Summary of Romans 1-8 (Part 3)

FREEDOM THROUGH CHRIST

This is side three. (Pause two seconds on the tape)
In chapter five (in part five of this letter) Paul says that when we take Jesus as our Master, God receives us as His children. All of our sins are blotted out. Now we can come to Him in prayer. God delights (is happy) when we speak to Him. He will answer our prayers. God's Spirit has come to live in our hearts. He makes us strong to fight temptation, so that we do not yield to it. Paul also tells us that sin came into this world by one man named Adam. Being descendants of Adam, we have sin in us, too. Sin is in all of us. This is why people do evil things today. But when we receive Jesus, God gives us a new power. This power enables us to overcome (down) sin (the power of sin). This power over sin and temptation comes from God's Holy Spirit.

In chapter six, Paul tells us how we can be free from the power of sin. We must give ourselves every day to God in prayer. Then we must trust Jesus, God's Son, to keep us from falling into sin.

Many years ago, some brown-skinned people were slaves to a people of another tribe. The slaves had to work hard and obey their masters. If they did not obey, then they were beaten (hit hard). Some were put to death. Then the government made a law to make these slaves free. They need no longer be slaves. If their masters tried again to rule over them, they needed only to ask the government to make them free. The government did this, and they were free. They were not slaves anymore!

This is a picture of what Jesus can do for us. Before we received Jesus as our Master, we were slaves of sin. We were always doing evil things. Sin ruled us. We were not able to free ourselves, but Jesus made the payment for our sins on the cross. He set us free. Jesus broke the power of sin. Sin has many kinds of fruit: quick temper, witchcraft, evil speaking (talk) and many others. Jesus will keep us free from wicked things if we trust Him and pray to Him every day. Now we can be slaves of Christ, always doing what is right and good. The payment for evil is death, but eternal life is a present (gift) from God. It came to us from Jesus Christ.

In chapter seven, Paul tells us that we cannot defeat (down) the power of sin by ourselves. Our power is too small. But Jesus is stronger than the power of sin. His power can make us strong when we look up to Him in prayer. Jesus hears our prayers and makes us strong to defeat the bad fruit of sin. Now we can say, "Thank you God, for Jesus our Lord." He made us strong to do what is right.



(If on records, add: ... fins side 4, it will tell you more about this message)

(Script continued on #315)