My father served as a Baptist pastor for over 40 years. When he finished seminary in the early ’50’s he felt God calling him to serve in what was then referred to as pioneer areas for Baptists. That basically means God didn’t lead him to the Bible belt where you can throw a stone in any direction and hit a Baptist church. No…my dad was called to serve in places where there was little or no Baptist work so the churches I attended as a child were small…usually not more than a hundred members or so-certainly not big enough to have all the programs and ministries that churches like Redland has.
Well, when I was about eight years old I had several friends who were cub scouts and they told me about the kind of things they did in their scout troops. It sounded like they were having a lot of fun plus they got to wear spiffy uniforms so I begged my dad to let me join the local troop. And instead of giving me a yes or no, he asked me to be patient because he was about to try and start a program at our little church called Royal Ambassadors. Dad said that he thought I might benefit more from this organization and when I asked him why he said it was sort of Baptist version of Boy Scouts. Well, in a few months dad had found and trained leadership in that little church and they got a Royal Ambassador program going…much like the one we have here at Redland. And…I loved it! Most of the boys in our church came. We learned a lot about camping and outdoor skills. We wore uniforms and worked hard to earn badges and pins so that we could advance in rank, much like my cub scout friends. But the Royal Ambassador program went a step further. We also learned about missions. And, not only did we study about missionaries serving on foreign fields across the globe. My RA leaders helped me to understand that I was a missionary….that God had given all Christians-including me-the task of sharing the gospel with the entire world. In fact our Royal Ambassador theme verse said as much. I quoted it to you last Sunday. II Corinthians 5:20 says, Now then we are AMBASSADORS for Christ… or as Today’s English Version translates it, Here we are then, SPEAKING FOR CHRIST, as though God Himself were making His appeal through us.
I point that verse out to you again this week because there is a very real sense in which all of us, male and female, young and old, are ROYAL ambassadors. As Christians, while we live in this world of ours we serve as representatives of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And, as this text says, He has indeed given us the responsibility of speaking on His behalf. In fact, He has given us a specific message to convey. Unfortunately, many of us are ineffective as God’s ambassadors. Oh, we understand the GOSPEL. But for one reason or another, we have difficulty COMMUNICATING the message of the GOSPEL to others. Paul Little points out that for many of us, UNDERSTANDING the GOSPEL is like UNDERSTANDING a MATHEMATICAL problem. We hear the problem explained in class and we clearly understand it as the professor goes over it but when a friend who cut the class asks us to explain the problem, we are at a loss as to how to do so in terms that are clear enough for him to grasp. In a similar fashion many of us who have believed and understood the Gospel are unable to articulate it clearly enough to another person so that they, too, might come to know and serve our loving Lord.
Well, as I promised last Sunday, today I want to put in your hand a basic tool for you to use in sharing your faith with your friends. I personally have used it countless times and have found it to be a way to clearly explain to others the essence of God’s Good News…the message that God has given us to convey on His behalf. I am referring to some well-known verses from Scripture that are known as The ROMANS ROAD. It has been given that designation because these verses all come from that book of the New Testament. And, it IS a great way to share your faith because not only is it easy to remember; it’s also so simple that even a child can understand it-yet it is so profound that it’s truth will touch any heart.
Now, I want you to understand…The ROMANS ROAD is a tool you would use in sharing your faith with someone who is at the point of making their commitment to God…someone you have built a relationship with, who is now asking you how to become a Christian. I’m saying it’s not something you would communicate to a perfect stranger.
Okay, let’s go down this Road together today so we’ll be able to guide someone else down it when the time comes. The first stop on the Romans Road is found in Romans 3:23 . Look it up-in fact keep your Bibles open to the book of Romans and let’s read it together: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
1. Now…if there were a literal sign at this point on the road it would say that we all have a PROBLEM.
You see, all of us have an inborn need to know God…to have a relationship with Him. We were created or designed to walk through life in fellowship with our Creator. So, without this relationship our lives leave much to be desired. We lack purpose or direction and we experience an emptiness and an inner loneliness. The problem is there is a barrier between us and God that makes this relationship with Him impossible. You see God is holy and we are not. As this verse puts it, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. and in order for someone to become a Christian and experience this relationship with God that they need so desperately, they have to first of all admit that this verse applies to them-that they are sinners separated from God because as C. S. Lewis has said, Christianity has no message for those who do not recognize that they are sinners.
About 84 payments ago Sue and I bought our first home. I think we actually own about two windows and a door knob by now. Well about a year after we moved in we had scrimped and saved enough money to put new carpet down. We looked at tons of carpet color samples and finally settled on a very light beige. As soon as it was put down we realized that it must be protected from stains at all costs, so the law was given! No one was to walk on the carpet with their shoes on. We even debated the possible stain damage that could be caused by bare foot oil and added the requirement that all of us wear clean socks before walking on the forbidden floor. It was like our house was the Garden of Eden and the law was, You may wear shoes and walk anywhere you want in this house…but not on the wall to wall carpet…for on the day that you leave a stain upon it, you shall surely die! Well, it wasn’t too long before the FALL occurred. Stains began to appear here and there and we investigated we found out that there wasn’t ONE stainer living at 6508 Farmingdale Court but FIVE. ALL of us were guilty. All of us deserved to be called on the carpet because all of us from time to time had ignored the law and, to save time, had kept our shoes on when coming in the house.
I share this because if a person wants to become a Christian they must first admit that they are guilty because as this verse on the Romans Road says all of us are stained with sin…all of us bear the marks of disobeying God. All of us sin both by nature and by choice. That is the problem. That is what keeps us from what we need most-a personal relationship with God like the one Adam and Even enjoyed before their sin.
Maybe you’ve heard about the lady who walked into a psychiatrist’s office. She had two fried eggs on top of her head, and a strip of bacon tied over each ear. And she said, Doctor, I’ve come to you about my brother. HE has a problem. Well, we live in a world where everybody has a problem, not just the ones who look like it or act like it, and the first step to solving that problem is to admit that we are just as guilty as everyone else.
That’s why this first stop on the Romans Road is so important. You see-the problem with our world-our culture-is not immoral TV and movies and music. It is not the AIDS epidemic. It is not abortion or the erosion of the family. It is not drug and alcohol abuse or even terrorism. No….these things are just FRUITS of the problem. Think of them as SYMPTOMS of a disease that we all have called SIN.
In his book, Whatever Became of Sin? Carl Mennenger tells the story of a stern-faced, plainly dressed man who was standing on the corner of a busy intersection in Chicago. As people hurried by, he would solemnly lift his right arm, point to the person nearest him, and speak loudly the single word, GUILTY! Then without any change of expression, he would resume his still stance for a few moments, and then he would again raise his arm, point to someone else passing by, and pronounce the one word: GUILTY! When he did this, one man turned to another and exclaimed, How did he know? This street corner prophet had odd methods but his sermon was absolutely accurate. I could repeat it this morning and point at everyone here including myself and accurately say the same thing: GUILTY! because as Paul says in this verse from Romans, everyone is GUILTY of this thing called sin.
Now, SIN is a little word but an often misunderstood one. It is a word that does not communicate well in our society today because people tend to think of sin as one specific kind of obvious immorality and if they don’t happen to be guilty of that kind of immorality, they don’t see themselves as sinners. They think, I don’t rob banks or do drugs. I’ve never killed any one. I’m not a sinner. But sin is not just bad things that we do-whether they be big sins or little ones. No…SIN is a state of imperfection…a state of depravity into which we are all born. According to Webster the word depraved means marked by corruption or evil, perverted, crooked. Now, when we hear that we think, That doesn’t apply to me. I’m not evil or perverted. We think depraved is a word describes others but not us…and that in our estimation we are pretty good. But according to the Bible sin and depravity have nothing to do with our estimation of ourselves but rather of God’s estimation. Dwight Pentecost writes, The Scriptures do not measure men by man; they measure men by God Who has created them. The creature is measured by the Creator and is found to be wanting.
Someone described it best when they suggested, If depravity were blue, we’d be blue all over. Cut us anywhere and we’d bleed blue. Cut into our minds and you’ll find blue thoughts of greed and lust. Cut into our hearts and there are blue emotions of hatred, revenge, and blame. Cut into our wills and you’ll find deep blue decisions and responses. The tragedy is that we don’t LOOK blue. In fact, in comparison to others we look good. But there’s something deep within all of us that is depraved. It’s called our sin nature. This is why we CAN’T clean up our act. This is why we can’t handle our own lust. This is why we can’t say no to certain temptations. This is why we fight with each other and fight with God-all the time knowing we shouldn’t. This is why we can’t seem to keep our promises. This is why all children begin to disobey and question our authority so early in their lives.
To get a picture of the depravity…the sin nature of mankind, look back up at Romans 3:11-17 where it says, There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good; not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know. As this scripture says all of us are depraved…we are marked by the disease of sin. We are all therefore cut off from God like a leaf cut off from it’s stem. THAT’S THE PROBLEM.
Well, let’s get on down the road because at our next stop we will find a sign posted that give us…
2. …God’s SOLUTION to our problem.
Turn to Romans 6:23 and 5:8 and read with me. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 6:23,5:8 ) Now after you read this verse from chapter 6 you may have to make sure the individual you are talking to understands what a wage is because we don’t use that word as much as we used to. It is the translation of the Greek word, opsonia which referred to a soldier’s pay-something that he earned by serving in the army-something that was due him. And Paul uses this word here to remind us that not only do we all sin-our sin earns all of us death. This means that the deadliest killer of humanity is not heart disease or cancer or AIDS or war. No, it is the terminal illness known as sin. And, as our first stop on the road said, every one of us has it…everyone suffers from the consequences of it. To make matters worse, we pass this disease on to each new generation. Referring to the sin of Adam Romans 5:12 says, …sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.
Fortunately the ROMANS ROAD doesn’t stop there. Otherwise it would be a literal dead end. No…it goes on and says what? The wages of sin is death but… Read it with me. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. In other words there is a CURE for the disease we all have. We don’t have to die…and this cure is not something we EARN. It is a FREE GIFT made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross. As Romans 5:8 says, Christ died FOR US. He could do this because unlike us He was born of a virgin and had no inherent sin nature. As the Bible says, Jesus KNEW no sin; He HAD no sin; He DID no sin. This made Him qualified to be the Lamb of God Who could die in our place. He didn’t have to die for His own sin so He was able to die for ours. As Romans 5:17 says, For if by the trespass of the one man [ADAM], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Man, Jesus Christ.
Now, many people can buy into the fact that they are sinners and that they deserve punishment and death but it is hard for them to accept eternal life as a FREE GIFT. They think they must have to earn something that is so wonderful. And in our witnessing we need to steer people clear of heading down this wrong road. Reminds me of the story I read recently about a drunk down on all fours late one night under a street light. He was groping around on the ground, feeling the cement, peering intently at the little cracks. A friend came up to him and said, Sam, what are your doing there? Sam said, I lost my wallet. So the friend got out of his car, walked over, got down on his hands and knees with him and they both started looking. Neither one could find it. Finally the friend said to his drunk buddy, Are you sure you lost the wallet here? Sam said, Of course not! I dropped it a half a block over there. His friend said, Then why are you looking here? Sam said, Because there’s no street light over there. Now to many people it LOOKS like the way to have your sin debt paid is to work it off…to earn eternal life. But, when they think this they are looking in the wrong place for a way to deal with their sin because the Bible says it is beyond our ability to do work off our sin debt. Ephesians 2:8 says, For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the GIFT of God-not by works so that no one can boast.
The salvation we all need must be God-given, God-driven, God-empowered, and God-originated. This gift is not from man to God. It is from God to man. As I John 4:10 says, It is not our love for God; it is God’s love for us in sending His Son to be the way to take away our sins. Those who have accepted this gift understand this principle. People who have followed God describe man’s efforts at earning salvation in repulsive terms. Isaiah said our good works are, …like filthy pieces of cloth. referring to menstrual rags. (Is. 64:6) Paul equated our efforts at righteousness as the pile of stink you avoid in the cow pasture. (Philippians 3:8 ) These men and others have learned that God’s love is activated not by our goodness but by our need, not by our spiritual depth but by our spiritual depravity. As Romans 5:8 says, God’s action in history to redeem sinful man was not initiated by our loveliness but by His love.
Try explaining this to a seeker with this illustration. Pretend you’ve just learned that the continental United States will be destroyed by a giant explosion next week. Everyone living there has one option: to swim to Hawaii. Think of all the types of people that will be lined up on the coast of California, preparing for the big swim. One group has tried to prepare themselves physically and mentally. They are in excellent condition. Then there are people of the other extreme-those who watch excessive amounts of television while consuming a lot of junk food and those who abuse their bodies with alcohol and drugs. They aren’t at all prepared for the swim. The big day comes. It’s time for the explosion, and everyone dives into the water and begins swimming. What do you think will happen to all these people in the ocean? All will drown, regardless of their preparation because it’s beyond our PHYSICAL capability to swim thousands of miles to Hawaii. And likewise, it’s beyond our SPIRITUAL capability to be good enough to have a relationship with God. There’s nothing we can do in our own efforts that will even come close to getting us into heaven. There is only One who is capable of paying our sin debt and He has done it on Calvary’s cross.
You know, in the days that Jesus walked the earth, when a criminal was executed on a cross, his crime had to be publically proclaimed. The list of transgressions was written on a placard or titilus and nailed above the dying man. You probably remember that Pontius Pilate did this when Jesus died. He put a notice above Christ’s head with the accusation, Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews. (John 19:19 ) But you know, high above Pilate’s words, there was a cosmic placard on which all of our sins were listed. Though I wasn’t born yet, the sins I would commit two thousand years later were recorded there.
You see, God did not see Christ dying for His own crimes-as I said earlier, He had committed none. No…Jesus died for your crimes and for mine. He PAID our penalty. Hebrews 9:15 says, Christ died as a RANSOM to set us free from our sins. As prophesied through the Isaiah, our Redeemer was, …pierced for OUR transgressions…He was crushed for OUR iniquities.
This week I came across a reference to an old play that was written shortly after WWII by a Lutheran Minister named Guenter Rutenborn. The play was entitled, The Sign of Jonah and was set in a devastated post-war Germany. The plot focused on an attempt to discover who was to blame for the atrocities of the war. The obvious culprits were suggested: Hitler, the Jews, the Bureaucrats-even the apathetic average man who simply did what he was told. But in the play suddenly a man got up from the audience, and walked onto the stage and said: You are being superficial! You’re not taking this case back to its ULTIMATE source. Do you know Who is really to blame? God is! He is the One Who made this terrible world. He is the One Who entrusted all this power to unworthy hands. Didn’t He just sit by and allow this to happen? If you’re looking for the real culprit, I’ll tell you Who it is. It’s God!
Well at first everyone on stage is shocked by such an accusation. But gradually the idea catches on and the court agrees with this verdict. God is found guilty of the crime of creation and the judge says, Because of the enormity of such a crime, the punishment must be the harshest possible. I hereby sentence God to have to come and live in this wretched world the way we humans have. Then the three archangels, GABRIEL, MICHAEL, and RAPHAEL are sent to execute this sentence. As GABRIEL starts out, he turns and muses to himself: When God serves this sentence, I’ll se to it that He knows obscurity and shame. He’ll be born in a barn on the back side of no where with a peasant girl for a mother. He’ll know what it is like to live in an occupied country. He’ll experience the stigma of being a Jew in a Jew-hating world. And there will be suspicion of shame about the manner of His birth.
Then, as MICHAEL starts off the stage, he turns and muses saying, When God serves His sentence, I’m going to see to it that He experiences FRUSTRATION and INSECURITY. He’ll have no place to lay His head. No one, not even His family will understand Him. In the end the very people He wanted to help, will turn against Him…
And then as RAPHAEL makes his way off the stage, he turns and says, When God serves this sentence, I’m going to see to it that He knows what it’s like to suffer and die! He’ll be falsely accused, illegally tried, curse, spat upon, tortured! And then He will die the long slow death of a common criminal! As the archangels disappear, the house lights go down and all of a sudden it strikes you…GOD HAS ALREADY SERVED THIS SENTENCE. He knows what it is like to live as a human being in this kind of world. He’s taken the responsibility for creating this kind of world. In Jesus, He became what we are to show us that He would rather die than live without us. And this was His plan all along. The Bible tells us that from the beginning of time it was planned that Jesus would be born to be The Lamb of God Who would take away the sins of the world.
Okay, we’ve got one more stop on the road and it is found in Romans 10:9-10 and verse 13. Go there with me and let’s again read together: If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
3. …the sign at this point on the road tells us the required RESPONSE to Jesus’ death on our behalf.
You see it is not enough to believe all that we have learned so far on our journey down this road. A person can understand the Christian message and still go to Hell. The Bible says we have to DO something with what we believe. We must act on our understanding. As this text says we must confess or state our belief that Jesus is Who He says He is and that He has done what the Bible tells us He has done…that He died for our sins and rose on the third day. We must each individually ask Jesus to forgive us of our sin. Then we must give Him our lives, committing to serve Him as Lord. Everyone who wants to become a Christian must personally RESPOND to all He has done for us. As John 1:12 says, To all who RECEIVED Him, to those who BELIEVED in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
I think it is significant that marriage is one of the illustrations that the New Testament uses for both becoming and being a Christian because it’s obvious that merely believing in marriage, however intense that belief might be, does not make one married. I mean a bachelor might say, Sure, I believe in marriage. I’m sold on it. You should see all the books I’ve read; I’m an expert on the subject. Besides I’ve been to plenty of weddings. Funny thing though-can’t quite understand it: marriage doesn’t seem real to me. This fictional man’s problem is that he hasn’t learned that believing in marriage isn’t enough. He must act on that belief. To BE married, one has to come to a commitment of the will and say, I do dedicating himself to the other person and thereby establishing a relationship.
The parallel is obvious. Being a Christian requires a devoting of ourselves to a living Lord. This commitment depends on a relationship of love and obedience. We must believe in Jesus, personally receive Him into our lives and thus become Children of God. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus compares our lives to a house and says, Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with Him and Him with Me. The Lord Jesus knocks at the doors of our lives. He will not gatecrash or force His way in but will do so only at our invitation. We must respond to His knocking by opening the door in order to become a Christian.
Perhaps you are here this morning and you have never been down this Romans Road before and as we have made this journey you have come to realize how much you need Jesus in your life. If that is true then I invite you right now to respond. Confess your belief that Jesus died in your place and that He rose from the dead. Invite Him into your heart and life and then come and tell me about it! Others of you may want to simply commit to learning this road well so you can be ready to guide someone down it. And then, if you are here and feel God leading you to join our church, come…we would love to have you as a vital part of this part of the body of Christ. Won’t you come now…as we stand and sing?