Recap of Seasons 1-3

Welcome to Romans Untangled, the podcast where we take a seemingly difficult book of the Bible and untangle it so that we can enjoy its beauty; season four, episode zero, seasons one to three app and we're going to recap chapters one to eleven of the book of Romans.

We have covered a lot of ground in our first three seasons here this week. We'll recap the first three seasons as we prepare to dig into chapters twelve to 16 on our final season of Romans Untangled starting next week, which will be released September 11, 2023.

Hey, pastor Steve Treichler here of Hope Community Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Welcome back to Romans Untangled. We are having an amazing summer this year. It has been I know a lot of the countries, a lot of parts of the country are hot and terrible weather. It has been beautiful in Minnesota this year for sure. Reminds us why we live in this crazy place.

I had wanted to get season four actually done and have the whole Romans Untangled series done by this time, but we had a little life situation that prevented us from doing this. If you remember late in the last season, I had talked about my mom falling. She'd fell and had hit her head, but she was recovering quite well from that in late November of 2022. However, in late December, she lost her eyesight completely. She got a very strange and rare condition called giant cell arteritis and it's been explained to me that it's similar to having a heart attack for your eyes. And she ended up going completely blind. And so we were in the midst of trying to find a great housing option for her to have some independent living and maybe a little bit of assistance in here. But now with some of her other health conditions in addition to this blindness, the only option was long term care. And eventually that's where we're all going. I know if we live long enough, Lord willing, we will probably need that, but that's just not where she's at right now. And so she's moved in with us and we have been for the first three months, we were the primary caregivers. And then since then, we've done a job of hiring PCAs, which stands for personal care attendants who have been wonderful. They have been wonderful. And if you're listening and you're one of them, you know how much we love you guys. You guys are incredible. And we've been doing really well. But by the time that got going, summer was just beginning and I thought, you know what, let's get this going in the fall. And so here we are with Romans Untangled season four kicking off now.

Now this is a recap or you might be one of the Romans Untangled faithful who have been kind of waiting for this episode to drop and waiting for the new stuff to come out and you realize, oh, recap episode that's not what I wanted. I think I'll pass. You go right ahead. You can just skip this episode and next week will kick in and we will start with Romans, chapter twelve. But for those of you who are still left after all of that, let me take some time here and just unpack some of the beauty of the Book of Romans that we have gone through. And if you were here, you'd see my notes are nothing more than a Bible that's open. And so if you got a Bible with you, it'd be super helpful. Open it up to the Book of Romans. We're just going to dig in and I'm going to go through the first eleven chapters. I'm not going to read them, I'm not going to give you everything, but I'm going to show you some of the key things that we have uncovered or looked at in order to understand this book. Okay?

Obviously the book starts where it says, "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the Gospel of God." That verse right there is a great theme for what's going to happen in this book. The apostle Paul, who was an opponent of Jesus, becomes an ardent follower of Jesus and he is now going to set himself apart in every way, shape and form for the wonder and the beauty and the majesty and the intellectuality—Is that a word? I don't know if it is or not, but the geniusness of God in what he does in the Gospel and how it fits with the storyline of scripture, that's what this book is about.— Book of Romans is about the Gospel from start to finish.

We move on down through chapter one. Paul says he's excited about the people in Rome, although he's not been there, he longs to see them so that he can mutually encourage them and bless them. And then we get by the time we get to verse 16, we get the theme of the Book of Romans. And it says, "for I'm not ashamed of the Gospel 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." That's the key theme to the Book of Romans right there, that the Gospel is the very thing that is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. And it comes because this righteousness from God is going to be revealed. And we're going to find out in chapter three what that righteousness really is all about.

Then you're thinking, this is a great book and he's talking, this is happy Gospel, means good news, it's beautiful. And then we slip into verse 18 which says "the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, god's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse." That's verses 18 to 20 of chapter one. I love those verses. They're unbelievably powerful talking about that there is sin involved in the world and it's because we suppress truth. Even though what is there about God is plain to us through creation, not everything but his invisible qualities, eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. I love the way Paul says that, isn't that beautiful? Something that's invisible, that's clearly seen. And you know what he's talking about. You can't see it with your eyes, but you know it. You know that there's a God. You know that he's powerful and he's other than you. So people are without excuse. And he goes on to describe what this looks like. And it's just a general way of talking about people who don't have the Bible. All they have is their conscience.

And in verse 25, there's probably the best definition of sin in the Bible. And it says, "they exchanged the truth of God about God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised. Amen." So what is the definition of sin? It's exchanging, it's making a trade, it's going into the store and you bring in the truth of God and you trade it for a lie. And you, instead of worshipping and serving God the Creator, you worship and serve created things. Anything in creation, good, bad or ugly, you decide to give your allegiance, your heart, your time, your affection, your worship to those things, right? And basically you look what happens then. And it says three times in the book of Romans, verse 24, verse 26 and verse 28, this phrase is repeated therefore God gave them over. Gave them over, gave them over. In other words, God's going to say, if you want those false idols in your life, go ahead. Go ahead. How's that working for you? That's basically chapter one.

When we get to the end of the chapter in verse 32, it says, although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. So what we're finding here in the end of chapter one is that even though people don't have the Bible, even though they don't know God's moral code through the Bible or anything like that, they do know it because they know God's righteous decree. And that if we do these things, we deserve death, a separation from God. There's a punishment involved and people know that that's chapter one.

Chapter two starts off masterfully, the Apostle Paul is a great communicator and he has spent a lot of years debating with people the Gospel. And so he knows the first thing that's going to happen here. People are going to say, oh yeah, I'm sure I'm not like those people. Those people are not, they don't know the Bible. And in this case it would have been the Jewish people. They would have I don't, I'm glad I'm not like them. And then Paul just says, hey, you, verse one, "therefore who have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge one another, you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things." And he goes on basically here to say that if you are a Jewish person and you have the law, you actually had it very good in the sense that you knew the ways of God, you saw God act, and your relatives got the Bible, they saw the miracles of God, they came through the Exodus, all of that. But guess what? You still blew it too.

He keeps on in verse twelve of chapter two to say, all who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the Law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. So in other words, he's saying those who don't have the law are sinners because they violate their own conscience. But if you do have the Law, you violate not only your own conscience, but you also violate the very words of God. So you're no better off.

He ends that chapter by basically saying that the important thing is not your religion, it's your heart. A person, verse 28 and 29 "a person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly. Nor is this religious practice that Jewish people had for their young male children called circumcision. Nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No. A person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the spirit, not by the written code. Such a person's praise is not from other people, but from God." So he's getting at here and he's a little bit of a foreshadowing to say what does it mean to actually be in the people of God? Is it because you're religious? Is it because you have a certain birthright? Is it because you followed certain religious practices? And Paul is saying, no, no, that's not it at all. What it is is a person who has submitted themselves to Jesus Christ. Now, he's not saying that specifically here, he will hang with me.

Chapter three then starts off with the exact question that you'd think someone would ask well, what advantage then is there being a Jew or what value in circumcision? And you think he'd say, well, there's none. But he says he doesn't say that. He says much in every way, first of all, or meaning it's not a list here, but he means by of utmost importance, "the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God." In other words, the Jewish people got the word of God. And Paul will say more about this as we, even in this episode, kind of go through the book of Romans here. You'll see they had many other advantages. But just because they had advantages doesn't mean that they're okay. Their okayness is not coming because they're Jewish or that they were given a certain status. Their okayness comes because they have had glad submission of the human heart to Jesus Christ or not. So he's going to conclude this section by saying that all Jews and Gentiles are under the power of sin.

And then he goes off and he quotes from a series of psalms, primarily one quotation from Isaiah 59 where basically saying there is no one righteous, not even one. There's no one who understands, there's no one who seeks God. And he says all of these things to show even from the Old Testament storyline, that all are sinners. And then he summarizes it. And this is a great summary of the first two and a half chapters in verses 19 and 20, where he says, "now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by works of the Law. Rather, through the Law, we become conscious of our sin." In other words, it is completely hopeless. We have no hope if we have the Law. In other words, if we know the Old Testament or we've been put under it like a Jewish person, it points to us and says, sinner if we don't have that law, but we have the conscience of our hearts, it also looks at us and says, you don't cut it. You have exchanged Creator for creation many, many times a day and you are also your mouth is silenced on the day of Judgment and you're held accountable to God and therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight.

Now, that is the worst news in the world, right? And you're kind of like, man, this is not a very encouraging podcast or even a recap kind of brings me down to the depths and I understand that. But what the beautiful thing about the Gospel is it takes that which is difficult and hard and then brings beauty to it, because then you get to verse 21 of chapter three. Martin Luther called this the most important paragraph in the entire Bible, verses 21 to 26. I'm going to read it all just because it was this beautiful.

"But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been made known to which the Law and the prophets testify." So I call this the sweetest "but" in the Bible. The Bible has a lot of great "buts". Ephesians, chapter two is one of them. And there's several places where but God's going to do something. It's a miserable situation, as I like to say. It's fourth and 99 and God makes a first down. In fact, I guess you'd have to get a touchdown out of that or it'd be close to if you didn't have to get a touchdown. But it's a miracle. God does, and he pulls it off.

And this righteousness of God is going to be manifest, it's going to be shown. And what is it now? And it says "this righteousness", verse 22 "is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice" of atonement or a propitiation, or the one who takes upon wrath for on the benefit of another through the shedding of his blood "to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just and the justifier, or the one who justifies. Those who have faith in Jesus". That says that is the beauty of the Gospel. You'll never fully understand the good news of the Gospel until you understand the bad news of our own sin and depravity. You'll never fully appreciate what Jesus Christ did until you realize the complete and utter hopelessness and helplessness we have on our own. But just when it looks terribly miserable, like nothing can happen, Christ comes. Christ comes, and he gives his life as a payment for ours. He takes our sinfulness, we take his righteousness. And we now are declared just in the sight of God. We are declared righteous in God's sight, not because of us, not because of us, but because we trust Jesus. In other words, it's because of Him. The Bible says over and over and again this has opened everyone, anyone who will simply look to Jesus, simply put your faith in Him, simply receive Him, ask Him in, take Him as Savior Lord. There's many different metaphors used in scripture, but it's basically saying, I make you my Lord, my Savior, and my guide for living. Jesus, you are my life. Those who do that, this now becomes real for you. The exchange happens. He takes your sin, we get his righteousness.

Then in chapter four, we're moving real quick here, but just hang on. In chapter four, we see that this solution that Paul is now giving to the problem of individual sin and how it's going to be taken care of and how we can become the people of God. And he now says it's like an algebraic equation. When you were a kid learning algebra, maybe I was a math teacher. So maybe you have math anxiety. So sorry about that. But let's just say you figured out a problem and it's two x plus six equals 16. And you do all the work and you find out that x equals five. And then your teacher will said, well, prove it to me. You have to check your work and the work is go put back in for x five. So two times five is ten plus six. It does, it equals 16. It works. And that's exactly what Paul's doing in Romans chapter four. Romans four is where Paul is saying, does this actually work?

With the storyline of Scripture. And he looks at it from different angles, and the angle he's going to look at it primarily is from Abraham. He's going to quote David as well, because he's going to say, David concurs with this. But he's going to go back to Abraham and say, hey, does this whole idea that you're saved not because of that you have works or you do the right things, but you're saved because of your faith, does that actually work? And he makes a big deal in here. In verse two of chapter four, it says, if in fact Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. What does Scripture say? And he's going to quote from Genesis 15 six. He says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Okay? So there's a difference here. And Paul explains that in verse four. Now, the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift, but as an obligation, right? So, I mean, if you have a job and you work at that job, you deserve your paycheck. That's just reality. I've said that at Hope. We used to have a little exercise. I do, and used to we used to get our pay stubs in our box, and I'd grab the box and excuse me, go to my box and I'd get my pay stub and I'd open up, I'd look at it and I would say, we're even. You don't owe me anything more. I don't owe you anything more, but we're even because I worked for you and you paid me. So the Church doesn't owe me a job. I could be let go for a variety of the Church wants to go in a different direction or whatever, and they don't owe me that isn't owed me, but what is owed me is the work that I've done for them, right? Well, Paul says, well, if that's true about salvation, then the biggest bolsters would ever be in heaven, right? You'd just be like, hey, man, I walked 73 little ladies across the street and I did this and that, and I'm so much better than these people and all that kind of thing. And Paul says, that just isn't how it works. You don't understand, man. You don't bring anything to the equation except sin. And God is the one who does it, and therefore it's a gift. It's a free gift. You say thank you to gifts. I didn't deserve this.

Listen to verse five of chapter four. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God, who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. That's crazy, right? That you get this not based on your works, right? Paul says it's not because of works. He also says it's not because of a religious experience or a religious performance or religious rights. In this case, it was circumcision. Or we could insert any religious rights that we go through. I go to church, I was baptized. I went through confirmation, all these kind of things. Those are not bad things, but they don't make you right with God. He says it's only those whose hearts are right with God.

Then he goes on and talk about the law. The law is not what verse 13 is not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. So he says it's not because of law either. And then he leans into that. It's because of the promise of God. God made a promise. Therefore, verse 16 of chapter four, the promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace, not by works by grace. Grace is a gift and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring, not only those who are physical descendants of Abraham, but he's the father of everyone who believes. And then he gives this beautiful, beautiful description of Abraham's faith. And it says in verse 18, against all hope, abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations. It's a beautiful account of what takes place in Genesis 15 of Abraham's relationship with God and him trusting God. When everything seemed like it wasn't going to work, then Abraham said, I trust you. Doesn't seem right, but I'll trust you.

That brings us now to chapter five. One of the most beautiful kind of summary sections we have is chapter five, one to eleven. It's gorgeous. It's right here in kind of the middle of this section. And Paul just stops and says, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We were getting wrath. The wrath of God is being revealed, and now we're gaining peace. Peace with God. It's awesome to think that that's what we have. I know. When I first came to faith, I really, really felt that if God has given me a spiritual gift, it's to remember that I were who I was before I was a follower of Christ and that I didn't have peace with God. And to have that peace with God is priceless.

And then he goes on to say how beautiful this is. Verses six through eight. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. I don't have any tattoos, but if I did, Romans five eight would probably be somewhere tattooed on my body. God demonstrates his own love for Trike in this while he was still a sinner. Not attractive, didn't pick me because I'm beautiful or wonderful person sinner. Christ died for us. It's just beautiful.

And then we move on through the end of chapter five. And the end of chapter five shows the universality of sin that goes through Adam, because Adam sinned and that covers other people there's in us. We're by nature and by nurture. In other words, we're by nature and by the fact that we have by choice sinned on our own because of Adam's sin. And it entered into the world that same way. Christ is also the way that it can cover all of us. How does his one sacrifice is very parallel to Adam's one disobedience. And he goes on to describe all of this in a remarkable way to take a look at. So that's the end of chapter five.

Chapter six, we're moving right along here, chapter six. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? This is exactly the question you should ask if in fact you are wondering how to overcome sin or why even bother fighting sin if I got grace. And Paul gives in the most beautiful possible way, chapter six, seven and eight to us to describe this is no longer who you are. You are not a prisoner to sin. You are in fact freed from that. Because not only did you die when it says in verse five of chapter six, for if we've been united with Him in his death, we're also certainly be united with Him in his resurrection. In other words, we've been given new life and sin no longer is what gives us joy. In fact, it saddens us because we've been robbed of what real life is like.

Paul goes on to and there's a lot going on here, he talks about an analogy from marriage, talking about how we have been died to the law. We are now filled with grace because of that in Christ. We're in Christ when he died and we're in Christ when we rose. And he says that's the reality of who you are. And that's what he's going through in verses in chapters six, seven and eight. And believe me, I know that's really, really a quick summary, but if in your struggle with against sin in your own life, I just encourage you to read and to meditate and to think about Romans chapter six, seven and eight, and how the Gospel is sufficient for that

He gets then to chapter nine. In chapter nine, he's speaking about another question. The new question here is that he's very saddened that in the Church, as it's taking off now in the first century here, there are very few Jewish people. It shocks Paul that this is the case. And he says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. This is chapter nine, verse starting in verse two. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship, theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, the fathers, Abraham, Isaac. On and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God overall forever praised. Amen. That is probably one of the most clear what is the advantage of being a Jewish person? There it is, all that stuff, and yet Paul says that doesn't get you in.

But the big question in Romans 9, 10, and 11 is this is verse six. It is not as though God's word had failed, god's prominence didn't fail. And what he's going to go on here and he's going to describe in a variety of ways and many, it's taken theologians a lot of ink to talk about this, to say that it's both the purposes of God and it's our choice. So you're thinking, is it predestination or is it free will? And Paul's answer is yes. Yes. No one can ever say, God, you didn't do it. Right, so therefore I'm off the hook. But Paul does go into the issues of predestination and free will and how it is people's responsibility to come to faith on their own, and that the message of the Gospel is effective for everyone who believes. And so the call there is constantly everyone who trusts in the name of the Lord will be saved.

And yet there still is this Jew and Gentile issue that he's going to address. He's addressing it in the churches because there's tension in the churches and he's talking to both of them and saying, you're one in Christ, and realize that you both come to faith the same way through Jesus, not relying on your own goodness or even your own badness, your religiosity or your irreligiosity, your moralism or your immoralism. It isn't what matters. And so he ends chapter eleven then, by talking about that God is still doing a work among the Jewish people. He's going to continue to do so much more.

And then he ends this whole section here with this beautiful doxology. And I'm going to close with this. And then as we kick off next week, it'll start on the echoes of this beautiful. Doxology. He says

"o the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay them for from Him and through Him and for Him are all things to Him be the glory forever. Amen."

That's the God we serve. That's the God that Paul is teaching us about. And that's the God that we're going to learn how to follow in some very practical ways in chapters twelve to 16 that we're going to kick off next week. Thanks for hanging out here on this recap issue. Went a little longer than I thought, but it's right in there. We're in the same basic time as frame as other Romans Untangled. I look forward to seeing you next week as we start season four of Romans Untangled.