So when we look at these 3 reasons, it lists this in the commentary. It says, 1, he wanted to impart some spiritual strength, a spiritual gift to strengthen them. He discussed spiritual gifts in more detail, like when we get in chapter 12, which is one of my favorite chapters of the whole Bible, but when we get there, buckle up, because I don’t know how we’ll do that in 1 week. He mentioned he’ll talk more about spiritual gifts and his understanding of gifts as given by God through the Spirit.
Then the 2nd reason Paul mentions that he wants to visit them so they might be mutually encouraged. And we’ll read that today. That’s part of today’s reading. And Paul, in his humility, was actually saying, like, “I know I still need to grow and I want to be encouraged by your faith as I grow in my faith and likewise encourage you and yours as you grow.” It’s, it’s beautiful. So the commentary says maturity breeds humility, and the mature believer values others and the contributions they bring to their own growth.
And then the 3rd reason Paul wanted to visit the church builds on those 2. And it says by strengthening, by him strengthening their ministry and by them strengthening his, together they could have an even more fruitful ministry than they could do separately. So Romans is beautiful because it’s—I don’t remember where I read this, it may have been in the notes that we’re going to read in a minute—it is the most concentrated and elaborate unfolding of the gospel in all of the New Testament. So Paul does the most theological scaffolding to help us understand the beauty of the gospel, but how it actually impacts our life.
Somewhere I read, and it was probably in here, the first 11 chapters of Romans are very much laying out the theological framework of the gospel. Romans 12 forward is like the very practical, like, “Now that you understand the gospel, how does it now impact your day-to-day life?” So Romans is wonderful and it’s a great letter, and it’s, it’s neat because at the same time he was hoping—and again, I really wish I could remember where I read these things, but too much—he was hoping that by gaining the Romans, like, a common bond with them and like a “together for the gospel” kind of mentality, it would also help him get to Spain, which is not important for today’s lesson, but it always blows my mind a little bit that he was looking to get to Spain. Like, I think about Spain as like—and for them that was the edge of the world, but… like, we know people who’ve been to Spain. We know people. Like, this was the West. I mean, this is Europe at that point. So it’s just bizarre. I don’t think of these things overlapping. But he wanted to be in Spain to spread the gospel to even the continent of Europe as well, which is pretty cool.
So that backstory, let’s go ahead and read. We’re going to read all of chapter 1, even though the quarterly, we’ll just focus in on a portion. But we’ll read all of chapter 1. So verse 1, chapter 1 of Romans.
The gospel of God for Rome. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh and was appointed to be the powerful son of God according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.
Through him we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the Gentiles, including you who are called by Christ Jesus. To all who are in Rome, loved by God, called as saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because of the news of your faith is being reported in all the world. God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in telling the good news about his son that I constantly mention to you, always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God’s will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I want very much to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is to be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
So quarterly picks up right here in verse 13. “Now, I don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often plan to come to you, but was prevented until now in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I have had among the rest of the Gentiles. I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish. So I’m eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome.” Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.
Verse 18. For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, 4-footed animals, and reptiles. Oh, we go through 25, sorry. Therefore, God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity and so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and they worshiped and served what has been created instead of the creator who is praised forever. Amen.
And then I’ll read the quarterly stops, but I’m going to finish out. There’s only a few verses more of chapter 1. For this reason, God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error. And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right.
They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. Although they know God’s just sentence, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.
So Romans is, Paul doesn’t really—he’s not soft-peddling anything. He’s certainly, I mean, Paul really brings it in Romans because he doesn’t want there to be any room to misinterpret what he’s trying to help them understand. So Romans is a, it will be a heavy book for this year. I’m very curious. I’ll keep you updated on what the high schooler’s reaction is to actually studying Romans, but nevertheless.
What’s up? Think about a moment. There’s a question in the quarterly. This is a less depressing way to start after reading Romans 1. What’s a really good news moment that you had? Like someone came to you with great news or you got to give good news. Do you have any good news moments that were just like, “I cannot wait to tell people about this?” Yeah. Yeah.
I know. That’s always, I mean, babies are the, it’s like that’s the good news right there, little babies. I had a kid that I’ve had in class for a couple years. I’ve known him since he was in middle school because he used to be buddies with my cousin who’s a senior now. And Bennett, his mom, she actually—I think she was a few years ahead of me at Lindbergh. I didn’t know her, but she was ahead of me a few years. And really sweet boys. I only know the boys. Their daughter is grade school age to them. So they have a middle schooler and a senior in high school.
And Bennett, I found out last year that his mom, Crystal, had all of her cancer treatments. I mean, she was probably mid-40s max, like very healthy, had been a grade school teacher for years, and all of her cancer treatments were just tanking. I mean, there was no results, nothing. They’d kind of decided, like, “we’re just going to ride this thing out and do the best we can.” She decided after last school year, that was her last school year, and she would step back, and when she had good days, maybe she would sub, but she wanted to be with her kid. I mean, it was…
You could just see it weighing on Bennett. He was a junior last year while this was unfolding. No one likes that, but to watch a kid at school daily wrestle through that and try to keep up is rough. He came to find me this week, and I try not to bug him. You never know what’s the balance. How much does someone want to be asked? How much do they want you to not ask? I try to ask occasionally without overdoing it.
Apparently that mattered, because on Tuesday, his mom had a doctor appointment, and for the first time ever, numbers were decreasing. On like 3 out of 4 marks, they were going down. And Bennett, when he found out, was like, “I literally can’t wait to tell Mr. Malloy.” And it just meant the world, because I’m like, I don’t deserve to have any insight into what Crystal’s going through, but the fact that he was so—I mean, it just goes to show, when we’ve got good news, we typically don’t want to keep it to ourselves, and Bennett had great news. His mom is getting a new lease on life, and that’s an unbelievable thing. Why would he not want to share that? But it’s really special because good news matters.
So do you like getting good news, or do you like sharing good news better? Yes. Yes. Yeah, that question’s in here, and I was like… I don’t think there’s a good answer to that question. I think both are great. I don’t know which one I really like better.
In this case, I mean, the question is leading us to a place of understanding why Paul is so enthusiastic, why Paul is right. We don’t get to study it today in depth, but the first 12 verses of Romans are awesome. I don’t know about you. I have never gotten a letter in the mail that has started or ended like any of Paul’s letters. Like, the beginnings and ends of his letters are magnificent. I mean, just, he always, at some point, will talk grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Somehow, that’s woven in, whether it’s the intro or the ending or both.
He always talks about who he is, like Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, set apart for the gospel. And then he briefly unfolds kind of like that preview of “this is what has been foretold since the beginning of time. This is the thing fulfilled through this person I’m going to tell you about, Jesus.” And that’s how he starts every letter. And then he goes into detail, but it’s incredible.
So sadly, we don’t get to deep dive that, but that’s okay. It’s familiar and great and wonderful. But when we start to look at verse 8 through really 13, we start to see—and this is where the commentary did a good job of telling us—these are Paul’s reasons for desiring going to Rome. He tells them, like, “I want to see you because all I hear is good news.” What a great… letter to get, like “all I hear is good things. I want to come see you.” I mean, even if it’s not totally the truth, for Paul to write that to them is incredible. What a blessing.
And then he tells them in verse 11, “For I want very much to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is to be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.” He wants to be together with them in fellowship to build one another up. It’s wonderful.
And then that leads us to our part that we’re going to reread, verses 13 through 17. So 13 through 17 is our first chunk. And this is where we get to really dig into Romans and understand. So let’s reread. “Now, I don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often plan to come to you, but was prevented until now, in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I have had among the rest of the Gentiles.”
Um, okay. Gosh, there’s so many things to unpack in this part. It could have been 2 parts on its own. Think about when you’ve been really excited to go visit somebody. Maybe it was family members. Maybe it was old friends. Maybe you’re really into—I don’t know, I can’t think of a good celebrity right now. Wow, totally drawn a blank. Maybe you’re really into the—oh my goodness, I don’t know celebrities anymore. Maybe you’re really excited about some concert that you wanted to go to. Lionel Richie, he was at the Muny, there we go. The 1 famous thing, only because Claire told me that happened and he ended up in the ICU. Nevertheless, I used to know celebrities, I just don’t know any of them.
You know that feeling though, the anticipation of being excited to go somewhere, to visit someone, to be with someone again, to spend time with them. The most recent one I can think of, you guys, some of you met them. They were here. Our really good friends, Jesse and Erica, are missionaries in Germany. The McAllisters of West Virginia, oh, via Eldorado Springs, Missouri. They’ve been missionaries in Germany for 9 or 10 years now. And they’re back here on their furlough.
And I think we got to see them 4 or 5 times when they were here, which was a huge blessing. We live on opposite sides of the state. They were traveling all over the country because they needed to go visit all the churches that support them. And I think it was right before we left for California. I think it was the Friday before, even. We knew while we were in California, they were flying back home to Germany. And we knew we wouldn’t… we genuinely do not know when we’ll see them again because the way their mission organization works, it used to be you had to take a furlough every 3 or 5 years, and now maybe it’s not anymore. So if they come back, it’s probably for very short, like 2-week stints, not long-term. And if they’re coming back for a couple weeks, their family wants to see them. Their family has missed them too.
So we texted, and we’re like, “Is there any chance before we head to California we could just meet you guys in Bolivar?” Like a couple hours for us, an hour for them, like just to hang out for the day. Kids can see. Our kids did not meet their kids until last Christmas. Yeah. And they just clicked immediately. But I say that, Jack asks me weekly, like, “Why can’t Chilton just—Chilton’s their oldest—why can’t he just move here?” No, I’m sorry, he’s not their oldest, he’s the middle. Yeah, he’s Jack’s age. “Why can’t Chilton just move here? How far is Germany again?” And we’re like, “Buddy, it’s—do you remember when we flew to California?” Yeah. I’m like, “It’s like 2 times as far.” Okay. “Like, we can do that.”
I’m like, “Okay. Do you want me to look?” Like, so 1 day I looked, I pulled up my phone, I pulled up the airline, you know, tracker thing, I was like… he was like, “I could throw my money in, Dad, for tickets. Like, I could pay for the tickets. It’s fine. We can go.” I’m like, “Let’s go see.” So we go look it up. And you can do it for as cheap as like $3,000, but you’ve got to fly on that random Tuesday in October and come back. It’s not consistent. Usually it’s like $5,000. And Jack’s like, “Well, how much do I have?” And we’re like, “About $45.” He’s like, “Oh.”
But I say all that. We told the kids, we’re like, “You know what? That is a worthy thing to start saving for. Someday, once dad gets over—I don’t like airplanes. Shockingly, I don’t fit on airplanes. There’s a picture Claire took of me squished into a plane seat, and you’re like, cool.” Nevertheless… it would be really fun when you have a place to stay to go and visit and see your friends.
But they’re so eager to go see them. And I think the reason we get so eager—we drove down to Bolivar on that Friday really quick back and forth—we don’t have that many friends that are our age who really deeply love the gospel. Their whole life is given to working among refugees who have moved to Berlin. They literally help plant their church. They’re doing Bible studies. Their whole life is about sharing the gospel with people who, by and large, are refugees who end up in Berlin.
We have a lot of friends who are in church. They’re Christians. But the things that they want to sit down and talk about are not the things of God. And it’s not a pat ourselves on the back. It’s just we want to be around people that love the Lord and love the gospel and wrestle through how to live that out well and to be better dads and spouses and all the things. And we just don’t have a lot of those. And so we long to see them.
Jesse and I were trying to figure out the other day, because there’s the time difference. I was like, “Well, what if I called you on my drive to work?” Because then it’s like 1:30 their time when I leave at 6:30 here. And he’s like, “That actually works.” I’m like, “Perfect. We can actually talk on the phone maybe once a week.”
All of that said, long backstory. We all have felt that way about somebody. Like, we’ve all felt that way—family members, friends, colleagues, all of the above—longing to go see them. Paul is in that—like, that is his emotion now. He is longing to see them, and he has wanted to go see them for a long time and kept being prevented. And finally, Paul knows, “I’m on my way.” Like, “I’m going to get to go to Rome, the center of the empire at this point in time.” It’s amazing. I love that.
So Paul makes this comment, verse 14, yeah, I guess kind of 13 too. “In order that we might have a fruitful ministry, but well, just as I’ve had among the rest of the Gentiles.” 14, “I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish. So I’m eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”
So at first I kind of thought—I don’t know, I hear “barbarian” and it feels like a little offensive sometimes. I mean, we’re a different world, but like I hear “barbarian” and it’s typically been used in, you know, Hollywood context is like, “Oh, the uncouth and uncivilized and the barbarians. They’re horrible in their context.” And this, thank goodness for commentaries, he’s writing to people in Rome. So he’s writing to people from a Hellenistic Greek mindset. So, and they viewed themselves naturally as like the ultimate culture of the universe. And they were at that point the most prolific culture on the face of the earth.
So he was writing to Greeks, the Hellenistic people of the world, whether they were Roman or not, it didn’t matter. But like they were Hellenistic in the sense of they were part of the empire. They were educated. They spoke Greek. And then the “barbarians” was the everyone else. So it’s not unlike—it’s actually the exact same as when he’s writing into the Hebrews and he talks about Hebrews and Gentiles. He’s just saying like, “I’m talking to you, but also everyone else.” And it’s just a different word that he wouldn’t have said “Greeks and Gentiles” because they were Gentiles. He said “Greeks and barbarians” because that’s the way they understood it, which is great.
Yeah, Terry. Amen. This might show my age. I save memes that I think are funny. And sometimes I send them to people and then they look at me like, “Why do you think that’s funny?” And the people who usually look at me like that are here. Sometimes Ben will laugh. Sometimes Ben will laugh. But that’s about it.
But there was 1, and it was a bell curve, which we know bell curve is iffy on the actual—like, I don’t know. You told me something about the math of it being disproven-ish. That’s right. That’s what you told me. But you’ve all seen the bell curve, and you know what it looks like. And it showed—oh dear. I won’t e-mail it to you because you’ll all look at me like, “You really are crazy.” We already know. You don’t need proof.
But it was something to the effect of, like, on 1 end of the spectrum, you had… oh man. Stand by. I’m going to have to find it now. I’m going to try just searching “bell curve” and see if it pops up. It did not. That’s okay. I will find it. The concept of it, they were using the bell curve to show there’s the absolute simpletons in faith that have very little theological understanding, but deeply love the Lord. And then you have the extreme, like, “I know every single thing.” But there’s this—I guess the way they were illustrating it, I really don’t remember now—the bell curve was that both of those 2 people love the Lord—the 1 who deep dives and digs into details because they want to understand God more, and then the 1 who just can’t quite understand as well, like they’re not as intellectually minded, um, and both of them matter in the kingdom of God.
And we see that in this verse. That was a terrible explanation of that bell curve; watch, I’ll find it later and realize, “Oh, that had nothing to do with the thing that I was talking about.” Um, that was some weird brain tornado that you just had.
Um, but it is the wise and the foolish. “I am obligated to both the Greeks and barbarians, the wise and the foolish.” It’s this all-encompassing idea. And right in the beginning of Romans, there is no one left out. Like, this is for the world. This is for all people, which is a wonderful way to lead into. Because, again, Paul is very brilliant. We know Paul was educated by Gamaliel. I can’t ever say his name. Gamaliel. He was educated in the best places, had the best tutors, was brilliant, which, again, a great person for God to use because he could logically think through all these things. So Romans is really his magnum opus, some people would believe, because it’s so complete, so beautiful, and so well logicked out.
I am not that smart. But thankfully, he talks about fools too. One thing I admire about Paul is he doesn’t sugarcoat the gospel. Ever. He doesn’t sugarcoat what’s right and wrong. Yep. Pastors today, they’ll walk right up to the truth and stop. And stop. Yep. Yep. Paul never does that. Well, and it’s, we’ll get to that idea. I think it’s, oh, it’s in this. It’s verse… oh, it’s our next 2. Okay.
This is where I thought 13 through 15 could be split from 16 to 17. They’re kind of 2 different thoughts. So let’s reread 16 through 17 because that’s exactly what we need to talk about. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes; first to the Jew and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.”
There’s a lot of things I love about this. And we could have spent a lot more time here than we’ll be able to. We’re not terrible in time, so we’ve got a little. But when we look at this and we unfold 16 and 17, I sometimes, when I write papers for school, I will sometimes struggle to be very, what’s the word, like exact in my thesis because I’m not totally sure what my thesis always is. Usually, I mean, classes are 8 weeks, so you’re like, “I literally just read the book 6 hours ago, and now I have to come up with a really, really strong opinion about this book?” It’s not time. So I sometimes will struggle, and I’ve been knocked and I’ve gotten better at it, by not having a super clear thesis.
This is Paul’s super clear thesis because he’s brilliant and because he’s inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this. “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first the Jew and also the Greek.”
There’s a thought, and I don’t remember if it’s right here. Don’t raise your hand. I don’t want to put people on the spot. But in your heart, have you ever been nervous sharing the gospel? You can raise your hand if you want, but you don’t have to. Everyone, I think, has felt a little nervous sharing the gospel because they don’t know what’s going to be the reaction. “Am I going to hurt a relationship?” Okay. Those are all valid thoughts. They are. It doesn’t mean they’re good, but they’re valid. But I think every single person has struggled, every single believer has struggled to share the gospel.
And I think, for me, the reason I often will struggle to say something is because I forget that it’s not up to me. Brian Malloy cannot change a heart. Jay Stewart cannot change a heart. Jerry cannot change a heart. Terry can’t. Matt can’t. Ed can’t. Clara can’t. We can’t change hearts. The rest of you too. It was a lot of people to name names. Everyone was there. We can’t do it. We’re human beings. We cannot change a heart. Only the Holy Spirit can do that.
We see it all over scripture, but it’s easy to forget because we live in a world that’s very performance-based, meritocracy, do the right thing, like cause and effect. But in the kingdom of God, that kind of flits out the window and we start to remember, or we were reminded often, it is not your power that saves somebody. You are the instrument that God uses to place the truth in front of them. It’s up to him to change the heart. That’s everything. Yeah. And that’s right. That’s the reality. And I think, I think, that is my biggest hurdle is when I forget that it’s not up to me. It’s just not. So if the result is negative and they ignore or they think I’m crazy, okay. It wasn’t up to me. Yeah. Great.
Bernice? Oh, up in Michigan? Yeah. But Denise said, okay, now she’s very focused on sharing her story. And so she said, “Okay, on the way up there, we’re going to practice sharing our story.” And I’m going, “Well, are we going up there to preach to these victims that have been rescued? Who are we?” But by us just talking about our story, it made us more comfortable. Like 1 of the women asked 1 of our people—didn’t ask me, but, you know, “Why does God let bad things happen?” Classic. You know, and I’m going, “Oh, my gosh.” But I think it was Cindy. And, you know, Cindy, you know, talked to her and said, basically, “Well, we may never know. Maybe you’re to help people.” Right, right. Yeah, I love that.
So when my class this summer was evangelism, and… so we had to practice a lot, which is hard to do when you have little people at home and you work all day. But nevertheless, in trying to practice and get better at it, and let me say this: I think AI is kind of creepy. I’m just going to say it. That said, the North American Mission Board programmed an AI website for you to practice sharing the gospel. And it was great. Like I tried it a few times and it was, you could do audio so it would talk back to you or you could do texting. And it was kind of brilliant because you could put in what kind of person you want to talk to. “Do I want someone who’s more hostile? Do I want someone who’s curious?” And you could give it some details and then it would create a fake person and then it would sit there and ask you hard questions. And then you would respond back. And then it would act and pivot back. So in that sense, do I think AI is creepy? Yes. Do I think a properly programmed one that can help me get better at sharing the gospel? Okay, 50% neat. Notice I did not say 100.
All that said, we get really caught up sometimes and we worry we don’t have the right answer. I was surprised in my practicing of sharing the gospel with people during class—real humans—most of the time, if I was like, “You know what, that’s actually a question I still wrestle with. Like I have an answer and I have scripture, but I still wrestle with that one.” I was shocked how often they’d be like, “Oh, thanks for saying that.” Like, cause they, they’re expecting us to have like the perfect pat answer that doesn’t really give them any sure confidence versus, you know, “I, this is what I’m holding onto, but it’s hard.” And that to them was helpful—of not being perfectly polished.
I think we’ve all seen the apologetics people online, and they’re so good at spinning fast questions. My brain goes about a quarter of the speed of most of those guys. But again, it’s not up to me. It’s not up to me. It’s up to the Holy Spirit. So in a lot of ways, we have to remember it isn’t up to us. We have to get over ourselves, and we just have to obey.
I embarrassingly bought—it’s not embarrassing, it’s fine. I just don’t like when my family members tell me that I shop too much when it’s for books. But anyway, during class, our professor was like, “I would encourage you, buy some little gospel tracts and find 1 you love.” There’s hundreds of them. Some of them are terrible. Some of them are great. Find 1 you love and then just buy them in bulk and just keep them. Put them in your car. Put them in your bag. Put them in your desk. Just have them nearby. So not that you’re passing out $1 booklets everywhere you go, but just when the conversation and the Holy Spirit is prompting you, you need to talk to them. You have something to leave them after the fact.
And I still have not found my perfect 1 yet. I’m really close. There are at least 40 different ones I’ve bought. It’s fine. But I say all that. Even there, you can fall into the same trap of, “Well, I have to find the perfect gospel tract.” There probably isn’t a perfect 1 because everyone you talk to is a little different. Someone’s going to be annoyed that the font is a weird font on the front of it. So you have to trust the Holy Spirit to actually do… we’re just the instruments.
So I love when Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” It’s the power of God. It’s not my power. It’s not mine to do. It’s his. And then verse 17, “For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.”
I don’t remember where I read it. I think it was in here this morning. It stood out to me when I read yesterday. “For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” What do you think he’s trying to say when he says faith to faith? You don’t have to all speak at once. Here we go. Faith to faith… is this really beautiful idea of our tiny moment of faith. When we choose to believe through the power of God that Jesus is who he said he is, that begets more faith. That faith grows faith. Which is a weird concept because it’s not a 0 to 60 or 0 to 100%. It’s that ounce of faith grows more faith. And that faith grows more faith. So the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. That as our faith grows, as does our righteousness and our understanding of the things of God.
And it says, “as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.” Which harkens back to—I’ve got to find it because I forgot. 17, verse 17 says… Habakkuk. It goes all the way back to Habakkuk. The righteous will live by faith. Meaning, even the tiniest ounce of faith, that mustard seed of faith, still is enough to keep us growing in that faith. And it’s beautiful. I love it. It’s a weird thought, but it’s a great thought.
Okay, we have to keep moving. We have 20 minutes. Okay, 18 through 20. Let’s read 18 through 20. “For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Since what can be known about God is evident among them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.”
Um, there’s a phrase for this that’s in theological world and they call it—and I think it might be in the quarterly if not and it’s on my site—they call this general revelation. It is not specific revelation. It is not 1 of the prophets having God inspire words, but this is general revelation. This is me walking out in the mountains in Colorado and going, “Oh, how do you not believe in God when you see this?” This is general revelation that God has revealed himself in the beauty of nature, in the creation of people, in food and flavor and sight and smell. All the beautiful things he’s created reflect his creativity. The creation reflects the creator.
When we see Paul unfold this, Paul is kind of pivoting in this moment. So he’s talked about the power of the gospel right before, and then he explains why people need to hear the gospel. And he starts out in verse 18 with “God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” So he’s explained the gospel has enormous power, and this is why people need to hear it. Because God’s wrath is poured out against those who reject him and reject the gospel. The gospel is very powerful, and this is why we have to understand it. This is why we have to share it. Because God’s wrath is against sin. God’s wrath is against those who, it says, “godlessness and unrighteousness.” And by their unrighteousness, they suppress the truth. Ugh.
That’s when we think about that question like Bernice, like that gal that asked about like “Why does God let these bad things happen to me?” Because we live in a broken world still. We live in a fallen world that has not been redeemed—I’m sorry, has not been restored. Like it has been, it is being redeemed, it is being restored, and unfortunately we still live in the broken fallen sinful muck of it. And God has sent a way and… the godlessness and unrighteousness of humans often is what exactly suppresses the truth. Those horrible things happen because of a sinful, horrible person hurting someone. That has suppressed the truth and beauty of the world. And we have the beautiful ability, by being instruments that God chooses for the gospel, to also be agents of restoration—to go and help like they did in Michigan, to try to restore what has been broken.
So… it says then, as we read on, “Since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. People are without excuse.” Because the world that has been created—I mean, even us, as weird as we are sometimes and dumb as we can be and our hair is messed up, we are beautiful. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. I said that to a girl this week in class because she was stressing out about, like, I don’t even remember what it was. It was that dumb. And I was like, “Just remember, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. That matters.” And she was like, “I know.” And I was like, “No, you know it, but you don’t know it.” You know it anyway. It’s fine. Sometimes you have to get in kids’ faces a little bit, you know.
You hope to God saying that to them again is in the moment they get embarrassed and they’re like, but maybe later they reflect on it and maybe it will say God. What’s that? Yes. Yes. My 4th hour that I’m very excited for them to leave and I’m thrilled for 5th hour to come. Man, I pray for me for that class. I… there are at least 3 high school boys that are seniors. I mean, they’re grown, like they’re young men. And clearly, at some point, it should have been medicated. And I’m not a huge proponent of killing kids. But when you’re a high school boy, and we’re having a discussion or working on a project, and you have stood up—I mean, he can’t make it a minute and a half without walking across the room, going to check and see who walked by the door. I mean, it’s just, you’re like, “Drew, Drew, sit down. Drew, please stop. Drew, come sit with me. Drew, stop.” And you’re like, you were 18 years old. Anyway, sweet kid, just every day.
And when you have 4 of those kids, it ripples to the others really fast, which is fun. It’s okay. Pray for me. We’ll get there.
We see this unfold, and we see God’s, again, this idea of general revelation. It’s not specific revelation. It’s general revelation. And God makes all of the power of his majesty, his creativity, and even his sovereignty is evident when we really look at creation. And Paul says at the end of 20, “As a result, people are without excuse.” Like, generally, God has been revealed to all of creation.
So, the quarterly asks—and this is a great question—it says, “What does creation teach us about God’s attributes?” Yeah, Terry. Yep. “I read once that if the axis of the earth was tilted 1 more degree, it would burn up. We would all die immediately. He made us a perfect place and then trashed it.” I mean, I think about… like, I don’t… really need to go to Europe because, I mean, we’ll go someday because Jesse and Erica and our kids are there, but like I often think about, I’m like, there’s so much cool stuff on this continent that I can drive to that’s just unbelievable. When people come—were you guys watching the news all this summer when all of the people came for the World Cup—all the Europeans and people from Asia and Africa and South America, and they were, they were losing their cool because again, all they hear in the news is the really bad stuff. They hear politics and riots. They just hear the negative because that sells there too. And then they came here and they’re like, “Cracker Barrel’s everywhere and it’s awesome!” They’re losing it over, “There’s good pancakes every 20 miles!” They loved ranch dressings. Yes, and with ice, yeah.
There were a lot that were like, “I’m scared to go back, because I’ve been here.” And like, 1, who are you that you had a month off of, like, to come live and travel around and watch very expensive soccer games? Are you royalty? Like, who are these people? Nevertheless, it was awesome to see, because even—I loved the 1, there were a few guys that they talked about, like, the… the beauty of America, not a Cracker Barrel. Yes. But, but more so like, you know, last week I was in Phoenix and it was unbelievable and right in the desert and mountains everywhere. And now I’m in Georgia and like, it’s a whole nother world. And then we were up around the Great Lakes. They’re like, “Did you know how big they are? They’re oceans.” And it was, it was like this great wholesome reminder of the world God has given us.
Is incredible. I still—man, I’m such a nerd—but the amount of podcasts I’ve listened to talking about Lake Baikal in Russia, I want to go there so bad. They don’t know how deep it is. I want to go. Anyway, it’s fine. Like, but when we slow down and we get off of a screen or we’re not stressed about all the things happening in life and we see what God has created, I have a hard time not seeing God’s creativity in what he’s made.
Yeah, Terry. I think that scares me too much. I think I’d feel claustrophobic going underwater too deep. Like someone this week told me, they’re like, “Oh yeah, my dad was a, when he was in the Navy, was a submarine man, whatever they call it.” They have a name for it. And I was like, “Like he lived on them?” She’s like, “Yeah, like 6 months at a time.” I couldn’t even think about it too long without feeling very itchy. Anyway, he’s much shorter than I am, but still, it doesn’t matter.
Okay, let’s keep going so we don’t run out of time. Let’s read 21 through 25. 21 through 25. This is where it really rubber… he kind of goes a little more practical here. All right, 21… “For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, 4-footed animals, and reptiles. Therefore, God delivered them over to the desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and they worshiped and served what has been created instead of the creator who is praised forever. Amen.”
I don’t know about you, that’s a hard part to read. It should grieve us deeply. It’s… it’s so raw and painful because we know there are many who are very deep in that, but we should be able to see our own hearts and go, “Yeah, I have not always believed the truth. I have let lies sometimes be the thing that I clung to instead.”
There’s a question here that’s really good on 17, and it says, “How do people exchange truth for lies today?” How do people exchange truth for lies today? I have a list, don’t worry, but I want you because it’s, it’s easy to read here 21 through 25 and see like, “Well, yeah.” Like, you can see on the news, all the people who have traded the truth for a lie, they live in some other dream world, and they sin, and there’s debauchery on the streets. Yes, of course. But there are tiny versions of that that we succumb to as well. There are plenty of small little things that don’t seem like a giant issue, but truly add up to issues over time. So where do we see ourselves today exchange the truth for a lie?
We can start with culture if that’s easier. Where do we see culture exchange truth for lies? Right. Yeah. Yeah. The definition, like the very definition of words has been on the table big time. And it’s an interesting thought. And I’ve been watching this curiously for a while because when you change the meaning of words, you can control a narrative, which is interesting because we’ve seen it happen before. We’ve seen it happen in every civilization in recorded history, where if you can change a definition, you can change the story.
So in our culture, it’s kind of like when people… gosh, I… I hope it doesn’t keep happening more, but I have a feeling it will. When Christians are called bigots or racist or homophobic, like countering those words is really hard because those are like the ultimate throw down. And just because someone disagrees and holds to biblical truth does not make them racist or homophobic or bigots. But that’s the word that gets thrown around because no one slows down to be like, “Define the word.” No one does that.
And unfortunately, when we consider a question like this and we read Paul’s words here, that they exchange the truth of God for a lie, we see it happen in tiny ways all the time. And those are hard to catch. It’s easy to see the big ones. I wrote a couple down that maybe are helpful that kind of float around those 2.
A lie of the culture is, “I am my own. I get to make all my own decisions. I can do what I want. It’s my body. It’s my time. It’s my money. It’s all about me.” We are seeing this with young people. Genuinely pray for young people, especially the younger Zs. And now I think our middle school kids are Gen Alpha, or whatever that’s worth. So that’s high school age and younger. I know I can’t keep up all the names. And it’s like I try not to even care, but whatever.
What we’re seeing is they have so deeply been taught, both by action and word, that the world revolves around them, that to tell them the world revolves around Jesus is actually offensive to them. These are Christian kids, or at least kids who have grown up in loosely Christian homes. And to tell them—like I was talking to our spiritual life director. He’s one of my best buddies. He teaches spiritual disciplines. Super cool class. Just talking about Jesus as the center of all things, about a cross-centered life, was actually like kids were offended in class. Because it’s so deeply ingrained in them that they are the center of all things. They are their own person. They get to make all the calls. And something that doesn’t cater to all of that is wrong. That’s scary. But again… we exchange the truth of God for a lie.
I’ve said it a million times and I’m gonna keep beating this drum until I’m dead. That’s why we have to let scripture actually be our authority, because we make really bad authorities. We’re bad at it because we’re dumb, we’re human. So those are a couple.
We see also in culture, “my feelings are authority” or we see—I made a list, this is very short—like we redefine, this goes back to that, like letting words be different meanings. We redefine greed as ambition. Like, “Oh, they’re just really ambitious.” No, you’re greedy. Like, there’s a difference between ambition and greed. And we have a lot of people that are ambitious, but they’re just greedy. Like, they’re not ambitious because they want to make the world better or solve problems or give great people jobs. They want another boat. And I don’t mean like a little boat, like we have a kayak at home that we need to get out in. We’re talking like, “I want a new $28 million yacht.” I mean, this is a different mentality.
We redefine lust as self-expression. “I’m just expressing myself. How could that be wrong? I’m just being free.” We redefine gossip as concern. “Oh, well, I’m just very concerned.” Okay, when did you pray about it? Sorry, I’m getting like—but I’m talking to me too. The mirror is right here, friends, right here.
We rephrase disobedience as authenticity or misunderstanding. Where we’re like, you know, when we don’t obey, when we don’t do what scripture—it’s like, “Oh, I’m just being authentic. I’m just telling you the whole story. I’m being real.” What?
People will find their identity in anything but Christ. They’ll find it in work or their wealth or their neighborhood or whatever. They’ll find it in anything but Jesus.
And then I kind of—this is where it gets bleaker. I started thinking yesterday, I was like, “Okay, how does the church do this sometimes? How are we as Christians?” Because I can look at that and go, you know, lust is not self-expression, it’s lust. Like, Christians can typically spot it. But us believers… and we talked about this a few weeks ago with Ruth and Providence. Sometimes we use God instead of worshiping God. He’s like our cosmic pinata where it’s like, “Well, if I press the right buttons on the vending machine, I’ll get the blessing I want.” It’s not the God of Scripture. It’s because it’s using God versus worshiping.
We confuse cultural values with Christian language. Busyness is not a virtue. It’s not. It’s not on any list of every single virtues. But people will kind of conflate busyness as like, “Well, I’m being faithful.” Maybe. Maybe you’re also being busy because it makes you feel good. I see this a lot where Christians, people expect us to be nice more than whole. We don’t have time to unpack that today. Holy Spirit, help unfold.
And then we sometimes will see trusting techniques and methods more than trusting the Spirit. “Well, I do all these things. If I follow my self-help book,” self-help books. Do you guys remember how big the bookstore section of self-help books is? Monstrous. It could be its own bookstore. We conflate all the techniques and methods more than just trusting the Spirit. Yeah, Terry. Yep. Yep. Right. Right. Yep. Yep. That’s amen. Which, I mean, should cause us to all the more want to rid the sin from our lives and to tell the gospel to others. Because at some point, their sin will destroy them.
Okay, we’ve got to look at the last question because we only have a couple of minutes, which is really a bummer. That’s where I had my most words written, but that’s okay. The Quarterly asks a question on 18, and I kind of changed it. It says, “Agree with your Bible study to pray together for these people that we need.” Great. My other question instead is, how do you share the gospel every day?
How do you share the gospel? There’s a phrase, and I’m going to head this off before anyone says it out loud, and I’ll just say it first: “Share the gospel always. Use words when necessary.” Okay? I always liked that phrase. And then I really thought about it this summer when I was in this evangelism class. And ironically, it came up in one of the lectures. And the professor was like, “Okay, but the gospel is inherently a spoken thing.” It is good news. You should live a life that points people to Jesus. You should live a life that they ask, “Why do you have this hope within you?” You should. But then very quickly, it should be, “Oh, it’s because of the work of the Lord.” And it should also be something that we share, period. And his perspective was, you have to be careful with that because that phrase becomes a very quick excuse to never share the gospel.
I mean, I just was listening to a podcast this week, and they were talking about—they were like, “Even demons have morals.” I mean, we wouldn’t agree with them, but they have a moral code they live by. Like, anybody can live by a moral code and mean absolutely nothing by it. We’ve all known—there’s a church in St. Louis, “church” isn’t the right word, a gathering of people that’s like the Ethical Society of St. Louis, and it’s a church for people who don’t want church. Like, they want church, but they don’t want Jesus in it. They don’t want God, they don’t want anything religious, but they want the ethical and moral framework of a church. They like the fellowship of a church. It’s weird, like a super weird place. I worked with a guy who was part of it, and it was creepy.
Nevertheless, we have to wrestle with that question. How do you share the gospel in daily life? And secondary to that question, and I’ll put this in the notes later, how does the gospel really permeate all of your life? This is fast forwarding to Romans 12, but Romans 12 is when it switches practical in the book of Romans, and he really starts to unfold. What does it look like to live a life permeated by the gospel? I guess maybe another way of phrasing it, are we really living lives that are worthy of the gospel? Do we live lives worthy of the gospel? Because a life worthy of the gospel is a life that’s radically transformed by Jesus. A life that’s unworthy of the gospel is one that’s a behavior modification to gain self-righteous standing. So again, are we really living lives worthy of the gospel?
That’s where I have to stop for today. We ran out of time. It’s only 1 minute over. That clock’s fast. It’s a lie. All right. We’ll pray. We’ll pray. And then I’ll make sure my notes are online later.
Father God, thank you for Romans. Oh man, it’s going to be a really good fall. This is going to be a special time. Romans is such a heavy book, but such a hopeful book. And it’s hopeful because it is the gospel. It is helping us unfold and understand both the simplicity and the depth of the gospel, and then learning how to live it in every facet of life. So God, don’t let us walk out and just have had another lesson, but help us to wrestle with that question, that idea. Are we really living lives worthy of the gospel? Is the gospel permeating all of our life? Are we sharing it in our daily life? God, give us courage and give us strength. We ask all this in your name. Amen.
All right, thank you guys.
Brian Maloy 