Last week I wrote about the daunting nature of trying to tackle the book of Romans as a preacher. In this post I thought I’d share my workings and how I’ve tried to tackle the challenge. Usual caveats that this is not the way it should be done and certainly not the way someone else should do it but hopefully this showing of my workings demonstrates what could be done when facing Romans. The titles are all provisional and everything is subject to change.

My basic conviction is that it is the text itself that determines what we tackle – it’s a straightforward expository approach. Having said that I don’t think that means having to exegete every verse in a sermon. We can take the issues, themes, questions in whatever way we see best so long as we can find them in the text. As an example of that the first 8 sermons all come from chapter 1 but I’ve gone for only 1 from chapter 4 (Abraham). You could obviously do more than one sermon on Abraham as Paul writes about him in Romans 4 but that whole chapter is focused on just one thing: FAITH. Chapter 1 by contrast raises multiple issues.

Having worked my way through the first few chapters it quickly became apparent that we have enough rich material here for the remainder of this term so why not just do that? We don’t have to come up with short clever series; we don’t have to serve up the Bible in bite size portions in case people get bored and maybe we’ll take a break and shift to something else in January or maybe not.

The other idea I’m playing with is that in these early chapters Paul raises (at least) three topics which are key apologetic questions to 21st Century Stockholmers. Paul says the existence of God is plain (1:19-20) and yet in a highly atheistic and agnostic culture that is Sweden they would strongly disagree. Secondly Paul says homosexuality is against nature (1:24-28) and a great example of our fallen nature against which God’s wrath will come. In July this year 600,000 people were on the streets of Stockholm for Pride. That’s a lot in a country of just over 10 million. So we need to tackle that. Lastly, Paul argues that there is a universal morality (2:15) that is written on the hearts of humans and is a key point in his case that everyone is without excuse. So on those three occasions we’ll try and speak to the reasonable inquirer while trying to equip the saints with those responses.

That’s enough preamble – on to the series.

1. Paul, Rome and the Romans: Romans 15:22-16:23
   This is the intro to the series that introduces some of the history of Romans and how it has shaped the lives of great figures of church history through the centuries like John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Karl Barth, John Wesley, Martin Luther, Augustine to name just a few. My understanding is that Romans is just as much a pastoral letter as all the other letters of Paul and much of what we learn about the church in Rome at the end of the letter shapes what the apostle chose to write about.
   
   
2. The Gospel of God: Romans 1:1-6, 9, 16-17
   The Gospel is what defines Paul. It is what he preaches, is what he is famously not ashamed of, and it tells us that it is ‘concerning Gods’ Son’ (v3). This is an opportunity to preach the Gospel and call people to lead lives that are shaped by ‘concern for the Son’ or with regard to the Son.
    
3. The Mission of God: Romans 1:5, 14-15, 15:28
   Paul has been called to be an apostle to the Gentiles, to the Greeks, the barbarians and ‘to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among ALL THE NATIONS’ (v.5). This is a glorious opportunity to help people see the multicultural nature of our church as part of Paul’s vision, but also to be reminded of the great task that still remains to be fulfilled. There remains hundreds of millions of people unreached, and there are more unreached people alive today than ever before. The mission remains.
   
   
4. The Church of God: Romans 1:7-15; 15:24
   The Church are those ‘loved by God and called to be saints’ (v.7) which is a wonderful description of who we are and how we are to live that we need regularly reminded of. But there’s more here for the church: enjoying company (15:24), imparting spiritual gifts (1:11), mutual encouragement (1:12), shared mission (1:13), prayer and preaching (1:10,15). This is a culture setting opportunity – that can highlight the value of gathered Sundays (worship, preaching, impartation), small groups (prayer, encouragement, mutual strengthening).
   
   
5. APOLOGETIC BREAK 1: What does nature tell us about God?
   Paul says that God has revealed himself to all people (1:19-20): “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” This is an opportunity to ask the question: Is that true? This is essentially an opportunity to make a case for the existence of God (specifically using forms of the cosmological argument). Stuff has been made, there’s probably someone who made it.
   
   
6. Humans screwing things up #1 IDOLATRY: Romans 1:18-25
   Paul says there are two revelations (or revealings) that we should reckon with: the righteousness of God (1:17) and the wrath of God (1:18). The wrath of God comes on humanity for two main reasons; idolatry and immorality. Idolatry is the substitution of something made and putting it in the place of the Maker. All humans do this with something: the heart is an idol factory but Jesus is the one true object of our worship.
   
   
7. Humans screwing things up #2 IMMORALITY: Romans 1:26-32
   Although this section highlights the sin of homosexual sex (26-27) it is NOT the only sin we should be bothered about (see 29-31). The church should be concerned about ALL these sins (and it’s not an exhaustive list because we are ‘inventors of evil’ v.30!) but the key target here is the way humans can call sin good and call righteousness evil and that we can give approval to so much of human sin (32) and God is right to be angry at this but there is hope.
   
   
8. APOLOGETIC BREAK 2: Is being gay really a sin? What does God have against Pride?
   Romans 1:18-32 and specifically 24-28 constitute one of the longer arguments that homosexuality is in fact a sin and not part of God’s design for humans. This is an opportunity to deal both with the fact that in our city this is an obstacle to many people considering Christ. It is also a chance to highlight the dangers of a church that has fully accommodated to the world. So what will our attitude be? We must help our people know why and how to respond to this issue.
   
   
9. The justice of a just Judge: Romans 2:1-16
   Because of our idolatry & immorality we have no excuse (2:1) and God is right to judge humanity and individual humans. This is not unfair but in fact totally necessary. Yet there is a warning not to presume on God’s love and carry on living ungodly lives but there is hope because God’s kindness is indeed rich and He is indeed patient (2:4) but it is meant to lead us to repentance (2:4). A service of repentance can be a very freeing thing for everyone!
   
   
10. The dangers of hypocrisy: Romans 2:17-29
    The Jews got themselves into trouble because they ended up doing exactly the same things as everyone else but they should have known better because they had been given the law (2:17-24). And this is pretty much what many think about the church today: that we are full of hypocrites who judge others but are just as guilty themselves. Let it not be so!
    
    
11. APOLOGETIC BREAK 3: Is there a universal moral code? Has eternity been written on our hearts?
    Paul says in 2:15 that people who do not know God ‘show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness’ which echoes Ecclesiastes 3:11 that says God has put ‘eternity in the hearts of men’. This is an opportunity to ask the question: can we really be good without God? How can we know what is really good if there is no God?
    
    
12. The Righteousness of God: Romans 3:1-31
    There is a risk here that there is too much here for one sermon. But it essentially summarizes the issues raised in Chapters 1 & 2 and is summed up in the famous verse: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. But there is hope; God is not like us and has chosen to justify us by his grace through the sacrifice of Jesus on a cross (3:24-25) and so there is hope for the Gentile and the Jew through the same way: not through works apart from or under the law but through faith in God’s promises concerning His Son!
    
    
13. Abraham and the life of faith: Romans 4
    Paul then makes an extended illustration about the nature of faith through the life of Abraham (Genesis 15-17). He is useful to the Gentiles because he exercised faith while uncircumcised and an example to the Jew because he received the covenants and in particular his faith is shown in his confidence in the promises of God (4:20) and it will be the same for us if we ‘believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.’ (Rom 4:25). This is a great opportunity to call  people to a life of faith and specifically faith in Christ!