Lord, I swear there's no pain I know there's no danger In that bright world to which I go Welcome to this podcast from Faith Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. Faith Bible Church is a Christ-centered, Bible-teaching ministry dedicated to bringing the good news of the Gospel to the whole world. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And now, for this week's message from Pastor Alan Battle. We are nearing the end of our study in Romans. Today we conclude with the section that began back in chapter 14 concerning believers who may have disagreements over non-essential issues. We learned that there were weak believers who thought it was wrong to eat certain foods and that they had to observe certain days of worship. These were probably Jewish believers who were holding on to cultural aspects of Judaism. They were in conflict with the ones whom Paul calls the strong in faith, who knew that these things have no real bearing on our relationship to Christ. We learned that the strong in faith must not despise or look down on the one who is weak in the faith, that the weak is not to judge the one who is strong, that the Lord is the master of us all and we have no right to tell our fellow servants how to live. that we must not destroy our brethren by selfishly demanding our rights and that the strong have an obligation to bear the burdens of the weak. We also said that although Paul makes a distinction between the strong and the weak that we should all behave as the stronger brother when we come into conflict over these kind of non-essential issues which means we defer to our brothers and sisters in humility And the flip side of that humility is that we should consider that we might very well be the weaker brother sometimes. None of us have arrived at perfection yet. And although verses 7 through 13 of chapter 8 conclude this section that began in chapter 14, it also serves to bring an end to the practical Christian living section of the letter that began in chapter 12. and in doing so it also brings to an end the theological body of the whole letter. The remainder of the epistle will be dedicated to Paul's personal reasons for writing the letter, his calling as an apostle to the Gentiles, his plans for future ministry, and his final greetings to individuals in Rome. So in two or three weeks we'll be done and I will be sad to leave the book of Romans. We began this just over a year ago, which is a reasonable amount of time. Pastor John Piper took over four years in his Roman series, and I know there's others who've taken even longer. But I have something good planned for our next series. I'm not going to tell you what it is yet, though, because I want to build anticipation. Okay, on to today's passage. Do you remember that in our last time together, Paul said that the Old Testament was given to Christians so that they might have hope to enable them to glorify God by living in unity with each other? The passage today picks up on all three of those themes, hope and unity and glorifying God. It turns out that the three are inextricably tied together. So I've titled this message, Unified Hope. Paul's concern is that the Jews and Gentiles at Rome be unified. But unified in what? In glorifying God together. And why do we glorify him? The simple answer is that we glorify him because of the hope of the gospel. This is the great overarching subject of the whole letter. It's all about the gospel. We can boil down today's message to this statement. God is glorified when his people are unified in the hope of the gospel. And this hope was first offered to the world through the Jews, going all the way back to Abraham. And now just four years after Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, he arrived in Rome. He was under arrest in order to answer charges before Caesar. and as was his custom everywhere he took the gospel the first thing he did was call the Jews of the city together and in Acts 28 20 he says for this reason I therefore have asked to see you and speak to you since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain the hope of Israel. He's claiming that the gospel is not new, it is the ancient hope of Israel. In today's passage, Paul will demonstrate through quoting the Old Testament that this hope of Israel was always intended to include all of mankind, not just the Jews. This tension between Jew and Gentile has been evident throughout the book of Romans and it is at the center of this section concerning the stronger and weaker brethren. So that's the context of our starting point today. Unity among the Jews and Gentiles in the Roman Church. We begin in verse 7. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. So what's the basis of the unity among the Romans? The fact that Christ had welcomed all of them. Not just the weak, not just the strong, Not just the Jew, not just the Gentile, but all of them. And this message is not just for the original recipients of the letter. This is a universal truth for all of God's people for all of God's time. We must all welcome one another. If Jesus accepts you, and he knows you far better than I do, what gives me the right to reject you? We may have valid theological reasons to attend one church over another or to avoid doing ministry with another church, but that does not mean that we can treat other believers with anything other than brotherly love. None of the non-essential things that true believers divide over are going to matter in eternity. And within the local church, you must do everything within your power to maintain the unity of the spirit among your brothers and sisters, as is commanded in Ephesians 4.3. And we often discriminate and reject people over the pettiest issues. Some avoid others simply because they don't like their personality. Some will not associate with Christians of another socioeconomic status. And that's true for both ends of the spectrum. Some Christians, I'm sad to say, still see people of other races as inferior. That should never be. And one division that is growing in intensity today is the division over politics. I am personally having a real hard time with this in my interaction with other Christians on Facebook. I ask for your prayers. that God will teach me how to be both firm in my convictions and loving towards those who disagree with me politically. So, what kind of person would you have a hard time welcoming as your brother or sister in Christ? How about a serial killer? David Berkowitz, known as the son of Sam, became a believer after being imprisoned. for his crimes. Check this out. My name is David, and I've been in prison for going on 34 years now. Before I came to know the Lord, my flesh was just going crazy and had no control over anything. It didn't even try to control me. You know, back then, I committed some very serious crimes. Six murders, injured a lot of people. I have grief over that and a lot of regret. And God is still continuing to heal my life from those things. And as time goes on, I continue to pray for the families of those I hurt. A lot of this was the suffering I brought on myself through my own sinful actions. But God is good. God is good. And he's brought me a long ways. I think in all seriousness and soberness when I shudder to think what my life would have been if I never came to Christ. I honestly believe that I would not be alive today. I probably would have taken my life because in my times of depression and darkness, there was really no reason to get up in the morning, no reason to go through the day. It was a lot of pain, a lot of mental and emotional anguish and guilt and torment and all these things that I was carrying. And when I came to the Lord, you know, the Lord began to change all those things. Yeah, okay, that sounds easy, that sounds like just words. People can say, yeah, sure, right. I don't expect people to believe me, but that doesn't matter because the Lord is still working through me, and so that's really what counts. So I'm the Lord's servant, and I know what Jesus Christ has done. with my life, and I'm so thankful for that. I began to read the Bible. I developed a thirst for the Bible. I couldn't put it down. I was reading it every moment. Every time I was back in my cell, back from my work assignment or whatever, I couldn't wait to pick up the Bible. That verse from Ephesians chapter 3 verse 20 comes to mind, that the Lord is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all I could ever ask or think. I'm not worthy of these things. I don't deserve this. You know, I don't deserve all these wonderful, wonderful blessings of just knowing that God is using my life for His glory and honor, but to think that at one time in my foolishness and in my, you know, wickedness that I allowed Satan to use me for his purposes. You know, God has allowed me to experience, in my own life, freedom in many ways. The Lord set me free from a guilty conscience. He set me free from my self-destructive and self-sabotaging behaviors, which caused chaos for me all my life. He set me free from the power of depression, which I was afflicted, something I was afflicted with all my life. He set me free from the power of Satan, because Satan had a hold on me, probably since I was a kid. And I have freedom to share my faith with other people. And I'm also free from that power of sin that had me bound for so long. No one has done so much bad or so much evil that God will not forgive them. Even though I've been behind prison walls for more than three decades, I no longer see the prison bars. My eyes focus beyond that. I see Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith. My freedom is found in one word, Jesus. Could you accept David Berkowitz as your brother? Jesus has. And Jesus is using him to advance his kingdom within the prison where he will live the rest of his natural life. One of the criticisms that Jesus' opponents leveled against him was that he was a friend of sinners. Thank God that he is, or none of us would have any hope. This is the gospel, that Christ died to save sinners like you and me. In that way, we're all the same. Let's move on to verse 8. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. Paul is hearkening back to a title that Isaiah used for the coming Messiah, the servant. Isaiah foretold of a servant who would bring Israel back to the Lord and become a light to the Gentiles. He says here that Christ is that servant who came to do two things, confirm the promises given to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles might glorify God. Now Paul argues from several Old Testament passages that this plan of salvation was intended to include the Gentiles from the beginning. He introduced this idea clear back in chapter 1 of the book of Romans in verse 16. It is a key feature of the gospel. He said, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. To the Jew first, in order to confirm those promises given to the patriarchs, then to the Greek, that is to Gentiles, so that they might also glorify God. In chapter 2, he chastised the Jews for excluding the Gentiles. He quoted Isaiah who said that they had caused God's name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles because of their hypocrisy. They had failed in their mission to take the message of Yahweh to the rest of the world. Then in chapter 3, he asked the rhetorical question, is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? And he says clearly in Romans 10, 12 and 13 that there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile and that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now he will illustrate with some of those promises that were given to the Jewish patriarchs. In order to show the comprehensiveness of this claim, Paul chooses verses from each of the major divisions that constitute the Old Testament. the Torah, the first five books, the prophets, and the writings, everything else. So the first one is from the writings. Look at the second part of verse nine. As it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. This is from the Messianic Psalm 18, where David, who is a type of Christ, praises God for delivering him and installing him as king over Israel. But not only over Israel, over the Gentiles as well. The Messiah, the anointed king, it says in verse 43, you have placed me as head of the nations. Nations is Gentiles. For this reason, he's praising Yahweh among the Gentiles. At this, the Jews might be tempted to do an end zone spike and say, yeah, he's going to crush those Gentiles. This was the hope of many in Israel in Jesus and Paul's day. They were looking for a Messiah who would be a conquering king and come and free them from the hated Romans. But Paul's next citation from the Torah shatters that fleshly attitude. He says in verse 10, And again it is said, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. Now we see that the Gentiles, they're going to rejoice with God's people. This is from Deuteronomy. It's the last line of the Song of Moses that he composed immediately after God parted the Red Sea. This is another messianic psalm that clearly teaches that God is going to atone for the sin of his people. which will include the Gentiles. Here is Deuteronomy 32-43 from the New King James Version. It says, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants and render vengeance to his adversaries. He will provide atonement for his land and his people. The Hebrew word for atonement is Kippur. In ancient Israel, Yom Kippur was the annual day of atonement in which the high priest went into the holy place of the temple and offered blood on the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the people. That yearly ceremony, we are told in the book of Hebrews, was a picture of the ultimate atonement that Jesus offered as our high priest by dying on the cross once for all to pay for the sins of the whole world. Now to reinforce this point Paul jumps back to the Psalms in verse 11 and again, praise the Lord all you Gentiles and let all the peoples extol him. This is from a simple two verse call to worship found in Psalm 117. Let's look at it from the New American Standard Bible. Praise the Lord all nations, laud him all peoples, for his loving kindness is great toward us and the truth of the Lord is everlasting. Praise the Lord. That word loving kindness is God's mercy for sinners. In the New Testament it is reflected in the word grace and John says in the beginning of his gospel that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Grace is his undeserved favor given freely to sinners who come to Christ through faith. Now Paul finishes it off with a citation from the prophets in Romans 15 12. And again Isaiah says the root of Jesse will come even he who arises to rule the Gentiles in him will the Gentiles hope. I love how the Holy Spirit ties this all together in the end. This is an elegant piece of writing. He began with the assertion that Christ was promised through the patriarchs so that the Gentiles would glorify God for his mercy. And here we end with the promise to the patriarch David, Jesse's son, who would produce a descendant who would sit upon the throne of Israel forever to rule the nations. And Isaiah expands on that promise and says, not only will Messiah rule over the Gentiles, the Gentiles will hope in him. And this hope is the cause for Jew and Gentile alike to glorify God together. As I said in the beginning, the gist of this passage is God is glorified when his people are unified in the hope of the gospel. We saw back in chapter 5 of Romans the crucial role that hope plays in the life of the believer. You might remember this illustration from Romans 5. I called it the cycle of hope. We have peace with God because we are justified by our faith in the atonement of Christ on our behalf. This produces hope, hope in the glory of God, which in turn gives us the ability to exalt or to rejoice in our tribulations, which produces endurance as we wait on his deliverance, which grows our character, which in turn produces more hope. And this cycle continues until we leave this world or the Lord returns. And what is that hope? It is the hope of his return. The ultimate hope for the Christian is the second coming of Christ. Paul calls Jesus' second coming the blessed hope. That's what we're waiting for. It's what sustains us as we wait. It works together with our faith in this life as we anticipate the next life. Faith and hope are required in this life because we don't see him yet. But when he comes, faith and hope will no longer be necessary because we will see him as he is. Back in Romans 7, Paul said, that hope that is seen is not hope. But at his coming, that hope will be realized. The best place to see this in the New Testament is found in 1 Corinthians 15. starting in verse 19. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Death is no longer an issue for us. Jesus came the first time Just as God promised through the patriarchs in the Old Testament, He died for our sins and was raised from the dead. Because of this, He has welcomed us into His eternal family. And because of this, we must welcome each other and glorify God together in the hope of our coming glorification. And this blessed hope not only gives us the strength to persevere in the face of the trouble in this life, but it actually provides us with something amazing that the world desires but cannot experience. It gives us a life that is unexplainable and impossible apart from the supernatural power that works in us. Paul ends with this benediction. Verse 13, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. This is Paul's prayer for the Roman Christians, that by faith, this hope might give them joy and peace through the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. If you know this God of hope, he will give that to you. This is God's desire for his people. And this is my desire for us as a church as well, that we might be so unified in love and hope for his coming, that we would experience together this supernatural lifestyle that glorifies God among the lost people around us. This is not simply doctrinal truth that we're required to affirm. This is experiential faith, a faith that encompasses the whole person, the mind, the will, and the emotions. Do you have this kind of hope? You can. It is available to anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. This is what Jesus meant when he said that he came that we might have abundant life, a life full of his peace, love, and joy. If you have never experienced this, you may have never placed your trust in Jesus. In order to obtain the free gift of salvation, you must receive it in faith. That means that you must trust him for the forgiveness of your sin. It means you must forsake your sin, that you repent and stop trying to run your own life and put yourself in the hands of the Lord. If you have trusted Christ for the forgiveness of your sins yet are not experiencing this joy and peace on a regular basis, it may be because you are not glorifying God in unity with your brothers and sisters. There's no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian. We are social beings and we cannot glorify God properly on our own. Worship is meant to be corporate. We must be unified in our worship. To be unified is to share our lives together on a regular basis. It does not mean simply listening to a 30 minute sermon and singing some songs together. It means true relationship with one another. It requires fellowship. It means sharing our struggles with one another and it means encouraging one another in those struggles. It means glorifying God together as a unified people in the hope of the gospel. Let's pray. Thank you, Father. Thank you that you've called us together to worship you as one body with one voice Lord, thank you that you've called us into your family, and that there is no distinction between Jew or Gentile, male or female, anyone, Lord. We are all your children. We praise you. Thank you that you've given us this unity. And we pray that we might reflect that truth as we walk through this world. We pray it in the name above every name, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Thank you for listening to the preaching of God's Word from Faith Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. We hope that it has been an encouragement to you and that the Word of God will fill your hearts and minds as you walk through this world. If you have been blessed by this ministry and would like to make a small donation to help defray the costs of this podcast, just click on the green support us button at the top of the webpage. Thank you.