When your life has taken a similar path to mine, you become very familiar with Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
- I grew up going to church every Sunday. This meant I have heard messages from Romans my entire life. This little epistle is a “preacher’s gold mine.”
- I came into a personal relationship with Christ in high school, and one of the first Bible Studies I was ever involved in, was studying the book of Romans.
- I was deeply involved with Campus Crusade for Christ while a student at OU. As a part of my ministry with Cru, we memorized the “4 Spiritual Laws,” a short book filled with verses from Romans that I memorized.
- When I graduated from OU, I was given my first commentary by my friend Todd Stewman as a graduation gift . . . William Newell’s “Romans: Verse by Verse.”
- I attended seminary where I took two entire classes that focused on the book of Romans in two different languages (Greek and English)!
- While working as the College Pastor at Wildwood Community Church, I led three different small groups of people through the book of Romans and taught through Romans verse by verse on Sunday mornings to college students.
- I even co-wrote a Bible Study on Romans 1-8 with a variety of people at Wildwood including Bob Reed and Charissa Fry on two different occasions.
Based on this experience, you would think that I would have a pretty good working knowledge of the book . . . that’s why when I started studying Romans 8:14-17 a few weeks back for a message I was preaching at Wildwood Community Church, I was so excited to see something “new” in these verses that will form the backbone of my sermon on Sunday, January 5, 2014. (Isn’t God’s Word deep!)
I say “new” because there is nothing “new” in this book . . . it is 2000 years old. However, it was “new” to me, and it blessed me greatly. I am excited to share this truth with you this Sunday at Wildwood Community Church as a part of our “Adoption Sunday” worship service (a worship service we moved after weather forced us to cancel services on November 24.)
Hope you can join us to look at this new/old truth in either our 9:30 or 10:50 worship service.