The Gospel Explained Fully in Romans

I'd like you to turn with me to Romans. I want to take you through the book of Romans because among all the letters that Paul wrote, this letter has the most systematic explanation of the full gospel so that we don't miss out on any part of it. So often we hear bits and pieces of it here and there, and there are churches that speak about the full gospel, but I find in my study of the New Testament that perhaps this book has explained the full gospel better than any other book.

So I want to show you how the Holy Spirit systematically builds up starting from zero, scratch, all the way up to God's ultimate purpose for us. So first of all I want you to see in Romans chapter 1, he speaks about the gospel in verse 16, Romans 1 16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation.

Many people have heard the gospel as a message of forgiveness, but he calls it right at the beginning a power. The gospel, the message of the gospel is a power that brings salvation, and again salvation is a word that many Christians think of only salvation from hell. Salvation is a very big word.

There are three tenses in salvation, past, present, future. Past from the guilt of sin, present from the power of sin, and future from the very presence of sin. That is full salvation, that I'm completely freed from guilt and now being saved from the power of sin every day, and we'll finally be saved from the presence of sin.

That's what he calls here the power of God for salvation. So he begins in chapter 1 and chapter 2 to describe the fallen state of man. Starting from there, he works all the way up to chapter 16.

So it's really a Bible study I'm taking you through here, and I want you to notice where, you know, there's such a terrible state of a man described here in verse 24 onwards, well beginning with verse 21. It goes on to say in verse 23 how they exchanged the glory of God for idols, and then God gave them over. The three times it says God gave them up, God gave them up, God gave them up.

First in verse 24, because of this God gave them up. Verse 26, for this reason God gave them up. And verse 28, this reason in the middle, it says God gave them up.

So God watches a person and when they go beyond a certain level, he just gives up on them. Three times it says here, he gave them up, and when God gives up on them, then they begin to worship idols. In verse 26, and then they begin to have unnatural, verse 26, unnatural sex relationships.

Women with women and men with men burning in their desire toward one another in verse 27. Now you read a lot about that now in the papers, but you know that is the result, verse 26. You read verse 26 and 27, read carefully because this is so much in the news nowadays.

For this reason, God gave them up to their degrading passions. For women exchange the natural function for what is unnatural in the same way men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward other men, committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the penalty of their error like AIDS and other diseases. It is a result of God giving up on people who indulge in that.

We mustn't forget that. So does God give up on people? He does. When people keep on sinning and they don't take it seriously, he waits and waits and waits and waits a long time, but then he just destroys.

You remember the story of the flood, how God waited and waited and waited and then he found one man, Noah, and he said, okay I'll save your family and thus save the human race, and then he destroyed entire humanity that he had created. You have to see that God waits in patience for a long time and then he punishes very severely. Sodom and Gomorrah, they were all in this type of unnatural relationships and sexual relationships and God waited a long time and Abraham prayed.

God said, no, he saved lot out of it, but he destroyed the entire city because of immorality. So you see these examples in the Old Testament of God judging severely and also think of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. When as soon as he was crucified, he was crucified by the Jewish people, you know that.

The Roman governor and all wanted to free him, but the Jewish people said no, he has to be killed and Jesus immediately said, Father forgive them. So the question is, were the Jewish people who killed Jesus Christ forgiven? There are two aspects of forgiveness. One is the vertical, like the two arms of the cross.

There are some sins that we commit only against God. For example, if I have a dirty thought, it's only in the vertical direction or some inward thing where I don't harm anybody else. But if I harmed another person, then sin has been committed in two directions.

Where all sin is against God, but then it's also horizontally against that person, then I need forgiveness from two people. If I have a dirty thought, I only need God to forgive me, but if I've hurt you, God is to forgive me because I've harmed a creature of his, and you have to forgive me too, otherwise I'm not free. So Jesus, when he said, Father forgive them, he forgave those people who crucified him as a man.

He wasn't acting as God on Earth, as a man he forgave them. But the vertical part of it was still there, and God could not forgive them for killing his son unless they repented. And he gave them 40 years to repent, and when they did not, he sent the Roman army to destroy the temple in 70 AD, and the Jews were scattered all over the world for more than 1,800 years.

So God's punishment is pretty severe. Did God punish those people for crucifying his son? He certainly did, but in mercy, he brought them back to the land in 1948 because of the promise he had given to Abraham way back 4,000 years ago. So God keeps his promises.

He didn't mean he forgave them, he gave them, God promised a land to them and he gave it to them. So we need to understand this principle that when God takes him seriously, he waits patiently, patiently, patiently, patiently, and when it goes beyond a certain point, he comes down in severe judgment. There's a lesson for us to learn from that, because sometimes people see that they've sinned and sinned and sinned, and God is not doing anything.

So okay, it looks as if God is ignoring it. He's not ignoring it, he's waiting for it to build up. And he says it has not come to the place where I have to come down in judgment.

He told Noah, I'll wait a hundred and twenty years. And in 120 years when they did not repent, he wiped out the entire human race. Everybody destroyed, everybody with the flood except for Noah's family.

In Sodom, because he was disgusted with their sin, he just saved a lot and destroyed the whole lot. These are judgments that we see that are a warning to us to take sin seriously. Here it says three times, God gave them up, God gave them up.

So when we see something like this, it's good to see for example, finally what happened in verse 29. When God gave them over to verse 28 to a depraved mind, it resulted in their becoming wicked and greedy and evil. And verse 29, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

Now the question is where did it all begin? This is a downward trend. God gave them up, then he gave them up further, he gave them up further, he gave them up further, just like the days of Noah and in Sodom. What was the first step downwards? It's very important to see it.

It went all the way down to the bottom, but what is the first step downwards? Here it is, in verse 21. When they knew God, they did not honor him as God and did not give thanks. The first step downward in sin is when you're not thankful to God for what he's done for you.

And that is a sin that many Christians are guilty of. I want to say to you is the first step downwards that we learned here, that leads all the way down to the bottom. And thanksgiving is not something that comes naturally to us.

We are far more inclined to pray and ask rather than give thanks. And if I stop giving thanks in my life, if I'm not grateful to God for what he's done for me, if I'm not thankful for his mercies, this passage teaches me that I've already taken the first step down and gradually I'll go further down and down and down and down. Now when you turn to Ephesians and chapter 5, you know how God rectified all this by sending Christ to die for us and that's not all.

He sent the Holy Spirit to come and fulfill in our heart the result of all that Christ did for us. And what does the Holy Spirit do when he fills us? It says on the day of Pentecost, they began to speak in tongues and praise God. When Cornelius was baptized in the Holy Spirit, he began to praise God.

That is always the result of being filled with the Holy Spirit. It's the reverse of that downward trend in Romans chapter 1. So here we see the same thing when Paul says to the Ephesian Christians, Ephesians 5 18, don't get drunk with wine but be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's not a suggestion, it's a command.

If you saw a person coming into this hall drunk and staggering around, you'd say, well that guy, he shouldn't be here. He sinned. Coming into a church drunk with wine.

But the same verse says, be filled with the Spirit. What about a person who comes into this church with not being filled in the Spirit and claims to be a Christian? He's disobeying God just as much as the fellows come drunk with wine. It's in one sentence.

Don't be drunk with wine but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Replace that drunkenness with being filled with the Holy Spirit. So when there is a command to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he puts the responsibility on us.

It's not an optional thing. It's just as much a command as don't get drunk with wine. It's in one sentence.

Don't get drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. And when God fills you with the Spirit, what's going to be the result? Thanksgiving. I told you the first step downwards is not giving thanks, taking God for granted, thinking that I deserve all this.

Who's the one who eagerly gives thanks to God? The one who says, Lord I don't deserve all this. Why have you given it to me? I'm deeply thankful. When we forget that sense of gratitude to God, we go downward.

When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, it says here in verse 19, we speak with psalms and hymns and singing melody, making melody in the hearts of the Lord. And verse 20, always giving thanks for all things. That is the result of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

A spirit of thanksgiving comes into our heart for all that God has done for us. So when we seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, this is going to be the result. The opposite of Romans.

So let's turn back to Romans. In Romans chapter 1, we saw this downward trend. When we come to chapter 2, in Romans 1 is the worldly type of sinners described.

In Romans chapter 2, it talks about the religious sinners. And the religious sinners are worse than the worldly sinners. Because they've got so much knowledge of God.

People who know the truth, the more truth they know, if they sin, the seriousness of the sin increases. Like I've sometimes told people, if you told a lie when you were an unbeliever, well, if you tell a lie after you become a believer, that's like telling 1000 lies. It's more serious because now you become a believer.

The light has become so much brighter. So a religious sinner described in chapter 2, there are a number of things mentioned about is the religious sinner is pretty proud, like the Pharisee, but he's also a sinner. And then in chapter 3 concludes with all of that by saying, in chapter 3 verse 23, everybody has sinned, worldly sinner, the religious sinner, all have sinned, and come short of God's glory.

So here is a definition of sin. What is the definition of sin? Verse 23, coming short of the glory of God. And the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ.

So anything less than the life of Jesus Christ is sin. So it's not it's not so easy for us to think that we've been freed from sin. We were discussing earlier about unconscious sins and what some of the questions.

We recognize that as long as we have not become 100% like Christ, there is sin in us. Some of it we are aware of. And a lot of it we are not aware of.

Like the illustration I've used of a piece of ice in a glass of say grape juice. 10% is above the surface 90% is underneath. That part which we can see, if you slice it off, then a little bit of what is underneath comes up.

So if you deal with the sin that you know, in your life, radically, then God will give you light on what is unconscious. And you deal with that, you'll get a little more light on unconscious. This is spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth is by your detecting sins in your life that you are unconscious of. It's learning something new. It's like in a school, you go from one class to another, and you're learning something you never learned before.

The child learning mathematics goes to the second grade and learn something they never knew till then goes to the third grade and learn something they never knew till then. This is progress in the educational system. It's exactly the same in the Christian life.

If we are not discovering new areas of unchristlikeness in our life, at least once a year, we have to consider ourselves as being stagnant. We're not growing. And one of the principles of Christian growth is hungering and thirsting.

See in Matthew chapter 5, that law that Jesus gave, it's a law. Matthew chapter 5, the opposite of sin is righteousness. And Jesus said in Matthew 5 verse 6, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

They will be satisfied. I want to ask you, dear brothers and sisters, very gently a question. Are you hungering and thirsting to become like Christ? That is righteousness.

There's a guarantee you will be satisfied. That is spiritual progress. It's not increasing knowledge of the Bible.

It is increasing light on unchristlikeness in my life every year. And the Lord giving me power to conquer that. An illustration from the Old Testament would be the land of Canaan.

You know the entire Old Testament history of Israel is a picture of our salvation. When the angel of death was going through Egypt, they said put the blood of the Lamb on the door and you won't be judged. It had nothing to do with what type of sinners were in the house.

Very wicked sinners or not so bad sinners. They could all be saved only by putting the blood on the doorpost. That's a picture of salvation through the blood of Christ.

Whether you're a terrible sinner or not so bad sinner, it's only saved by the blood of Christ. And then it says they were baptized into Moses in the Red Sea. That's the word expression in 1 Corinthians 10.

So they're going through the Red Sea was a picture of baptism. They went in and came out. And like that they finished with Egypt.

So in our baptism we are saying I finished with the world. I went in and I came out and the world is behind me. Egypt is gone.

Now once I've come out, and this is the experience of all Christians, you don't immediately enter the promised land of a victorious life. And you all know that from the time you're born again you don't enter into the victorious life immediately. And that also you see in the Old Testament story.

They did not land in Canaan straight away as soon as they came out of Egypt. They landed in the wilderness. But there God led them, guided them.

And do you know that they were supposed to be in the wilderness only for two years? Yeah you read that in Numbers and Deuteronomy. After two years the Lord brought them to the borders of Canaan and said you're ready to go and occupy the promised land. That teaches me something.

That God expects us to enter into a life of victory two years after we are born again. That's what I see from there. Anybody who's been a believer for more than two years, he should be beginning to have victory.

Victory means in the Old Testament example of killing the giants in Canaan, killing the giants in our life, and occupying that land. Every territory in Canaan where they killed the giants they occupied that land. And this is a picture of from head to foot we have been saturated with sin.

And little by little by the power of the Holy Spirit, if you think of our body as the land of Canaan, there are giants that have ruled, there's giants of sin. And little by little God wants us to conquer this. Two years after we are converted.

But you know the Israelites did not go in. They said what most believers say. That sin is too strong for me to overcome.

That's exactly what the Israelites said. These giants are too strong. 600,000 Israelites said these giants are too strong.

We can't overcome them. And out of 600,000 there were only two people Joshua and Caleb. He said so what if they are strong? God is on our side.

We can conquer them. They'll be like bread for us. We can eat them up.

And among believers you'll find for 600,000 believers who say we cannot overcome sin, you'll find two people who say we can. And those are the ones whom God is happy with. Who honor God by saying which sin is there more powerful than God in my body? I want to ask you my brothers, are you convinced that whatever sin you're a slave to, it's not more powerful than God? If the Holy Spirit has come into your life, there is absolutely no excuse to be defeated by any conscious sin.

We've been talking about conscious sin and unconscious sin. The land of Canaan is a picture of that also. When they went in finally, they conquered one bit, killed those giants.

That is conscious sin overcome. But there was still so many giants who they had never seen, who were occupying the rest of the land. That is unconscious sin.

And then little by little, they defeated one more giant. They got his land and defeated one more giant, conquered his land. That's how they slowly conquered.

In other words, they were gradually, the symbol is that we were gradually discovering unconscious sin and gradually overcoming more and more and more. This is God's will for us. But they did not go in.

And so instead of going in after two years, they wandered for 40 years. That's also a story of many believers. Two years after they are born again, they should be victorious.

But they've been wandering around, defeated, defeated, defeated for 40 years. And it's pictured there in the Old Testament. And that was not God's will.

So when we read all this, we see there's a tremendous challenge that comes to us. So let me continue. So how does God deliver us? First of all, the first step is Romans 4 and 5, justification by faith.

That means the first thing God has to do is blot out our past failures. And that is not only by forgiveness, but by justification. Now, that's not a word that you hear much.

A lot of believers have not understood what justification means, but yet there are two chapters almost in Romans devoted to it. And it's a foundational truth. You may think all this is unimportant.

But if you want to be freed from guilt, you need to understand it. That's why Romans is written. Justified is a word which means declared righteous.

And even though we have sins, forgiveness is one thing. He's blotted out my past. Okay.

I've lived in sin for so many years. The Lord says you're forgiven. The blood of Christ has cleansed me.

That's what it says here. Cleansed in the blood of Christ. But more than that, God says you are justified by the blood of Christ.

See Romans 5 and verse 1. Justified by faith. And it says in verse 9 of Romans 5, we are justified by his blood. We all know that we are cleansed from sin by his blood.

Blood is forgiven our sin. What does it mean to be justified by his blood? It means declared as if you were righteous from the beginning of your life. That is why there is no condemnation.

We must be assured in our heart. Jesus Christ has not only blotted out my past. He says you have been righteous from the day you were born.

I know I was not. I committed so many sins, thousands of them. So the blood of Christ has not only cleansed me.

We are justified by his blood means the blood of Christ has cleansed me so thoroughly that it's as if in God's eyes, as if I've been righteous all my life. That's why I don't live under condemnation. You know the devil would like to harass you by memories of, remember what you did 10 years ago and remember what you did 25 years ago and remember what you did way back then and way back then and way back then.

You keep listening to it and you know it's all true. Have you understood justified by his blood? Yes, I think you've understood cleansed by his blood. If you confess our sins, he's faithful and just to cleanse us and perhaps some of you are hearing being justified by his blood for the first time.

You're not, your past is not only wiped clean. Cleansed is you know a blackboard or a board with all types of things written on it and it's wiped clean and there's no way of getting it back once you take a wet cloth and wipe it down, it's gone. In the Old Testament, sin was not cleansed.

There's never a word that sin was cleansed in the Old Testament. It says in Psalm 32 verse 1, blessed is the man whose sin is, you remember, covered. Blessed is the man whose sin is covered.

That means all those sins on the blackboard, you put a big sheet over it, nobody can see it. But if you lift the sheet, it's still there. It was only covered.

But when Jesus died, his blood cleansed it, it's gone. There's no record of it. Do you know that there's no record of your sin? You believe that that's what the blood of Christ has done for you? However much the devil may remind you, you don't have to listen to him.

And not only that, God says it's as if there was nothing ever written on this board. Nothing, no sin was written on this board at any time. That is the meaning of justified.

It's not just a technical word to understand. It brings such liberation in my life that I come before God with such boldness. Believe it or not.

Lord, I stand before you as one who's never sinned in my whole life. Not only not sinned, as one who's been righteous from day one. You say, what arrogance, Brother Zach, to say such a thing.

It's not arrogance. I'm just believing God's word. He's brought liberty in my life.

When the Lord says, you're declared righteous by the blood of Christ, I say the same thing. You know what testimony is? It is to confess what God says. Not what I think of what the devil says.

I don't care what the devil says. If God says, I have been justified by the blood of Christ, I say I've been declared righteous by the blood of Christ, not just forgiven. This gospel is such a wonderful gospel.

It's way beyond what we have ever understood. And if you have never understood till now, please understand it today. Romans 5, 9, we've been justified by his blood, declared righteous by his blood.

And therefore, if we've been reconciled to God at that time, much more we shall be saved by his life. There's an expression here, which also many people have not thought of. Saved by his blood, we all understand that.

But here in Romans 5, 10, it says, we are saved by his life. Saved by his death, everybody understands. What is saved by his life? That is the Holy Spirit bringing the life of Christ and saving me from the life of Adam that is within me.

So that's the description of the rest of Romans. So once we are declared righteous, then God has to make us actually righteous. And the first step to that is Romans 6. We are baptized to symbolize I've finished with my old life.

I'm testifying that I'm, my old man is, verse Romans 6, 6, buried and crucified with him. And I'm brought out of the water saying I've raised up to a new life. And here is this wonderful verse, which is one of our theme verses in CFC churches.

Romans 6, 14, sin shall not, cannot rule over you because now you're not under law, but under grace. So we could ask a person who is, even a child can answer. Supposing you ask a 10 year old boy here, who's never read the Bible.

Listen, son, I want to read one verse to you and you give me the answer. You're a clever 10 year old. Here's the verse.

Listen carefully. Sin shall not be master over you, Romans 6, 14, because you're not under law, but under grace. Now I ask him from that one sentence, tell me, how do you know whether you're under law? Sin rules you.

If sin is ruling you, whether you know it or not, you're under law. How do you know you're under grace? Sin cannot rule you. It is as simple as ABC or two plus two is four.

There's no other explanation to Romans 6, 14. Sin cannot rule over you because you're not under law, but you're under grace. A lot of Christians say I'm under grace.

Really? Then sin cannot be ruling over you. Why is sin ruling over you? Because you're still struggling. Law is, I'm trying my best.

I'm trying my best to overcome. Never succeeding. They tried that for 1500 years in the Old Testament and nobody succeeded.

But still people are trying. Yes, it'll happen. It'll happen.

Sin is constantly ruling over them because the principle of the law, the principle of the law is work hard, try, try, try. Maybe you'll achieve it next year. Keep trying, keep trying.

You will not achieve it in your lifetime, brother. Grace has to lift you up. Grace is a power which is not, I cannot overcome sin in my own power.

Grace has to lift me and keep me above. See, it's like the power of gravity. Gravity has a power.

Let me just illustrate that. See, here's something. Anywhere in the world, it'll drop.

This is the power of sin. Drops, drops, drops, drops. And that is absolutely nothing that can make this handkerchief overcome the law of gravity.

Impossible. Wherever it goes, it drops. But here is the power of another life holding me up, holding this thing up.

And the law of gravity is operating powerfully here, but it just doesn't drop. But if that handkerchief has got a will of its own and say, well, I'd like to move out and try on my own, falls immediately. This is what it means to be upheld by Jesus, by his grace.

That is what we talk about when we talk about salvation by sin. The law of gravity and the law of sin operate in the same way everywhere. So once we hear that, he hasn't got an experience of it, but he's telling us, come under grace so that sin does not rule over you.

And then we are determined to try and overcome the sin. What happens in Romans 7, we try to overcome sin by determination. But he says, I cannot overcome it.

And see how honest Paul is here in Romans 7. He says, verse 9, I was once, sorry, verse 8, sin, look at his honesty here. Sin taking opportunity through the commandments produced in me coveting or lusting of every kind. I was once, sorry, now Paul is giving his testimony here.

He says, folks, I'll tell you honestly, all types of lusts came into my mind, no matter how hard I tried. I tried to live under the law and the law just made me defeated, defeated, defeated, defeated, defeated. The law is holy, verse 12, but it did not help me at all.

The law is spiritual, verse 14, but I'm of flesh. And he realized that I can never overcome, no matter how, to live under the law means I determined from today onwards, I'm going to try my best to live an overcoming life. I think a lot of Christians, when they hear about overcoming sin, this is what we all do, Romans 7, I want to try my best with the power of, I'm going to determine from today onwards, I went to a wonderful conference and I'm going to be an overcomer.

I'm going to try my best. You'll go through Romans 7, you'll try your best and you'll fail and try your best and fail. But finally you come to Romans 8 and in Romans 7, you see the number of times the word law, law comes so many times, right from the very beginning of that chapter, it says law, law, law, law, if you look through that, it comes so many times, right from the very first verse, the law in verse 5 and verse 6 and verse 7 and verse 8 and 9 and 12, 14, 16, it's just law, law, law, law, law, law, law.

Now, when you come to the Romans chapter 8, you don't find the word law there, it is verse 2, spirit, verse 4, spirit, verse 5, spirit, verse 6, spirit, verse 9, spirit, verse 11, spirit, verse 13, spirit, verse 16, 14, spirit, verse 16, spirit, all the way, verse 28 and so on. See the difference, life under the law and life under the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit brings grace, it's the opposite of law and God's will is through the spirit, we put to death the deeds of the body and we shall live, that's what's described in verse 13 of Romans 8. If you are living according to the flesh, you will die, but if you by the spirit, the Holy Spirit has got power to put to death these deeds that come out from our body, the thoughts, the actions, the various lusts, so that is why we need the power of the Holy Spirit. We need the power of the Holy Spirit not to speak in tongues, it's not even for ministry, it's primarily to put to death the deeds of our body.

When the spirit comes in and the first thing he does is makes God, reveals to God to us as a father, verse 15, cries out from us, father, I don't know whether you have experienced that, that as you look up to heaven you feel, spontaneously feel like saying daddy. That's made a lot of difference in my life. I've heard many people pray in public and almost all of them pray, oh God.

Very few people pray father, even though Jesus taught us, when you pray, say our father, God in heaven. He told us always pray to the father, but yet they pray to God. God is our father, but it's like, you know, if my son comes to me and says, Mr. Poonen, I'd like to talk to you, I say, what's the matter, are you angry with me or something? You're not supposed to call me Mr. Poonen, you're supposed to call me dad.

I want to ask all of you, my brothers, when you wake up in the morning, do you look up and say, dad, so happy to talk to you this morning? I do that every day. Develop that habit, make it a practice in your life. Constant habit makes it a practice.

And I'm telling you, I'm not telling you some technique. It says the Holy Spirit, verse 15, cries out, Abba. Do you know Abba is a Hebrew equivalent of dad.

They didn't translate it, they should have translated it. The translation of Abba is dad, not father. I mean, my children don't call me father, they call me dad.

So that's what it says here, cries out, Abba. So I find the Holy Spirit in me is calling me, calling out, dad. I've got a dad in heaven.

Dear brothers, do you know that? You say that's elementary. Yes, it is elementary, but do you find that cry coming out of your heart in the morning? It'll make a tremendous difference in your life if you begin to talk to God like that every day. You have a dad in heaven who runs the universe.

Our father who art in heaven. There's no, first of all, he's my dad who loves me. And second, he's in heaven means he runs the universe.

There's no problem he cannot solve. These are the two things I must remember before you start prayer. That's why Jesus said, whenever you pray, start with our father who art in heaven, or dad in heaven.

Dad showing that he loves me in heaven, showing that there's absolutely no problem he cannot solve. If I don't start with that, I cannot pray in faith. Because I look so much at the problem.

It's not just a formula that I must pray our father who art in heaven. It's to remind us that the one whom we are talking to loves us immensely, more than anybody on earth, more than your earthly dad. And he's in heaven and he can, there's not a single problem on earth that he cannot solve.

He may not grant you what you want. If your little four-year-old asks you for a couple of hundred dollars, you're not going to give it to him. However much he calls you, you call, he calls you dad, dad, give me $400.

You're not going to give it to him and God won't give it to you something because you're not old enough or mature enough to handle it yet. So sometimes he won't give it to you when he doesn't give you something. You know, there's a very good reason behind it.

Your 10-year-old says, okay, dad, now can you let me drive the car? He says, no, you can't. A dad doesn't grant a request. No, he doesn't.

You'll ruin yourself. You'll destroy yourself. No, son, you can't.

There's a time and a season for everything. And if earthly fathers deny their children certain things, don't be surprised if your heavenly father also denies you certain things with a very good reason. You're not mature enough to handle some things.

You'll destroy yourself if he gives you certain things. Yeah, I believe that. So remember this, but remember that God is your father.

And then in Romans 8, he goes on to say some amazing things like this, particularly from verse 28 onwards is a tremendous message of triumph. This is where the gospel really leads us. He's spoken about overcoming sin.

He's spoken about being free from the law. Tells me do this, do this, do this. No, I'm not under that.

I'm being led by the Holy Spirit now. I'm not wake up in the morning with the law saying you shall not lust today. You shall not get angry today.

You must rejoice evermore. No, I don't have any law. I live by the Holy Spirit that frees me from these things.

I'm not in Romans 7. I'm in Romans 8. And then I come to this tremendous, it's a song of triumph from verse 28 right up to the end of the chapter. Just listen to it. We know that God causes every single thing that happens to us to work together, not by itself, but together for good to those who love him and who are called according to his purpose.

That is one of the most amazing verses concerning the sovereignty of God where this, remember that we are understanding the gospel. This is part of the gospel. That if you are a child of God and you're really seeking to live in the spirit and seeking to be free from sin, every single thing, all things means A-L-L, every single thing that will happen to you, they won't work individually.

It's not that this one single thing that happened to me will work for my good. No, they will work together. When you put it all together, it's all going to work for my good if I love him and I want to fulfill his purpose for my life.

It's not going to work for your good if your aim in life is to make money or to become a famous in the world or something. But if you want to fulfill his purpose for your life, Lord, my only ambition, I've said that to the Lord many times, I have no ambition outside of your purpose for my life. Say that to the Lord.

If you've never said it, say it many times till it becomes part of your whole personality. I only want to fulfill God's purpose for my life on this earth. I have no other ambition.

I'll tell you this, my brother, your life will change completely. Lord, I love you and I want to fulfill your purpose for my life. I guarantee every single thing that people do to you or don't do to you will work for your good.

And I'll tell you what that good is in a moment. That good is, verse 29, not that you'll make more money, but that you'll become like Jesus Christ. The good is described in the next verse, to be conformed to the image of his son.

That is that purpose. So when we read verse 28 and 29 together, this is the good towards which everything is working. I rejoice in this.

I find an explanation for everything that happens in my life in Romans 8, 28 and 29. That is how our life comes to rest in peace, no matter what happens around us. Whatever people do to us or don't do to us, people promise to do something for us and don't do it.

Or people try to harm us in any way. It makes absolutely no difference. It's all going to work together for God's purpose to make me like Christ.

Our life will come to such rest if we believe this. And then it goes on to say some amazing statements. Romans 8, 28 to 39 is one of the most amazing passages of the result of coming into this gospel, where we seek to live sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Whenever the Holy Spirit says, don't do that. You see some picture in a magazine and the Holy Spirit says, turn the page, don't look at that. Or you're on the internet and some picture comes up that the Holy Spirit says, scroll down, don't stop on that page, that will pollute you.

And the world is full of opportunities to be polluted, but the Holy Spirit is there telling you immediately to protect you. All the filth that there is on the internet, even in news reports, it's amazing. The devil's just occupying every area to pollute human beings.

And we must listen to the voice of the Spirit. When he says, turn the page, turn the page. When he says, scroll down, scroll down.

When he says, don't look at that billboard, don't look at that billboard. Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Your life will be transformed immensely.

Your life will be clean. What shall we say to these things? Verse 31. If God is for us, who can be against us? It's a voice of triumph throughout this 28 to 39.

You really got to memorize verse 28 to 39. If God is for me, who can be against me? If he did not spare his own son, how will he not give me everything else with him? Do I doubt that God will give me something? If he gave up his own son for me, why will he not give me all these things? These are things that are always in my mind. All these verses must be in my mind all the time.

Everything is going to work for my good to make me like Christ. And if God is on my side, who can be against me? And if he did not spare his son, what else will he not give to me? And who is there who's going to bring a charge against me? Nobody. God is going to be on my side as my lawyer.

Verse 33. Who will condemn me? Nobody can condemn me because Christ is my lawyer at the right hand of God interceding for me. Who can separate me? Verse 35 from the love of Christ.

Tribulation, distress, passing, names a whole lot of things. No, in all these things we not only conquer, verse 37, we overwhelmingly conquer. My dear brothers, God's will for you and me is not just to conquer, but to overwhelmingly conquer.

To be a tremendous triumph over all the circumstances that we face in life. This is not a picture of a depressed, gloomy Christian somehow, somehow surviving and gritting his teeth and saying, I'm somehow holding on, I'm slipping up. No, it's a picture of a triumph.

It's like a picture of a Christian flying in the air almost. What a wonderful life is promised. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.

I'll just quickly skim over 9, 10, and 11. Just mentioned to you, Romans 9 speaks of the sovereignty of God. Romans 10 speaks of the righteousness of God.

And Romans 11 speaks of the faithfulness of God. Those are big themes. We don't have time to look at it.

The end result of it is Romans 12. He says, now, do you remember what the Lord told the Samaritan woman? God is a spirit. And those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.

And God is eagerly looking for such worshipers. Do you know the highest thing in heaven is not service, but worship. The greatest thing you can do for on earth is not preaching, it's worshiping.

And worshiping is something which most Christians know zero about. He leads up all this finally to teach me that finally in Romans 12, how you can worship in the spirit. That is the last phrase of Romans 12, 1. Worship in the spirit or spiritual service of worship.

If you turn back to John chapter 4, you'll see the importance of that. The Romans, I remember when I read John chapter 4, this verse, it really challenged me. I hope it challenges you.

The Lord told the Samaritan woman, the hour is coming, verse 23, when the true worshipers, there are false worshipers and true worshipers. The true worshipers, listen to this, will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. We studied today about the soul and spirit.

Here it's worship in the spirit. Most people, what they call worship is only in the soul. It's human excitement and intellect and all that.

Worship in the spirit is something completely different. And then it says, this is the thing that challenged me. The Father is seeking for such people who will worship him.

I say, Father, Dad, you're looking for people who will worship in the spirit. When I read that, Lord, teach me, make me one of those. Not to be a great preacher, that's not the greatest thing.

The Father is not seeking for preachers. He's looking for those who worship. Not all of us can be preachers.

Not all of us can be apostles or prophets, but every one of us can be a worshiper. And that is the highest. And that was what it comes to in Romans 12.

How do I become, how do I offer worship in the spirit? It says here, present your body, a living sacrifice to God. That is your worship in the spirit, what the Lord told the Samaritan woman. So the ultimate goal is that I may worship God in the spirit.

So let me tell you a little bit about worship. Do you know the difference between thanksgiving, praise, and worship? These are three different things. Thanksgiving, praise, and worship.

These are three steps. Thanksgiving is for what God has done for me. Lord, I thank you for this.

We should be thanking God more. This, that, the others. 101 things God has done for us and given us.

You know, out of 10 lepers, one person came back to thank God, and that's about the proportion even today of people have learned to thank God. And Jesus was surprised. Only one out of 10 have come back.

10 people came for prayer, and only one person comes back to thank. That's the proportion in the world even today among believers. I mean, you look at your life, and you look at, I look at my life, I find prayer is 10 times more in my life than thanksgiving.

I got to change that. So thanksgiving is thanking God for what he's done for me, and what he's protecting me, or whatever it is. Praise has got nothing to do with me.

Praise is what we, what we did here, and what we do here every Sunday morning. It's not worship. Don't think that is worship.

That is not worship. A lot of people call it worship service, worship meeting. That is not worship.

It's because they haven't studied the scriptures. That is praise. It can include thanksgiving for what he's done for me, but it's praise for who he is, what he is, and what he's done on the cross.

It's praise, praise, praise, praise. So we understood thanksgiving. That's what he's done for me.

Praise for who he is. And what is worship? Worship is something we do privately, and in secret, and very few Christians know how to worship. To worship is to present my body, like it says here, completely as a sacrifice.

In the Old Testament, it was called the burnt offering in Leviticus chapter 1. They, you know, in Leviticus chapter 1, they had to cut up the bullock into pieces and then burn it. And I used to think, why in the world do you have to cut it up and then burn it? You might as much easier just burn it as it is. You're going to burn it up in any case.

Why cut it up into pieces and pieces and pieces and then burn it? Then I understood when I came to this verse, that when I present my body as an act of worship to God, this is my worship in the spirit. I have to do it piece by piece, like cutting up that bullock in Leviticus chapter 1. And that is, Lord, I'm going to worship you with my tongue now. That means I give you my tongue.

I cut it up and say, here's my tongue. Dad, it's yours. It was mine, but from now on it's yours.

That's worship. It's like, you know, the first place in the Old Testament where the word worship is mentioned? You need to know that. The first place in the Bible where the word worship is mentioned is when God said, Abraham, give me your son.

The most precious thing he had, Abraham said here. And it says there, Abraham said, he told the servants, I'm going up to worship God. He was going up to offer his son.

So to offer our body, which I've used for myself, to offer my tongue to God, you know, if I say, Lord, here's my body, I don't take it seriously. It has to be cut up like the bullock. Lord, here's my tongue.

I used it for myself for a hundred and one things, a thousand and one things. But from today onwards, it is yours. I never want to use my tongue for anything for myself, to defend myself.

I'll never use it to tell a lie. I'll never use it to hurt other people. It is yours.

Then another piece, like, Lord, here's my eyes. I cut out my eyes. Here are my eyes.

I've used it for all types of things for myself. Here it's yours. I'm cutting up the bullock now.

Here are the eyes. Present your bodies, a living sacrifice. This is your worship in the spirit.

Here are my hands, Lord. What all I have done wrong with this hand? What all letters I've written and what all I've done with this hand, which is sinful. It's yours from today.

Here are my feet, Lord. They've taken me to all types of places. I never want to go again.

They are yours. When I cut my body up like that, piece by piece, surrender to God becomes meaningful. Otherwise, so many people say, Lord, I surrendered all and all that, but it doesn't mean anything.

That's why the Lord said, cut up the bullock piece by piece and then offer it to God. And I understood it when I read, present your bodies, a living, holy sacrifice to God. And then once we've offered our body, we give our mind.

Verse two, renew your mind, that you'll be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That is as we read God's word. So this is how we come offer our body and our mind to the Lord.

And this is worship. And that's not something we can do publicly. It's entirely privately.

I do it usually when I'm in my bed all by myself. I asked the Lord once, I said, Lord, it was easy for you in Nazareth. You could go somewhere to the wilderness to be by yourself every morning.

But where I live, there's no wilderness anywhere nearby. What do I do? And the Lord said, you can have a wilderness right there in your bed when you wake up. Your wife is asleep and others are asleep in the house.

And you and I are all alone. Precious times. All alone.

Jesus went to the wilderness to be all alone. I can be on that bed early in the morning or in the middle of the night, all alone. Just me and God.

Do you have times like that? It's worship where you present yourself to God. And remember what Jesus told the devil, you shall worship the Lord, your God, and then serve him. Many years ago, the Lord told me that you cannot serve me effectively if you don't worship me first.

And the trouble with all the shallow, useless service going on today is because the people don't worship first. All the useless preaching that's going on in so many places because the people have not worshiped God first. They're trying to serve before they worship.

And the law of God is very clearly, Matthew 4 10, you shall worship, then you shall serve. And you try to serve without worship, it will not succeed. If the blessing of the Lord will not be on it.

I never want to serve without worshiping. I want to be a worshiper first. Even if I never serve, I want to be a worshiper.

Because the Father is seeking for worshipers. That's why I say, dear brothers, don't think what we do on Sunday morning is worship. It's not.

It's a deception. The devil has robbed Christendom of worship. He's replaced it with thanksgiving and praise and calling it worship so that people never worship in their life.

I want thanksgiving. I want praise. But I also want to worship.

Because when I worship, then I can serve. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And then there are many other things.

It goes on to speak about building the body. In the rest of Romans 12, it speaks about how we should relate to government authorities in chapter 13. How we should bear with other believers who have, you know, different opinions in chapter 14.

And finally, we come to the conclusion of the gospel, which is in Romans 16, verse 20. Here's the final conclusion. The God of peace will crush that enemy of God's people under your feet.

He was defeated on the cross, Satan. And now, under your feet, Satan is going to be crushed. He's not just going to be overcome.

He's going to be completely crushed. Satan will have absolutely no power over you or your family or anyone in your home. It's like putting your feet on top of the head of the snake.

This is the end result of the gospel. That's why Romans is a wonderful book. I skimmed through it very quickly.

When you get time, you can listen to the video again and go step by step and meditate on each one of those points and say, Lord, open up this book to me and show me what the gospel is all about. It will change your life, I assure you. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, there's so much in your word. Please help us to experience it and enjoy it fully, all that you purchased for us in Christ. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name.