We will start by reminding ourselves of the purpose of the
letter to the Romans. The book is about
the Good news of Jesus Christ. This
Good News has the power to change lives, to restore people to God and give
everyone eternal life. When we truly understand and believe the good news we
become children of God. There is no
other way to be saved. Previously, we
were reading the Gospel of John. There
Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus is the only way to God. The Good News is the message about
Jesus. When we read the book of Romans
we will read about how Jesus saves us, and what we are saved from.
The Good News about Jesus tell us that God wants to
reconcile people to Himself. He wants to
take away our sin, and make us children of God. He does this through Jesus. Jesus was the eternal word of God, who came
into the world and lived with us. He
alone lived a perfect life. He is the
only mediator between God and people.
Jesus died to take away our sin.
This is the only way that sin can be removed. Jesus rose again from the dead. Jesus will also bring us back from the
dead. There is hope for our world
because of the good news about Jesus.
Question: Why is the Good News good news?
In order to fully understand the good news, we have to understand
the bad news. Paul introduces us to
some bad news. We are all sinners. We all do evil. Sin means the wrong things which all people
do. This sin separates us from
God. God will not tolerate sin. Sin is against God’s holy nature. God will not accept sinful people into his
presence unless their sin is taken away.
If we live in sin, we will face God’s just judgement. We will be condemned on the day when God
judges the world, unless we repent and turn to Jesus. The Good News about Jesus tells us how sin
is taken away and what the result of this is.
Many people say that we are good people, and that we can find our own
way to God. This is not true. We are sinful people who need to be saved
by God’s power. God has revealed his holy
nature through the Bible, but also through the signs of his power in the
world. People chose to ignore this,
and they went their own way. So, they
were separated from God. This is the
natural state of all humanity.
Steve Jobs was one of the most successful people in the
world. Then, he was diagnosed with
cancer. They found the cancer early,
and it should have been quite easy to treat with surgery. Steve Jobs refused surgery for 9
months. He didn’t take the diagnosis
seriously enough, and he didn’t take the right treatment. He thought that he could choose his own
pathway. It was a fatal decision. The same is true for sin. God gives us a diagnosis: this is a fatal
disease. The only treatment is Jesus.
How would you explain sin to someone?
God lets people go towards sin. That is, he didn’t restrain people. People turned away from God. They served created things. These might be false gods. They might be money. Their lives became full of things, rather
than God. This is true everywhere we
look. People fill their lives up with
material things and sensations. Drugs,
shopping, cheap relationships: these are things we use to replace God in our
lives.
God wants us to understand sin. God wants us to turn away from sin. So he lets people go until they see that
there is something wrong in their lives.
God wants to show people just how serious the disease of sin really
is. We feel pain. But pain is not the disease. The disease causes the pain. It tells us that the disease is there. It is the same with sin. God lets us feel the pain of sin so that we
will turn away from one. One day we
say: ‘that’s messed up’. Then we will
look for our saviour.
This is the summary of the topics. Firstly, the good news is very good
news. God promises us eternal
life. God takes away sin and makes us
children of God. But sin separates us
from God. It means that we are liable to
God’s righteous judgement. Sin brings
us under God’ just condemnation. So God lets us go towards sin, so that we will
realise that life without God is hopeless, and turn back to Him. As we will see, this is true for religious
people and irreligious people. No-one
can come to God except through Jesus.
