.

Chapter 8 is a very heavy section.