Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned- 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

My title has a double meaning. One meaning is that it took me
almost twenty years to get up the courage to preach through the
book of Romans. Twenty years, then Romans. We have begun and in the
next three weeks I hope to finish chapter five. The other meaning
is that in this message I want to begin with reflections on twenty
years and then close with a brief reference to Romans and where we
are going.

The message falls into three parts. As I turn from the past
twenty years to the next chapter – however long God wills for
it to be – 1) I am thankful; 2) I am regretful; and 3) I am
hopeful. So I begin with thanks – twenty things I am thankful
for on this twentieth anniversary.

I Am Thankful

1. I thank God for Jesus Christ who loved us and
   gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age
   according to the will of our God and Father. I say with the words
   of 2 Timothy 4:17 (I preached from that passage the end of my first
   year at Bethlehem), "The Lord stood by me and gave me strength to
   proclaim the message fully." I thank God that Jesus, in his mercy,
   has stood by me and helped me for twenty years.
2. I thank God for the Bible, the Word of God. I
   never quite get over the fact that you pay me to study it and
   preach it. Under God, this is the foundation of our church and the
   fountain of all our true and lasting joy.
3. I thank God for corporate prayer. I love to
   pray with the staff and with you. I thank God that so far as I
   know, for example, the Friday morning prayer meeting at 6:30 has
   not missed a day for over about thirteen years (with the exception
   of a few Christmases on Friday). O that more of you would taste
   this joy with me. And similarly, I thank God that you, the people,
   pray for me and my family. Spurgeon was asked once when he was
   traveling what the key to his ministry was, and he said, "My people
   pray for me." Amen.
4. I thank God for hundreds of hearts awakened to the
   gospel of the glory of Christ – people born again by
   the living and abiding Word, and people who thought they knew God
   and have been raised out of the slumbers of spiritual apathy into a
   passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all
   peoples through Jesus Christ. You don't hear about some for years
   and then they say, "It was there in that pew where God did the
   decisive work in my life."
5. I thank God for twenty years of almost unbroken peace
   in our church. And even when I think about the season of
   pain and controversy six years ago, I thank God for the humbling
   and the refining. But over-all, God has mercifully given precious
   peace and unity among staff and elders and people.
6. I thank God for those of you who were here long before
   I came and created the heritage that I received when I
   came. Few young, inexperienced pastors, I think, have been treated
   with more support and encouragement and patience and blessing than
   I was. The transition through all the changes was peaceful because
   of the meekness and kindness of so many long-time veteran
   members.
7. I thank God that my children have all grown up loving
   the church and supporting my ministry here. When we came,
   Karsten was seven, Benjamin was four, and Abraham was six months
   old. Barnabas was born three years later and Talitha arrived five
   years ago. All they remember about church is Bethlehem. And
   whenever we have been away on vacation, they've always wanted to
   come back. Thank you for loving my family and making this a place
   of joy for them to be. We gathered as a family on Friday night for
   half an hour or so to speak of our thanks and pray. It was not hard
   to think of good things to say about the Bethlehem years.
8. I thank God for a persevering, long-term pastoral
   staff. A youth pastor who stays in one place for fifteen
   years is unheard of. My 27-year-old Karsten was a ninth grader when
   you came, Brad Nelson. You have shepherded all four sons through
   their teenage years. They love you. So do I. David Livingston,
   David Michael, Tom Steller, Brad – if you take just the five
   of us old-timers on staff, the total is eighty-two years of
   ministry to Bethlehem. I thank God for what these precious brothers
   and their wives, Karin and Sally and Julie and Cindy, mean to
   me.
9. I thank God for funerals. Or to put it more
   personally, I thank God for the ministry of the dying in my life.
   Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints (Psalm
   116:15). When I came to Bethlehem I had been to maybe three
   funerals in my life. In the first two and a half years here I
   preached at a funeral, on average, just about once every three
   weeks. I would rather preach at a funeral than at a wedding, not
   because I love death more than I love marriage, but because the
   gospel of Christ crucified and risen shines more brightly at a
   funeral. At a wedding there are so many earthly reasons to feel
   happy. At a funeral, if the gospel of Christ is not true – if
   the blood and righteousness of Christ are not sufficient to make us
   acceptable to God – then there are few reasons to be happy.
   The effect of death on my life in the ministry has been profound,
   and I thank God for it and for all those who in their dying taught
   me so much.
10. I thank God for the missions heritage of
    Bethlehem(the Board of World Missions of the Baptist
    General Conference was born in this church in the mid-40's). And I
    thank God for the missions revolution in 1983-84 that changed my
    life and resulted in 90 by '90 and then 2000 by
    2000 and an ongoing commitment and passion to reach the
    unreached peoples of the world. O what a privilege to be a part of
    a church with a passion for the Great Commission!
11. I thank God for the gift that you give me of time to
    get away and write. I don't take it for granted. And I
    pray that God will credit the fruit in large measure to your
    account as you support me and pray for me.
12. I thank God for health. I think there has been
    one Sunday in twenty years when I was not able to preach because of
    sickness. Sometimes during the week I have not been able to speak
    because of laryngitis, but it was manageable by Sunday. In fact,
    our whole family has been healthy and I don't want to take a minute
    of it for granted. May the Lord let me spend and be spent for his
    cause while I have strength. I know the night is coming when no man
    can work.
13. I thank God for the Council of Elders. In
    twenty years there has never been a season in which I have felt
    estranged from the leadership of the church. Which is an
    understatement. Better to say it positively: For twenty years I
    have feasted increasingly on the strength-giving wisdom and
    humility and prayer and faith and doctrinal soundness and joyful,
    Bible-saturated leadership of my fellow elders. Who can estimate
    the value of that in a pastor's and a church's life – when
    the leaders love each other and are ready to lay down their lives
    for each other and for the church?
14. I thank God for this building and those who carried the
    weight of planning to make it happen in 1991. Dennis
    Smith, Roger Fast, Dick Fast, Cavour Justice, Gene Sprinkel, Rollin
    Erickson – and so many more – and for those who are
    doing the same thing now with the proposed new building to advance
    the vision of Education for Exultation, with Keith Anderson and
    Ross Anderson and Mitch Pearson. In twenty years I have never been
    to a Building Committee meeting.
15. I thank God for being debt-free as a church
    and what it says about the grace of God that has been poured out in
    your hearts for the gift of giving. Hundreds of you have believed
    the word of Christ that it is more blessed to give than to receive
    and have caused thanksgiving to rise for the goodness of God year
    in and year out – especially year out, in December.
16. I thank God for behind-the-scenes people whose
    work is indispensable for our going on as a church. For example,
    for Harold and Juan and Bruce and John and Mike and Tim and Amy who
    keep our grounds and our building. And for those of you who fill
    your days with doing good to others. Bless you. God sees everything
    and none of your labors are in vain.
17. I thank God for the creation of Desiring God
    with its roots in the long-time, behind-the-scenes ministry of
    Arnie and Olive Nelson, and then its growth under Jon Bloom. I
    thank God for the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors and the ripple
    effect of what hundreds of you do to make that happen each year.
    And for the explosive growth of the God-centered, Bible-saturated
    children's curriculum that has been developed under David and Sally
    Michael and is now used all over the country.
18. I thank God for my wife, Noel. She was
    included in all twenty of my Annual Reports. 1982: "A note she
    wrote and put in a lunch bag: 'Remember, He doesn't give us more
    than He also gives us grace to bear. (And in one week this will all
    be past.)'" . . . 1988: "I have picture of her in front of me as I
    write. If I cover the right half of her face I see a childlike,
    happy girl. If I cover the left half, I see a strong and confident
    woman. Then I take my hand away and I see
    Noel, and love her with
    all my heart." . . . 1994 (the darkest year of the twenty): "What
    shall I say about my wife, Noel, in the explosions of the year?
    What a rock! What a refuge! What a steadying hand on my trembling
    shoulder! She has helped me again and again to find the firm path
    in the sinking swamp of unholy emotions. Lord, what a gift you have
    given me! I thank you with all my heart."
19. I thank God for the ongoing gift of saving faith that
    he awakens in me morning after morning by inclining my
    heart to his Word and revealing his truth and glory and worth so
    that I have not turned away to serve other gods. "By grace are you
    saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of
    God." I thank God for the gift of saving faith. And, very
    specifically, that every Saturday for twenty years I have tasted
    enough of Christ to know that tomorrow – Sunday – there
    will be something to say about his greatness. God has never left me
    without a word for his people. And I thank him.
20. I thank God for the cross of Jesus Christ. God
    forbid that I should glory or exult or even give thanks for
    anything except the cross of Christ, by which the world was
    crucified to me and I to the world (Galatians 2:20). I thank God
    for the cross where all God's holy anger against me was absorbed,
    and all my guilt was washed away, and all God's promises –
    all blessings that I will ever give thanks for – were
    purchased and secured to give me – and you – an
    invincible hope.

I stop with twenty reasons, knowing that I leave hundreds of
precious things unnamed. My first point is that I am thankful.

I Am Regretful

My second point is that I am regretful. I regret the sins of my
heart and the sins of my mouth mainly. James 3:1-2 says, "Let not
many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we
will incur a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. If
anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able
to bridle the whole body as well." I am not a perfect man. And I
have stumbled and sinned with my heart and my mouth. And I am
regretful of it. You have been a very forgiving and long-suffering
people and have covered a multitude of sins with your love for me
(1 Peter 4:8).

But this would be a good occasion, I think, to make at least one
public confession of public sin. I received a letter from one of
our members a while back calling me to repent for things I had said
about Greg Boyd in this recent controversy over the foreknowledge
of God. I see in my heart a great tendency to defend myself and to
justify my words and my actions. And I know that the intensity with
which I disapprove of "open theism" easily moves into scorning
persons rather than disagreeing with viewpoints. So I sent this
letter to the elders and asked them all to read it and tell me if
in their view I need to confess to sin in this matter since I
distrust my judgment about myself.

Here's a response from one of the elders whom I respect very
highly. He wrote, "On two distinct occasions I do recall thinking:
'It seemed like John attacked Greg Boyd (not Greg's theology).' One
of those occasions was at Northwestern College when, in a
non-flattering way you mimicked Greg. . . . The problem was not
with what was said. The problem was that the manner in which the
words were spoken was disparaging [to] Greg. . . ." The second
incident the elder refers to was on a Wednesday night when I
referred to abominating Greg's theology. The elder wrote, "I
suspect that only the most careful listeners could hear an angrily
spoken phrase such as 'Even Greg Boyd, whose theology I abominate'
as a description of theology and not an attack of the person."

So I want to publicly apologize for the sins of my tongue and
the impure heart behind it. "Out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaks," Jesus said (Matthew 12:34 RSV). I regret moving from
what I hope is a proper disapproval of theology across the line
into expressed scorn for the person on those occasions. As I look
back over twenty years of ministry, I am regretful that one of my
most characteristic sins is to be quick to anger and quick to
criticize in a way that runs ahead of brokenhearted concern and
pastoral compassion. So, as you look with me into the future,
there's a place for you to focus your prayers. I don't want us to
be an angry church. I want us to be a humble, joyful, singing,
Christ-exalting, God-centered, Bible-believing, patient, caring,
kind, merciful, truth-telling, broken-hearted and bold people. It
would help if I were that way. Pray for me.

So at twenty years, I am thankful, I am regretful, and finally,
I am hopeful.

I Am Hopeful

Here is where we will begin with Romans next week. How can a
sinner like me have hope? That is the message of the book of
Romans. It's the message of the Bible. It's the gospel. It's what
we are about as a church. How can sinners have hope? The answer is
unfolded in Romans 5:12-21 in a way different from the way it has
been unfolded in 3:20-5:11. In a word, the answer for everyone who
believes in Christ is this . . .

When Adam sinned, we sinned and we died. When Christ obeyed, we
obeyed and we lived. As Adam's sin is imputed to us and we die, so
Christ's righteousness is imputed to us and we live. Verse 19: "For
as through the one man's [Adam] disobedience the many were
appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the One
[Christ] the many will be appointed righteous." In other words my
hope for the next twenty years or twenty minutes of life and then
for eternity is not my own righteousness, but the righteousness of
Christ. That is the message of the book of Romans. That will be our
focus for the next four weeks. And, I hope, the center of our
ministry for the next ten years.

I'm thankful, I'm regretful, I'm hopeful in Jesus Christ. It's a
good place to be. I invite you to join me.