Romans by Ryan Lowery (2015)

Paul explains what it means to be saved and what the good news of Jesus really is. He describes the good news as: 1) coming from God; 2) revealed from scripture; 3) bona fide due to Christ having a dual nature and being raised from the dead; 4) intended by God to be spread by people who are empowered by Him; 5) a free gift to anyone who desires it; and 6) purposed to reveal God's greatness. Paul concludes his explanation of what the gospel is by disclosing to his audience that all people are called to the mission of sharing it with the world.

Paul expresses intense love and excitement for the Christians in Rome as well as a longing to visit them. In spite of Paul's history of killing Christians and extensive training as a Pharisee, he is able to be shameless in preaching the Gospel of Christ. Paul's overt confidence can only be due to Jesus' shameless acts of self-sacrifice as well as Paul's understanding of the saving power of the Gospel. The only thing that is more powerful than the impact of shame is love.

Paul answers two important questions surrounding God's character through this passage: 1) How can a loving God judge people and send them to hell? and 2) How can a just God allow evil to go unpunished? Paul explains that God has wrath against sin and humans suppress both His general and special revelation. A video by William Lane Craig is shown on the fine-tuning of the universe to explain God's general revelation. Paul explains that rather than glorifying God, humans make gods for themselves. This results in God's passive judgment as people experience the consequences of their sin. God's wrath, justice, mercy, and love were all simultaneously demonstrated at the cross where humans can be spared from the active wrath of God.

Paul writes concerning the depravity of man. Topics include homosexuality, greed, murder, envy, deceit, gossip, slander, etc. Christians today may be uncomfortable with passages like these and choose to ignore them. We are called to decide if we will recognize God's authority or claim our own authority above God's when faced with a difficult truth. All people need God's grace. We should not point the finger in judgment of others.

How can God's judgment and love work in tandem? Why does God enact judgment? Why are we not fit to judge each other? These questions are addressed in Romans 2 through a discussion of God's character and humanity's limitations.

How do the rules and rituals in the Old Testament show us we can't earn God's forgiveness? In fact, the point of God's Law is to show us how far we are from God and how we can not earn His forgiveness. He set His son on the cross in order to bridge that gap and open the possibility of a relationship with Him. But we are still in danger of taking up a religious mentality even if we have God's forgiveness. Maybe we're still thinking that we can be justified to God through our works.

What is faith? Is it performing rituals without thought? Is it based only on intellectual understanding? Or is it doing good deeds and checking a box off? It's none of those things! Biblical faith is based on God's truth and is action orientated with us willing to act based on God's truth with complete dependence on Him. Rituals do not make use righteous. When we serve others or step out in love without any glory to ourselves it is our faith that receives righteousness.

What does it mean (and look like) to have peace with God? Paul describes us as utterly helpless because of our moral guilt before God, and we deserve God's condemnation. But God moved towards us and showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. The peace with God we have available to us starts with the foundation of Christ's redemption and is cultivated in our hearts as we move closer to God.

What does our identity in Adam mean? Adam was given free choice in the garden, and this was Gods' design to have a loving relationship. Adam chose to disobey God and brought death into the world and that choice affects us. Jesus also made a choice and through his choice, he brought eternal life into the world. We now have the option to accept Christ's sacrificial choice to apply to our lives and pay for our sins which restores the loving relationship God wanted from the beginning.

We have been given the choice to separate ourselves from our old identity in Adam and accept freedom through the work on the cross of Jesus Christ. The choices we make in our new identity in Christ are still our own choices and we can still use that free will to sin. If you're asking yourself why not keep living the life of sin that was so easy before? The answer is because it is fundamentally not who we are anymore after being freed from enslavement to sin after receiving salvation in Christ.

Most of the time, it can seem like God says ?no? to sin to be a killjoy. In reality, sin is bad for us, and God wants good things for His children. When we choose to sin, we are living incongruent to who we are as believers in Christ. We no longer need to be enslaved to sin. Our new nature allows us to live in freedom from sin, as servants of righteousness.

Gods' Law is perfect and unchanging, it is not nullified or changed, but our relationship to the Law has changed. Before the fall of man, we had no innate desire to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge because we did not have a sin nature yet. After the Fall, the nature of man was corrupted, and our relationship to the Law became destructive. We know what sin is through the Law. In Christ, through a choice to be redeemed through his sacrifice on the cross, we can have a newness of identity and have a restored relationship to Gods' Law.

Oftentimes we find ourselves trapped in a pattern of sin that we can't seem to break free from. It can be easy to resort to quitting or faking it. Instead, we need to return to God empty-handed. Freedom from the power of sin can only come from a continual choice to surrender to God in humility.

The apostle Paul is stuck in his sin, and realizes that Christ is the only one who can rescue him from his ?body of death.? A mindset on the Spirit and grace brings life, peace, and freedom from sin. A mindset on the law and flesh only serves to promote sin and failure.

When trying to change through our own power, we can expect to fail. God wants to bless our lives and has equipped us by giving us His Spirit. We can see true change in our life when we rely on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables change in our lives by giving us three things: 1) a Spirit of power; 2) a Spirit of guidance; 3) a Spirit of assurance.

Suffering is inevitable in this world. Instead of ignoring, fleeing, or coping with suffering in our own way, we can let God use it for our benefit. We have the opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and become more like Christ when we move toward Him in suffering. God wants to be close to us and He wants to comfort us in times of tribulation.

Paul moves away from spiritual growth into the question of what happens to the nation of Israel. Paul expands on God's sovereign choice to use the nation of Israel. God's sovereignty is demonstrated in His willingness to use nations and individuals to bring about salvation through Jesus Christ and calls on the individuals within those nations to make a choice to receive his mercy or not. The implications for Christians are that we can use our free choice to have a deep impact for God.

Despite self-effort, religious zeal and ritual is not the same as real genuine faith in God and often draws people farther away from Him. To have a personal relationship with God, people must acknowledge their own sinfulness in light of God's perfect nature and in faith ask for forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Once that has happened, Christians have the unique ability to tell others about how to start an authentic relationship with God.

True worship of God is not about ritual, but sacrificing our whole lives for God in response for what He did for at the cross. As we live our lives more in line with what God's will is, our thinking is able to be transformed and we are able to become more distinct amidst a culture that doesn't care about God's values. This teaching also uses an Ohio State University example to describe what people in our culture worship.

God's design for us to grow with Him is within the context of interdependent relationships within a community of Christians that are committed to loving and serving one another for the good of others. As such, we cannot have intimacy with others while being autonomous. Community thrives when members are looking to use the gifts God has given them to contribute to the needs of others.

Perhaps the biggest priority for Christians is to display real, authentic love towards others. This type of love is dynamic and can call us to be initiative, committed and forward-focused. Having a lifestyle like this allows for God to be seen more clearly through our lives and relationships.

Christians should obey the human governing authorities that God has put in place as a way of obeying God, who is the ultimate authority. We can believe in God's sovereignty amidst tension with those who rule over us, and can see it as an opportunity to show God's love to others.

The fulfillment of God's Law can be seen through the Law of Love in a Christians life. In other words, the highest virtue to pursue is love and that should motivate and inform the decisions we make and how we interact with others.

Paul discusses matters of conscience and how believers should relate with one another on these matters. Rather than judging one another or demanding that people change, Christians should set aside anything that would cause someone to stumble in their faith and focus on remaining unified and focused on what God says is important.

Real acceptance of other Christians is based off of Jesus Christ's model of acceptance towards us. It means bearing with each other's faults but out of love being willing to push them towards God. This attitude in the church leads to a corporate unity that brings glory to God.