Romans: The Master Key to Scripture Ray C. Stedman

In Chapter 1 of Romans we saw the eagerness of Paul to go to Rome and preach the gospel, for, above all else, it is exactly what Rome needs to hear. "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile," (Romans 1:16 NIV). Paul took pride in the gospel, and rightfully so. The gospel is what men and women everywhere desperately need. In the gospel, God has found a way to condemn our sin and to destroy it without destroying us. No man can do that.

We have finally reached the last chapter in our study in Romans. Some of you are old enough to remember when we started! I am not going to finish it today, however. The last paragraph is reserved for next Sunday and our Communion service. Many people ignore this chapter, I think, because they see in it nothing but a list of names of people long since dead and gone. But in many ways this is one of the most exciting chapters in Romans, as I think you will see.

We are drawing to a close in our study of this great epistle to the Romans, and this letter closes just as it began, with a personal word from the apostle about himself, and about the church in Rome. There are two themes in the closing section of Chapter 15 -- one is the church at Rome, and the other is the ministry of the Apostle Paul. I hope you will follow in your Bible, for this is a rather extended passage, and one that I am going to have to move rapidly through. The apostle says (Verse 14):

The title of our study this morning is taken from the opening words of Verse 21 of Chapter 3: "But now..." You can almost hear the sigh of relief in those two words. After God's appraisal of man's efforts to achieve some standing before him, given to us in the verses previous to this, now come God's words of relief, God's total answer to man's total failure.

Let me ask you a question: Now that you are a Christian -- now that you understand that the grace of God forgives your sins, past, present, and future, that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on your behalf settles the debt for sin, no matter when sins occur -- do you then have the privilege to go on sinning, living as you were, knowing that the grace of God will cover those sins? That is a very relevant question, because a lot of people today are asking it, and a lot of people are saying that we can go on sinning:

This is an election year, and we are hearing plenty about it. On television and radio and in newspapers we are confronted with the question, "What is wrong with this country?" Both of the major candidates are telling us what they think is wrong; and if you listen to them, you hear that the problem is always the other party. But, in our hearts, we know that both parties are wrong, because the problem really isn't in our politics -- it's in us. In those immortal words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."