Bible Text: Psalm 16:1-11; Romans 1:1-7 | Pastor: Pastor Jason Bryant |   One of my favorite movies of the last decade or so is a movie called, “Moneyball.”  It’s just come back on Netflix, and I was able to re-watch it just the other day.  “Moneyball” tells the story of Billy Beane, a professional baseball team’s general manager.  Caught managing a small-market baseball team in the Oakland A’s, Billy simply can’t pay top-tier athletes to play for his team.  His choice is either to endure ongoing losing seasons or fashion another way to win.

  Billy’s methodology for winning comes to be known as “small ball.”  It assumes on Base percentage to be more significant for winning than batting averages or slugging percentages.  It’s all about the numbers, according to the theory being small ball.  Given time, the numbers always win.

  That’s how the movie goes.  Billy launches out on this path to guide his team by these mathematical principles and he encounters the usual resistance.  People don’t initially have the same type of faith. His issues are compounded when the team sputters out of the gate.  That brings Billy to a turning point.  Does he believe the numbers win enough to cut a star athlete?

  He does so after some hand-wringing.  His faith in the numbers pays off and the A’s going on an incredible winning streak.  The game of baseball itself is changed by what appears to be a simple bet – in the end, the numbers always win.

  I think we recognize that, at least in our minds.  We buy lottery tickets with a degree of hope but, when we don’t hit the power ball, we know, the numbers won again.  After all, 1 in one billion shots have 999,999,999 losers.  In business, we know that most typically, the more money offered, the greater likelihood of hiring a good candidate.  The higher salary always attracts more people.  See, the numbers win, don’t they? 

  When given a medical diagnosis, what’s the thing we always want to know?  What the numbers are?  What are my chances of surviving?

  Because, if there is any one thing that, in the end, we know wins, it’s death.  One day, the numbers, well, they catch up to us.  Statistically, the one immutable fact is that, one day, our number will be up, so to speak.

  Thank goodness, in this area, the numbers don’t always win.

  Hear now the Word of our Lord from Romans, chapter 1, verses 1 through 7.

  “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

   In the verses which follow his introduction, Paul highlights a couple of items about Jesus Christ.  First is the one we talked about lats week.  Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.  He is indeed the predicted Messiah, the hope of Israel and the blessing of the nations.  This, as we discussed last week, means that the Old Testament is still a vital part of our faith lives.

  The next two parts are, if we’re honest, going to challenge our thoughts.  What Paul is going to land upon is the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  On the one hand, Jesus is descended from David according to the Flesh.  That means Jesus he’s fully human.