October 21, 2002
LifeWay Family Bible Series for Nov. 3
Every person on Earth needs to hear the gospel
___Romans 1:1420; 2:1724
___By Rick Willis
___First Baptist Church, Roscoe
___Legendary missionary Lottie Moon is credited with saying, "Surely there can be no deeper joy than that of saving souls." Whatever we choose to call it, giving personal witness to faith in Christ and then seeing another person come to accept the message is a thrill.
___Many influences conspire to hold us back from helping others to faith. Prayerful meditation on the first chapters of Romans can help loosen the hold.
___The purpose statement of Paul
___Just as John 3:16 has been called the gospel in a nutshell, Romans 1:14–17 has been called "the little Romans." It may even summarize Paul's whole theology. It hammers home the universal urgency of the message of Jesus.
___To catch the cause-and-effect flow of the verses, it helps to consider their content backwards. Verse 17 states the bedrock Christian conviction about salvation. "Salvation" means to be rightly related to God. The only way to be rightly related to God is by faith in the gospel message of Jesus Christ. That message proclaims that estrangement from God died with Jesus on the cross and a reconciled, right standing with God was brought to life with the resurrection of Jesus.
___Whoever believes the gospel inherits not what they deserve, but what Jesus deserves. That treasure is a right standing with God that comes straight from God himself.
___Verse 16 emphasizes that the way God bestows salvation is through the delivery and believing reception of the message of Jesus. God's drawing power lies in the gospel message. But the message sounds like an embarrassment to the Jew and nonsense to the Gentile (1 Corinthians 1:23). Therefore, temptation always pesters us to be ashamed of the gospel. That temptation, however, pales in comparison to the actual results in people's lives when they believe the gospel.
___In verse 15, the eagerness to share God's message gets center stage. Forget embarrassment. The eagerness is like a compassionate doctor who recognizes his obligation to save an accident victim.
___Verse 14 uses two pairs of descriptive words to embrace the whole Gentile world. Paul's duty to spread the word that faith in Jesus makes us right with God extended to everyone.
___To know Christ is to be in gospel debt to anyone, anywhere who doesn't know him. Every Christian can sense a personal purpose statement in Romans 1:1417.
___Who needs the gospel? Case study No. 1
___Why is the gospel message necessary? Does anyone not need to hear it? Paul used two familiar categories of people to explain why everyone needs the gospel message. In chapter 1, he wrote mainly about Gentiles, meaning people with no background of God's special revelation to Israel. In chapter 2, he wrote mainly about Jews.
___The Gentiles lacked the benefit of being raised in homes where God's word was taught. They didn't know of God's character and his will as revealed to Abraham and Moses. They didn't know the Ten Commandments.
___The absence of God's influence shows up in the moral decay of a culture. Paul described the downward spiral of disregard for God (Romans 1:2132). He identified the wreckage of unrighteous life as present evidence of God's final wrath against sin (1:18).
___Can anyone plead ignorance and be acquitted for wrong against God? No. Paul says the godless are guilty of selective hearing. They "suppress" the truth (1:18). They anesthetize themselves from God's touch in their consciences. As writer Annie Dillard expresses it in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek": "Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see."
___Those who have never heard the gospel are accountable for the conscience that they do hear--and ignore.
___Who needs the gospel? Case study No. 2
___By describing the obvious sinfulness of Gentile culture, Paul was actually baiting his Jewish readers. They would have read chapter 1 with vigorous agreement about the guilt of the Gentiles. Think of the reception one political party gives to a heated speech against the opposing party.
___Then in chapter 2, Paul introduced a brilliant twist. The obvious sinfulness of Gentile culture reflects the basic sinfulness of all people, including the Jews! Paul's charge was this: Superficial adherence to the letter of the law does not excuse a lawbreaking imagination (Romans 2:2123; Matthew 5:2028). And the contents of the heart find a way into action.
___For example, in Paul's day a pious Jew might preach hard against idol worship and still find a way to profit off of the pagan idol trade. (Compare Romans 2:22b with Deuteronomy 7:2526; Joshua 7.) In our day, high-profile hypocrisy from Christian leaders fulfills Romans 2:24.
___Whether infamously "bad" or famously "good," all are estranged from God. The gospel is for everyone. No one can be reconciled to God apart from faith in the message of Jesus Christ.
___Question for discussion
___
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