“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). Romans 8 reveals a powerful picture of all that heaven wants to make available for those who are following Christ. Failure is not an option! 

<p>“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). Romans 8 reveals a powerful picture of all that heaven wants to make available for those who are following Christ. Failure is not an option! </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Matteson Mission School

The Power of God Unto Salvation

Daniel Pel

Something or Someone?

Father in heaven, thank you so much for these moments that we can come together like this, that in freedom we can open your word and study it together.

Father, I pray that you will bless your word this evening and that you will bless us.

Lord, as we receive it, may it not just be a theoretical truth that we seek to understand with our minds, but may it be a beautiful life-transforming truth that we embrace with our hearts.

Let us be receptive to all that You have to tell us.

For we ask this in Your beautiful name, in Jesus' name, let everyone say, Amen.

Okay, Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 1, and I'll just right away make a disclaimer here.

We are gathered here this weekend to study the book of Romans.

And as you understand, in 5 sermons, we are not going to be able to go through 16 chapters.

But what I have, what we will endeavor to do is I will choose some portions that I hope will inspire and bless you and also encourage you to go back and to study more in depth the book of Romans because there's just so much here for us.

It is also a book that fits so well with the year 2017.

1 of the students, Marcus, already mentioned how it's the year of Reformation.

Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis on the church door of Wittenberg in 1517.

Here we are 500 years later in 2017, and 1 of the books that Martin Luther wrote most about and preached most about was the book of Romans.

And isn't it fascinating that he is using the book of Romans to oppose the church of Rome?

When I say to you, what comes to your mind when I say the church of Rome?

Many of you are thinking of the Saint Mary and the idols and the Pope and the veneration of saints and the candles and the holy water and all the traditions, but before there was a papal church, there were a gather of believers in the city of Rome, and it was to those believers that Paul wrote a letter.

Isn't it fascinating that the letter to the book of Romans is the true gospel on display that was later distorted by the Church of Rome.

So we have to decide today, as we are seeing before our very eyes, the world gathered together, the Protestant denominations running back to Rome as we see an ecumenical movement take place, we need to decide, are we going to decide to follow the Church of Rome as it is today, or are we going to follow the letter of Rome, the letter of Romans?

Because the letter of Romans opposes the present-day church of Rome.

The letter of Romans is the pure, undiluted, unchanged gospel of Jesus Christ.

Romans chapter 1, and beginning in verse 1.

Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, he introduces himself as a servant of Jesus Christ, and then immediately he tells us that he has been separated to the gospel of God.

And if you've read the book of Acts, you will know that the way that Paul was separated, the way that he was called as an apostle was a very dramatic turnaround in his life.

He was on his way to the city of Damascus.

He was on his way to persecute the Christians, and he met Jesus.

He looked face to face into the face of Jesus, and he had a radical turnaround, and he became an apostle.

Now verse 1 to 7, okay, Romans 1, verse 1 to 7, is what we would call the greeting of Paul.

But I want you to take notice of something.

This just came to my attention as I was reading it through again today, that even in the greeting, Paul cannot contain himself to already start sharing the gospel.

It's almost like he's going to say, you know, he's going to give them a greeting and, you know, maybe, what do you do when you have a greeting?

You maybe tell where you've been or what you've been doing or what you plan on doing or something about maybe your family situation.

Or when we give greetings to each other, we say things like that.

Paul is going to give a greeting and then suddenly out of his mouth just comes the gospel already.

He says, verse 1, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

Concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

Through him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name among whom you also are the called of Christ Jesus to all who are in Rome beloved of God called to be saints And it's almost like he has this moment of, oh yeah, what was I doing?

Yeah, this was, by the way, the greeting.

Oh, yes, grace to you, peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So he just bursts out into a gospel declaration in his greeting to the believers in Rome.

It's like you going, you know, meeting your neighbor, and your neighbor says, yeah, it's a beautiful day, isn't it?

And there was another beautiful day 2, 000 years ago when Jesus rose from the grave, He set us free from sin, and 1 day He's going to come back with great power.

He cannot contain Himself, He must share the good news, and when he's going to give his greeting to the believers in Rome, immediately out of his mouth comes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is really in a nutshell, the gospel, Jesus, how he came, what he did, and what we are called to be through His name.

And then he follows in verse 8 to tell them about his desire to meet them in person.

You see, Paul had at this point not set foot in the city of Rome.

As a matter of fact, the book of Romans was written on Paul's third missionary journey when he was in the city of Corinth.

Now if you read the book of Acts, you will find out that Paul made 3 missionary journeys through Asia Minor, Turkey, what we now know as Turkey, and Greece, and such.

But the fourth journey was not a voluntary journey.

The fourth journey that he eventually did make to Rome was 1 in which he was a slave.

He was actually on his way to be judged in the city of Rome.

But at this point, he's still a free man.

And at this point, he is expressing his desire to come to the city of Rome.

You see, you need to know something about the city of Rome.

Paul had a great gospel ambition, and he thought, if I can get the message of Jesus Christ to the capital, to this great metropolis, this great city, then from there it can spread into the highways and the byways of this empire.

By the way, on my last message on Sunday, and I hope you stay to the very end, my last message is entitled, Gospel Ambition.

And we're going to look at how Paul was a man that had gospel ambition.

He was not settling for anything less than seeing the gospel impact as many people as it possibly could through the humble means that he was able to bring by God's power, through God's power.

So we'll look at that on Sunday, our very final message, Gospel Ambition.

But already in the first chapter, you can see this ambition coming through.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

For God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers.

Making request if by some means now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.

For I long to see you that I may impart you some spiritual gift so that you may be established.

That is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

Now, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I have often planned to come to you but was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles.

I'm a debtor both to Greeks and to the Bavarians, both to the wise and to the unwise.

So as much as in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also." So this is the portion of the beginning of this letter in which Paul expresses his sincere desire to come to the city of Rome and to preach the gospel to them.

So actually, the letter that he writes to them is kind of like, it is to pave the way.

You know, this letter they would receive, they would read out loud in their assembly, in the place of worship.

And Paul was in such a way preparing them for His own coming in which He would then share with them this gospel.

So we have the greeting, the nutshell of the gospel is already in there.

Then we have Paul's desire to come to them, verse 8 to 15.

And then we come to what I would argue are the most known verses in the entire book of Romans.

And these are also the verses from which we have drawn our theme, the power of God unto salvation.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

Maybe some of you know these verses by heart.

Paul says that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now remember that the gospel of Jesus Christ was the story about a man called Jesus that claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, but was crucified by his own people, however, rose from the dead and then sent out his followers to proclaim this good news, that he is alive and that he will 1 day come back.

When God Is on Our Side

Gracious Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for a wonderful Sabbath that we have had.

I want to thank you for a new week that has begun, and I want to thank you that in freedom we are able to gather here tonight to listen to your Word.

And I pray, Lord, that you will fulfill the promise of your word that says that your word will not return into you void but accomplish that in which you are pleased and Lord this is our sincere prayer tonight let not your words return unto you void but Lord may they find a dwelling place in our hearts and in our minds and in our lives.

Lord, I pray that Romans 8 may come alive this evening, that you will show us clearly that you are with us, that you are on our side, and that you want us to succeed in developing a character fit for heaven.

And that character, Lord, is a gift from you.

Help us to receive it and help us to cherish it.

Lord, tonight we pray for your Holy Spirit's guidance.

We pray that your Holy Spirit that inspired the text will now teach us and May you be with us as you have promised for this we ask in your beautiful name in the name of Jesus Amen a couple of years ago I was visiting Germany and I was going to teach there at a Bible school amazing facts has kind of a sister project amazing facts Europe in Germany and I was going to teach there at a Bible school.

Amazing Facts has kind of a sister project, Amazing Facts Europe in Germany.

And I was going to teach there for a few weeks, a couple of weeks, and during those weeks we also organized as a team and together with the students, some health presentations.

And so we would invite the community to come for these presentations.

And my wife was going to teach that evening, and so I was there, and I thought, OK, I'll just try to mingle in with the visitors and see if I can get, you know, to know someone.

And so I was waiting a little bit before the presentation was going to start, and as I was waiting, a young man came into the room where we were going to conduct these meetings.

I found out that he was from East Africa.

And as he sat down, I sat down next to him, and in the moments that we had before the meeting was going to begin, I asked where he had come from and a little bit about that he could tell a little bit about himself.

And He started telling me his life story Which then we he only got a little bit into it But then after the presentation we sat down some more and he continued to tell me his life story Which was an absolute remarkable 1 his name was Malik and he was born in Sudan and he had fled Africa because of the war taking place in his country.

And together with his father, he was only a teenager at that time, he had fled to Yemen in the attempt to get some work there and to basically start a new life.

But the situation in Yemen was very, very difficult.

Also a very unstable country, a very unstable place.

His father died while he was there and he was only a very young man at that time and so he thought that he was going to try what many people have tried and that is to get to a better continent, to come to Europe.

And as he was telling me about his life story, he was describing some of the journey that he went through as he traveled from Yemen across Saudi Arabia on his way to a better future, hopefully, in Europe.

He traveled on a cattle train throughout Saudi Arabia.

He said it was deplorable conditions, but they kept going, hoping for something better in the future.

As many have tried, he, together with others, got onto 1 of these boats, you can't really call it a boat, but a floating device would maybe be a better term, to try to make it to Greece.

Now we have all read the reports on the news or we've perhaps seen pictures, and I must admit that I've seen these pictures and I've read these reports, but it's very different when you are looking into the face of a person that is actually telling you that they have experienced such a kind of journey.

And so he's describing to me how they're on this floating device and they're really at the mercy of the sea and They're trying to get their way to what they believe is Greece Well, what happened is that the floating device did not?

Didn't It didn't float very well and eventually it capsized and they were all there in the water just waiting to hopefully get picked up by the Coast Guard from Greece.

Malek was 1 of the lucky ones as he did get picked up after being in the water for many hours.

He witnessed with his own eyes people dying around him.

He thought that that was the very end for him, but eventually he gets picked up by the Coast Guard and gets taken to Greece.

And he had hoped that he could settle there and have a future there, but the situation was very, very difficult.

He told me that Greece can maybe be a nice country when you go on vacation, but if you're a refugee in Greece, it's a very different world.

And so he decided that he was going to continue his journey.

And he went by foot through a variety of countries of Eastern Europe and at 1 time he had to get across the border and he was going to go into Romania and as he was going to make his way across the border it was during night and so he had paid someone and it was really the last money that he had, he had paid someone that was going to help them get across the border by night, and they were going to go through a forest, not to be detected, not to be seen.

And so as they're on their way as a group, making their way, these migrants, going through a forest during the night in Romania, suddenly their guide that they had paid the money to was nowhere to be found.

And so here they are wondering where they are.

The morning breaks, and it starts to get light around them.

And they're just wondering even in what country they actually are.

They came to a dirt road, and Malik was together with his wife.

And by this time, they also had a young child that they were with.

And so he is waiting there by this dirt road and just hoping that a car will come by that can take him to perhaps the closest town or city where he can try to get some more help and eventually try to get a refugee status in this country of Romania.

And so he's waiting and eventually a car comes by, he tells me, and he gets into the car and he tells that he wants to get to the closest town and the man in the car wants some money from him, which he does not have.

And so he explains that he has no money, but he really needs to get to this town.

He's together with his wife and his child and they just need to get out of this place where they are now.

And the man looks at his hand, and on his hand he had a ring.

And so the driver said, okay, give me that ring and I'll drive you to the closest town.

And so he takes off his ring and he gives his ring.

And he gives the last kind of thing that he has on his body here to this driver, and the driver brings him to the town.

He comes to the town and he registers there.

He gets some help, but it was very, very difficult.

He says that there was really not enough help at the refugee center, and so in order to really survive and for him to provide for his family, he actually went out during the day and he would sit on the street and beg for money.

Well, what happens is 1 day as he is begging for money, there is a Turkish businessman that was visiting Romania that comes by and asks him about his story.

And so Malek starts describing the journey that he has been on.

Now I'm telling you this journey and maybe I've been telling you this now for about 5-10 minutes.

This is actually a journey that spanned altogether 15 years of his life.

He was about my age, mid-30s, but for 15 years of his life he's been traveling, he's been on the go, he's been searching for a better future.

And so this Turkish businessman listens to his story and then he takes out a whole bunch of money and he puts it in Malek's hand and he says, get your family on the next bus and go to Germany.

He purchased the bus ticket and together with his small family, they went all the way to Germany.

They arrived at a German train station in Frankfurt in the middle of the night and so they slept that night at the train station.

And the next day, as the morning breaks, Malek is now trying to find some help.

And so he's going around asking people for where can he possibly get some help.

It ends up that they advise him to go to an evangelical church.

And so he goes to this evangelical church, and eventually there they start helping him, and he has a place to stay.

And eventually, Malek got refugee status in Germany, and now he lives in Germany today.

And as he's telling me this whole story I think I'm thinking to myself what kept you going?

I mean through all of those trials, through all of those difficulties, through all of those disappointments, what kept you going?

What made that you got up the next day and continue to try to get to a better place?

And I asked him the question, I said, Malik, what kept you going?

He said, I believed that God had a plan for my life and that he was on my side.

He said, yes, in the midst of all of these difficulties, I still believed that there was hope.

And that four-letter word, hope, makes an enormous difference in the life of a person.

I mean, someone said, you know, you can go days without food, and you can go perhaps some days without water.

You can go some seconds without air, but you can't live without hope.

And for Malek, this was the driving force in his life that he believed that God was on his side.

And so he kept going, and he kept going, and he kept going.

Today, Malek is actually helping other refugees that are coming to Germany, and He is part of an organization that is receiving them and helping them establish themselves in the country of Germany.

And he can understand where they're coming from and what they have gone through because He has walked that way himself.

He knows from experience what it is to be like, to be on the move and to be looking for some better life.

As I contemplate and think about the story of Malek, I'm reminded of The promise that we have in Romans chapter 8 turn to Romans chapter 8 and we're gonna go through this chapter together But let's start with verse 31 Romans chapter 8 verse 31 And this is where we have also gotten the title for our presentation this evening our study this evening comes from this very text Romans 8 and verse 31 the Bible says what then shall we say to these things if God is for us, who can be against us?

He who do not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

And when it says these things, What shall we say to these things, Paul says.

And when it says these things, what shall we say to these things?

Certainly he's referring back to the things that are mentioned in Romans chapter 8, but on a larger context than that, He's really referring back to all that is written throughout the Book of Romans so far.

The Book of Romans is a most wonderful, beautiful, panoramic picture of the gospel.

We talked about this a little bit earlier, but the progression and beauty and buildup of the book of Romans just surpasses human invention.

Righteousness by Faith Is a Choice

Heavenly Father, we are gathered here together in anticipation that you will speak to us once again.

We have opened our Bibles to Romans chapter 9, and Lord, we ask that you will make this text clear for us.

Lord, we don't want to approach this book like any other textbook, thinking that we are capable in and of ourselves with our human wisdom to understand the things that you have revealed to us, because your word itself says that spiritual things are spiritually discerned.

And so therefore we come before you this morning asking for your Holy Spirit, asking that you will give us a spiritual mind to discern spiritual things.

Help us, Lord, to understand what you desire to teach in the book of Romans, and specifically now through chapter 9.

We ask for your blessing and for your guidance in Jesus' name.

A little bit of background before we dive into Romans chapter 9.

We've already mentioned it a couple of times here during the weekend that this is a special year.

500 years ago was in many ways the beginnings of this Reformation, and here we are in 2017 thinking back on what has happened through the Reformation.

Now within the Reformation movement, there were really 2 streams, 2 streams of the Reformation.

The 1 we can refer to as the Megasterial Reformation, and I'll explain a little bit in a moment what that means, and the other stream of the Reformation we can refer to as the Radical Reformation.

Now the Megasterial Reformation were Reformers like Martin Luther and Swingly and Calvin, and what they believed is they saw teachings from God's Word that had been in darkness for a long time.

And so, especially like Martin Luther, he stood up and he preached and wrote about righteousness by faith and many other subjects.

But as these reformers got a foothold in Europe and as people started adhering to their teachings, they were still of the opinion that the state could, to a certain degree, control what people believed or did not believe.

Now this has been a problem throughout the centuries of the Dark Ages, that with popery it was such that the Pope was not just a religious authority, but he was also a stately authority.

And the state was in many ways opposing and persecuting those that believed differently than Rome.

Sadly, as the Reformation broke out in Europe, some of these traditional way of thinking that state and church were to be united still existed among some of these reformers.

Like if you look at, if you study the life of John Calvin, which was very, he ministered for a long time in the city of Geneva in Switzerland.

He sought to create there, in a sense, a church state, where the state still had control and was cooperating, united with the church.

On the other hand, you have what we could refer to as the Radical Reformation, where there were movements and voices within Europe that said, no, we need a separation between church and state.

And this later really got traction when the pilgrims and such, the Puritans and others, moved to the United States and they established what we now know as the Bill of Rights, where church and state is no longer 1.

Everyone has the freedom of conscience to decide who they are going to worship.

But interestingly enough, you see these 2 streams of the Reformation.

Now those that were adhering to what we could call the Magisterial Reformation also were very strong on the teaching of predestination, sometimes also referred to as double predestination.

Now what is predestination or double predestination?

Predestination is basically saying that God, as His first attribute of His character, He is sovereign.

Now that's a biblical teaching that God is sovereign, but in the teaching of predestination, the sovereignty of God basically overrules everything else about His character.

And it basically says that God is sovereign and God determines everything before it happens also regarding those that are going to be saved and those that are going to be lost.

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Series

The Power of God Unto Salvation

When God Is on Our Side

Transcript

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Parent Series

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Parts

Something or Someone?

49m

When God Is on Our Side

1h 1m

Righteousness by Faith Is a Choice

55m

Sound Doctrine