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The Roman Road to
Salvation
Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God."
Over the next couple of weeks I want us
to look at what is call the Romans Road to Salvation.
We have, as Christians heard of the Roman Road
and there may have been many of us who it was used on to lead us to salvation.
The ROMANS ROAD....is a pathway you
can walk or Read through.
It is a group of Bible verses from
the book of Romans in the New Testament. If you walk down this road you will
end up understanding how to be saved.
So the first question I want to ask myself or I
asked this question when first approached is why must I be saved?
What is this person asking me….am I saved?
AS a non believer I would say…saved from what?
From who, or whom if you want to use the correct
English, must I be saved from?
The word saved gives us an indication of
imminent destruction or a sense of approaching doom and unless we have been
saved then the alterative is death.
You hear stories all the time of people being
saved at the last moment from a fire, from a car wreck or from drowning and when
you hear these stories you know that with out that someone who intervened a life
would have been lost.
In sports the word saved means almost the same
thing but just a little different.
A last minute shot in basketball or a 55 yard
field Goal, or a 2 out bottom of the 9th home run always saves the
game.
But in that wording you see it’s not a life that
is lost but a game. Not so life threatening in losing a game unless you are the
player that missed the field goal.
Then the hero has saved the day; still from the
doom of losing or still from the doom of death.
So here is Suzy Christian who has come to save
me from doom and destruction and I can understand death but the question now:
Why am I doomed to death? I understand
that death is coming to us all.
But hey…I’m young and indestructible and I have
a very long life left to live and in fact I’ve not done nothing no one else has
and in fact I’m a lot better person than even Suzie Christian!
The stories can be told about her…she’s done
drugs…she’s was cheating on her boyfriend and in fact the stories go…well lets
just say…she ain’t got no room to tell anyone about their problems when she has
done a lot of those things herself.
Besides I’m not all that bad and to the point I
am a respectively good person. No one talks about me…very much anyway.
Well at least that is what I thought until I
took a path now that so call Romans road.
Romans
3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
As
I look at that verse I see three things that stand out.
1.
all have sinned
2. and fall
short
3. the
glory of God
For all
have sinned!
I have
looked at that and there is no way out.
First it
says FOR ALL.
That doesn’t
same some or a few or even just a couple that says all.
It doesn’t
matter if you are the:
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pope or the president
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a stripper or a saint
It doesn’t matter if you:
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have or have not wealth
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have or have not health
It doesn’t matter if:
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are strong or weak
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confident or shy
It says
that all of us here where you stand or sit…here or there:
It says that
all of us here are or there or where ever you may be.
That means
every person now living on earth or those living in outer space on the space
station or under seas in the oceans…all of us are what….
SINNERS
It
says for all have sinned.
What is sin?
Is sin
breaking the 10 commandments?
Found in
Exodus chapter 20
Revelation 21:8 But the fearful, and
unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and
sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Proverbs 6:16-19 These six things doth
the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying
tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked
imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness
that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
So what is
sin….is it the 10 commandments, (the, thou shall nots)?
Is it all
the things that are written in the bible? What God hates and all those things
that will send us to hell?
What
is it that all of us do that puts us in that category?
Guess
what…I’m going to tell you.
God spoke
to me Friday while I was driving around town. I had my mp3 player and was
grooving on my Christian songs and God started to deal with me. His spirit
filled by to the point that I was crying.
Sin is
simply put in just two words.
It’s some
thing that we do every day…all of us and there is no one who is honest with
themselves can say that they don’t sin every day.
It’s
rejection of God.
Now you may
say what about all that other stuff written in God’s Word….
Yes that is
sin but I believe in Gods eyes and follow me on this….
The ten
commandments.
The things
God hates
The things
that will send you to hell
These are
all symptoms of the bigger problem…
We are and
have rejected God
We are in
and have been in rebellion.
If we are
rebelling against our Lord and the one who saves us from doom, death and
destruction then all those things:
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greed
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lust
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adultery
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evil works
Ø the
placing of idols before us
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drugs
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spouse abuse
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child abuse
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homosexuality
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lesbianism
all these
are symptoms of the real problem….rejection of God from our hearts and our
heads.
Matthew 12:31 Wherefore I say unto you,
All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
When we
reject God and I realize that is the sin that hurts God the most. I think
about my kids and the kids that I have loved over the years.
What ever
they did that I ask them not to do ..it wasn’t the sin of doing what I told them
not to do…
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it was rejecting me
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it was rejecting my love for
them,
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it was rejecting my hope for
them
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it was rejecting my teachings
that I had given them to prosper in life
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it was rejecting the hopes I had
for them
These
things that they did and I had taught them better were symptoms…results of their
rebellion against me.
If they had
loved me….what a wonderful relationship we would have had.
Me and my
children could have walked in the garden holding hands and just rejoicing in the
love that we have.
That is a picture of sin…rebellion against God.
It says we
have all sinned …we have all in our hearts rejected God…and some of us are still
rejecting God.
We have all
fallen short …our sins have kept us from reaching the goal that God has given
us.
We have not
reached the mark.
We have not
crossed the finish line
We are still
running the race but with rebellion;
Some of us
are racing to the goal line but we are doing our way instead of Gods way.
Some of us
are in the race but on the wrong track.
Some of us
are in the race but going in the wrong direction.
Can you
imagine the Daytona 500 and the cars going in all directions…what would happen?
Doom and
destruction
And what
have we fallen short of?
We have
sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God!
What is the
Glory of God….my vision the gospel according to book of Jim
It’s
everything that you can imagine when you take your child in your hand for the
first time and all those dreams come flooding into your mind….
I am going
to give this child
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And education
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Love
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Make him or her happiest person
on earth
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Never to allow this child to see
any hurt in their lives
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Never let them marry the wrong
person
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Protect this child
The glory
that we imagined for our kids
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They were going to grow up
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Become doctors
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Lawyers
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Save the world
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Love me forever
Then as
they grow older Satan enters into the garden and they start to rebel…
And our
souls hurt for them every time they make a wrong decision or every time they get
hurt.
Oh God we
don’t reject them but they reject us and our love for them.
Oh how they
unsuspecting hurt us because all they have on their hearts is pleasing
themselves and we are forgotten.
We have
been rejected.
And that
Folks is what we have done to our father in heaven…..
Romans
3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
We
all have sin in our hearts. We all were born with sin.
We were born under the power of sin's
control.
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And that first
step on the Roman’s road
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That first step
to salvation to being saved
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That first step
to reuniting with our heavenly father in all His Glory
That first step to being loved
and being able to love again in a relationship like we have never had is to:
- Admit that you are a sinner.
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