Today’s passage: Romans 5:12-21

Helpful thoughts:

• Verses 13-14 are like a parenthetical statement to help explain verse 12 and then 15 and following.  If someone were to think that only Adam sinned, because he broke a given command…and that only Israel sinned, because they had the law…they must also take into account that death (A consequence of sin) had come on all in between that time as well.  All have sinned and death is the proof.
• In Adam, all die.  All who are in Christ, will live.
• When mankind is given law, sin increases.  It is our nature to rebel.
  • We are rebels and God is gracious.  Where our sin abounds, God’s grace abounds even more!

Questions to consider:

1. How was God gracious in giving us commands?  What do God’s commands teach us about Him?  What do His commands (And our inability to keep them all…or even our propensity to do worse in response to being told what to do) teach us about us?  Why must we learn these things?
2. Without the grace of God, what is death?  By the grace of God, for the Christian, what is physical death?
3. Through whom does God’s grace abound over our sin?  What justice provided for the grace God has shown us?  What information does this give us concerning the specificity of Christ’s suffering at the cross? How does this truth cause us to love Him all the more?

Today’s passage: Romans 5:1-11

Helpful thoughts:

• We often want peace of mind, what we needed more is peace with God.  Jesus brought us peace through His sacrificial death.
  • There is no reason for peace of mind if we are not at peace with our Creator.  Now, through Christ, we can have both.
• We often want to boast in ourselves, when the only proper boasting must be founded upon the glory of God.
  • When we focus on ourselves, our hardships become obstacles that violate how we believe we deserve to be treated.  When we see who God is and know what He is making us to be, the trials of this life become preparation for that glorious day.
• We often want people to find us wonderful and worthy of their affection.  God loved us while we were still sinners (At enmity with God) by sending Jesus to die in our place.
  • God’s love is not fickle or conditional.  He loved us at our worst, and He has committed to love us through eternity!  His love is a transforming love!

Questions to consider:

1. What was the “Therefore” there for at the beginning of verse 1?  What truth is the content of today’s passage based upon?  How is it connected?
2. If we believe that God was motivated to send Jesus because He saw good in us, or because we had potential that needed unlocking, or because we needed physical healing and fiscal prosperity, what have we done to the Gospel message?  Why did Jesus have to die?  What did God do for us through Christ at the cross?
3. How does this Gospel love transform us in our everyday life?  If God loves us at our worst and proactively rescued us, how must we look at others in the world around us (Including next door…)?  How does the Gospel change how we might think about the command to love our neighbor?  How good must people be before they earn your interest and care?

Today’s passage: Romans 4:13-25

Helpful thoughts:

• In the same way that Abraham and Sarah had no natural chance of having a child together in their old age, people have no chance of successfully living a life of righteousness.
• Our God gives life to that which is dead and calls into being things that did not exist.
  • In my sinful natural state, I had no faith and was dead in my sin.  Salvation is by grace alone.
• Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty of our sins.  He was raised to life for our justification.
  • He is our substitutionary sacrifice.
  • His resurrection vindicated Him.  He is our sinless savior.  His death was a suitable and sufficient sacrifice.

Questions to consider:

1. Given the context of this passage and what we know from the rest of Scripture, in what ways does God give life to the dead and how has He called into existence things that did not previously exist?
2. If Jesus had stayed in the grave, what should we be doing still?  Since Jesus rose from the dead, what do we know has been settled once and for all?
3. How could this passage minister to a person who is continuing to work to try to be “good enough” to be saved?  In what way does this news of our inability bring freedom from our hopeless efforts to achieve righteousness on our own?

Today’s passage: Romans 4:1-12

Helpful thoughts:

• Salvation is a gift.  If our eternal life was a resulting obligation due to our good works, there would be no need of salvation and Christ died for no reason.
  • If all God did was fulfill obligation based on our works, everyone would go to Hell.  Praise God for His gracious love!
• Not only are we forgiven of our sin, but righteousness is also credited to us.  We are considered both “Not guilty” and “Righteous” before our holy and just God!
• Abraham’s circumcision was not a path to righteousness, it was the fruit of his faith.
  • Baptism works the same way.  We are not saved because we got baptized.  We get baptized because we got saved. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Questions to consider:

1. What danger do we fall into when we start to decide whether how God shows grace and mercy is “fair”?  (Exodus 33:19)  If we are comparing ourselves to others and deciding who is “good enough” or who doesn’t deserve God’s wrath, what have we done to the Gospel?  Whose view of people is accurate and truthful?  Who was the right and authority to give grace and mercy?
2. How does this passage help us better understand the significance of baptism?  Why is it so important?  What doesn’t it do?  Why would it be wrong to whiplash to the point of thinking baptism is insignificant?
3. If you are a follower of Christ, why does God consider you righteous?  What has He done with your sin?  Why can you have access and boldness in drawing near to God?  How does this truth rightly humble us and cause us to worship the Lord?

Today’s passage: Romans 3:21-31

Helpful thoughts:

• The Law teaches us about righteousness, but it will not declare us righteous.  We all fall short.
  • Righteousness is given to us through faith in Jesus Christ.
• God is righteous and just.  All sin must be paid for.
  • Christ was put forward as an atonement, paying the penalty of our sin.
  • When we confess our sin and place our faith in God’s work to atone for our sin through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we are given Christ’s righteous record and are saved!
• Whether a person is a Jew or a Gentile, no matter where they are from, no matter what their social/economic background, no matter what their religious background, all who are saved are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Questions to consider:

1. What is the gospel message?  Do you know that you are saved?  Have you received God’s gift of salvation and righteousness by faith?
2. What does it mean that God is both just and our justifier?  How does that work out?  How might you explain that to someone who has never heard it before?
3. For the Jew who has been working hard to maintain a “righteous” or “righteous enough” standing before God, in what ways do you think they would object to what we learn in this passage?  What offense might they take?  What question do you think the Apostle Paul may answer next?

Today’s passage: Romans 3:9-20

Helpful thoughts:

• Back in verse 1, the Jews were said to have an advantage as it relates to having been given the “oracles of God.”  In verse 9 however, we see that there is no advantage for the Jews over the Gentiles as it relates to sinlessness.  All have sinned.
• Anyone who reads verses 10-18 and says, “That was never me” is mistaken.
  • Verse 20 confirms this.  No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight through their own works.
• Knowing God’s Law does not make mankind become good, it informs us that we are not.  We need saving and Jesus is the Savior!

Questions to consider:

1. Which statements out of verses 10-18 seem the most surprising to you?  Which ones might you be prone to question concerning yourself or other “good people” that you know?
2. When we refer to someone as a “good person” or say that someone has a “good heart,” what does that mean?  To whom are we comparing them?  Is it possible to do something good in a way that is NOT seeking after God?  What does God see (1 Samuel 16:7)?
3. If no person even seeks after God by his own will, why/how did you become a Christian? (John 3:3-8, Ephesians 2:8-9)  How do these truths help us to remember not to think more highly of ourselves than we would other people?

Today’s passage: Romans 3:1-8

Helpful thoughts:

• If a Jew were to think they had been disadvantaged by having been under the Law, they would be thinking more of what they could “Get away with” than the fact that God had revealed Himself to them in a special way.
  • God did not stumble in giving the Jews the Law.  The Jews stumbled over the Law.
• God exercises His righteousness in executing His justice.  Whether a person repents or continues in sin, God will be glorified.
• The portrayed person who is complaining in verses 7-8 is looking at glory as a thing to strive for and obtain.  When glorification (Which, we do not deserve as God does) is a man’s greatest desire, the ends will justify the means.
  • God actually deserves to be glorified.  All that He does is right and true and is worthy of our praise.

Questions to consider:

1. In these hypothetical complaints, what heart desires do we see evidenced?  What is it that these complainers really appear to want?  How will these desires prove to blind them to the truth of the Gospel and the glory of God?
2. How does this passage help us to understand Isaiah 55:11 more accurately?  Is God’s Word only effective when people repent and love Jesus?  What is also revealed when a person hears and rejects?  How is God’s glory perhaps measured differently than the way we would define “Success” down here on earth?
3. If we think God owes us one because our sin made Him look better, what is wrong with our view of the holiness of God?  What is the only right response to His holiness?  Without His love through Christ’s sacrifice, where would we stand?  How does this move us to a heart of worship?

Today’s passage: Romans 2:12-29

Helpful thought:

• Verses 12-15 continue the argument from the preceding passage.
  • Whether you have heard the Law or not (Jew or Gentile) all have sinned and know it.
  • We are not saved simply by going to the “right” church which holds the right doctrinal positions, just as the Jews were not saved simply because they had heard the Law (Verse 13).
  • God does not look at man the way man looks at man.  He knows the thoughts and intentions/motives of our hearts.  Even what people do that is outwardly the right thing will be discerned rightly by God.
• The Jew who believes they know the Law expertly and have kept it and are teaching others to do the same (To arrive at their level of righteousness) is being a hypocrite and understandably turning people away.
  • Except, the people who are turning away from God (The Gentiles blaspheming) are not turning away from God so much as they are turning away from the religion the Jews have exemplified and practiced.
• Circumcision did not save the Jew any more that the act of baptism would save someone today in and of itself.
  • Circumcision (And today, baptism) are outward evidences of something that must happen within…of the heart, by the Spirit (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

Questions to consider:

1. The Jews who were only Jews outwardly and thought they were righteous in keeping the Law would rightly be called Legalists.  What does legalism look like today?  What new laws have “Christians” written over the years?  When people leave legalistic churches, or when children grow up in legalistic churches and leave when they grow up, what did they actually leave?  What faith was it they left?  Was it really Christ and His Gospel?
2. What is the result, or the fruit, of the New Covenant in Ezekiel 36 (See link above)?  When God gives us spiritual birth, what should start happening?  How will we begin to change?  What will motivate us to pursue righteousness?  What place would pride have in the way God works in us?
3. Man can circumcise their sons.  Man can baptize people.  What can’t we do?  What is our role in reaching the lost and what is God’s?  Therefore, what must be our greatest goal in sharing the Gospel with the lost?  Whom do we praise when there is the fruit of repentance?