3:14--Cursing
10:9--Confession
15:6—Praising
The Three
"I Am's"
v. 14, I am
debtor (2 Cor.
v. 15, I am
ready to preach (studied and prayed up)
v. 16, I am
not ashamed of the gospel (Lk. 9:26)
It’s Always
Been about Faith
Rom 4.13-18
v. 13—The
Promise is not by the Law (Gen 12.3, before the law)
-not to the Jews only
-but to everyone (both Jesus and
Paul turned to the Gentiles; grafted in, Rom 11:17ff.)
-having seen the promise afar off
(Heb 11.13)
v. 14—if only to the law, then faith
is void (grace is no more grace)
v. 15—the law works wrath; but Jesus
placated God’s wrath (LaGuardia, 1935; propitiation, 1 Jn 2.2; mercy seat; Acts
15:5&10; 365 negative laws)
v. 16—The
Promise is by faith
-so that is may be by Grace
-so that it may be guaranteed to all
Not just to those of the
law
But to those who are of
the faith of Abraham
-call things that are not as thought
they are (outside time and space); Gen 17.5/Josh 6.2
v. 18—The
Promise was believed by Abraham (Gen 15.6)
-he became the father of Many
nations
-just as it had been said to him
It’s always
been about Faith
Rom
6.16-23
Whom
will you serve?
v.
16, when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves
to the one whom you obey (your serve someone, but only one at a time—Mt
Slaves
to Sin
v. 16, slaves to sin, which leads to death
(second death; Gen 4:7)
v. 18, you have been set free from sin (ransom;
Mt
v. 19, you used to offer the parts of your body
in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness
v. 20, when you were slaves to sin, you were
free from the control of righteousness (no one naturally wants someone to have
control over them; barriers of intellect, emotion, and will). V. 21, What benefit did you reap at that time
from the things you are now ashamed of?
v. 23, the wages of sin is death (wages=work)
Slaves
to Obedience
v. 16, slaves to obedience, which leads to
righteousness
v. 17, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of
teaching to which you were entrusted
v. 18, you have become slaves to righteousness
v. 19, offer the parts of your body in slavery
to righteousness leading to holiness (Rom 12:1-2)
v. 22, now that you have been set free from sin
and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the
result is eternal life (he is no fool, who gives up what he cannot keep, to
gain what he cannot lose—Jim Elliot)
v. 23, the gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord (gift= no work; you can’t earn it with God;
Christianity is the ONLY religion that doesn’t require works)
v.
19, I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves.
The Coming
Redemption
Rom 8.18-25
Intro: Taking child to get a shot
1. Our Suffering
Suffering is inevitable
18 I consider that our present
sufferings
All suffer—some more
than others (2 Cor 11.24 ff)
God uses suffering to
shape us
Suffering is not
necessarily a bad thing
To use the “suffering”
argument to disprove the existence of God is appealing to an absolute
Some suffering brought
on by ourselves (Heb 12.5 ff)
Two reactions to
suffering: substitution and
transformation
But Not Comparable
18 Are not worth comparing
Our life is but a vapor
5 minutes with God would
make this entire life of death, depression, and disease worth it
2 Cor 4:17ff
Our Glory
18 With the glory that will be revealed in us.
Our glory
To be revealed
2. Creation Suffers
The Creation Waits
19 The creation waits in eager expectation for
the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to
frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected
it,
All creation was
affected by the disobedience of one
What you see in this
world is only a fraction of what it was intended to be
The creation will be liberated
21 That the creation itself will be liberated
from its bondage to decay, 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning
as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Decay—2LOT
3. A Reason to Hope
Firstfruits
23 We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the
Spirit,
Firstfruits—a shadow of
what is to come; trusting the rest of the crop is coming
groan inwardly as we
wait eagerly for our adoption as sons,
the redemption of our
bodies (resurrected body); souls have already been redeemed
look through a glass
darkly (1 Cor 13)
We have hope
24 For in this hope we were saved.
But hope that is seen is
no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?
25 But if we hope for
what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently
They’ll come a time when
we don’t need faith—we will see face to face
Conclusion: Taking child to get a shot
Knowing
God's Will
1. Yielded Body
2. Separated Life
3. Transformed Mind
Rom 12:1-8
Intro: Playing football with friends, “Sacrifice
That Body!!!”
Your
Act of Worship
1 Therefore (Ch 2, 5, 8, 12; from belief
to behavior, possession to practice, creed to conduct, doctrine to duty,
exposition to exhortation), I urge you, brothers
(believers, because unbelievers cannot do this in their own power), in view of
God's mercy (that should motivate
us), to offer your bodies (all; C.S.
Lewis and dentist; cosmic bellhop; God always chooses better for us than we do;
beggar gives three grains of life) as living
(it can crawl off the altar; “I do”; “How many of you are willing to die for
Jesus?”) sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of
worship.
Mt 16:24, Then Jesus said to his disciples,
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. 25 For
whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me
will find it. 26 What
good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Be Transformed, not
Conformed
2 Do not conform (how to conform to the world—do
nothing; outside in; grasping for spiritual fruit is a waste of time—grasp for
God, and the fruit will follow) any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed (takes will-power;
inside out) by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Ps 1:1, Blessed is the man who does not walk in
the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat
of mockers. 2 But his delight is
in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
Ps 26:1, Vindicate
me, O Lord, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the Lord without
wavering. 2 Test
me, O Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; 3 for your love is ever before me,
and I walk continually in your truth. 4 I do not sit with deceitful men, nor
do I consort with hypocrites; 5 I abhor the assembly of evildoers and
refuse to sit with the wicked. 6 I wash
my hands in innocence, and go about your altar, O Lord, 7 proclaiming aloud your praise
and telling of all your wonderful deeds.
Jer 15:17, I never sat in the company of
revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and
you had filled me with indignation. 18 Why is my pain unending and my wound
grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring
that fails 19 Therefore
this is what the Lord says: "If you repent, I will restore you that you may
serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman.
Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.
Submit Yourself
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you:
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of
yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has
given you. 4 Just
as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have
the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each
member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to
the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in
proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let
him teach; 8 if
it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of
others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern
diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Concl: Playing football with friends, “Sacrifice
That Body!!!”