Greetings Romans 1 1 7

Romans as the Christian Message to the World

To look to the Bible. Let's turn in our Bibles to Romans chapter 1. We're going to be looking at Romans chapter 1 today. Romans chapter 1. Here we go. Let's let's open apart before we before we look. Our Father we thank you for this day.

We thank you for this time together. We thank you as we continue our act of worship by looking to your word that we pray that you would bless this time that you would speak to us through your word today in your text and and Father that you'd move in our hearts today.

May we praise your name and learn more about you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well I I saw this this past week in the last few days if if you're if you look at all online maybe you've seen it in the news maybe you've seen it in a newspaper this past week the Department of Defense has recently consolidated its listings of all the different different religions that they that they recognize.

I think it all has a lot to do with military chaplains and how they do that and how they how they recognize those. They used to have something to the effect of 221 I think or 211 different religions that they recognized and now they've kind of combined them they've consolidated them to to roughly 30 I think or 31 different religions.

A lot of it makes sense for instance now instead of a hundred different kinds of Baptists they just call us Baptist and they kind of lump well they lump us together with the with the very liberal Baptist with the very conservative Baptist.

They just call everybody Baptist. There's others that are grouped together as well but the one that's really getting people upset the one that's really setting people off is that Mormonism or the proper name for it they the proper name that the on paper name they call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It's in its own category and they no longer call it Christian. People are freaking out about it. They are really upset about it about it. There are people that are upset because well wait a second Department of Defense says that they're not Christian.

The thing is I'm not sure what people really understand what Christianity is. Sometimes sometimes we just don't understand or some people just don't understand what the difference is. See the LDS Church or Mormonism as is sometimes referred to is not authentic Christianity.

It was founded on the on the idea and their founder Joseph Smith claims that God told him every other form of Christianity was apostate. But it got me thinking. It got me thinking. Maybe maybe the issue is that the public in America or the people in America just don't really understand what Christianity really is.

And if you've ever wanted to know what Christianity teaches what what we believe or what we should believe as Christians the book of Romans is the place to go. The book of Romans is kind of Paul's Paul's magnum opus.

I mean that's the great work that he put together that God inspired for him to put together that explains what the gospel is and what we should believe. If you want to understand the basics of the faith you want to want to understand what Christianity is all about this is where we should start.

So that's what we're going to be doing. Well this is week number one of a brand new series we're doing on the book of Romans. We're going to spend some time in Romans. We will take breaks occasionally and go to look at other books.

Okay well whatever the situation as I said we're going to start with chapter one of the book of Romans today. Chapter one of the book of Romans. So as we jump into the text we'll look at verse number one.

We read 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 nations including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ to all those in Rome who were loved by God and called to be saints grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ there we go I hear all right.

So as we begin to look at the first first week of this as we look at the first seven verses they kind of serve as an introduction it's it's a greeting that's written by Paul to the to the church in Rome just like you would sit down and you write you might write dear aunt Sally as you start to write a letter this is what Paul's doing.

He's sitting down and he's writing a letter to the church in Rome they say up front who it's coming from kind of like a memo if you if you if you work in an office you might get a memorandum where it's going to show the president and the company's name at the top.

That's what he's doing here. He's writing his name and at first saying who he is and who he's writing to this letter was written around the year we think around 57 AD so it's been 25 ish years almost 30 years since Jesus died and rose again in that time that the gospel has been preached throughout the region.

What started in Jerusalem as a small movement has now become so much more so much more widespread. There were in fact Christians even in the household of Caesar and we're gonna see that later on in this book.

There were house there were Christians that were even believers in Caesars household the Apostles writing to tell them that he's well he's hoping to visit him. He's he's on one of his missionary journeys or he's getting ready to go on a missionary journey.

And he's writing the letter while he's staying in Corinth. The very church that we we just read from the book of Corinthians the very church that we just got done reading last week. So he's staying there and he's teaching the Corinthians for the time.

But he's hoping to pass through Rome. So in this time we said it see him sitting down and and he's gonna write this great work and this systematic presentation of the gospel. So what do we see in the in the first seven verses.

The Messenger of the Gospel

Well first thing we see is he's gonna talk about the messenger of the gospel. The messenger of the gospel. Well did you know that God chooses to use human human beings to preach the gospel. He could do it himself.

He could easily write in the sky believe in Jesus Christ if he chose to. He can make the rocks cry out. He's used animals to to speak at times to his people. But he condescends to use ordinary human beings.

Think about that he wants to use ordinary people like you and like me to preach the gospel to share the gospel. And in this case we see Paul saying that he is the servant of Christ. Literally the word translated as servant in our text here is well it's in English it's a little bit stronger word in in the Greek he used the word doulas it it means servant or bond slave or slave.

Paul is referring to himself as being a slave to Jesus. He's saying that Jesus is his Lord. Jesus is his master. Jesus is his identity is not a casual thing. This is not. He didn't just decide one day I'm gonna be a Christian and I think I'll start worshipping that God.

No no this is a serious thing. He went all in on this. He didn't just decide to start preaching the name of Jesus. He was called by Jesus and and God chose him the Apostle. Paul was the worst of the worst if you read about him.

And in the book of Acts we're going through Acts in Sunday school. We're up to chapter 9 right now. And we've read about how Paul was on his way to Damascus and he was arresting Christians that time he was known as Saul or the name and name was Saul and and we think his Greek name was probably Paul but but he was on his way to arrest Christians and Jesus appeared to him on the road and Jesus stepped in.

This is the same guy that oversaw the execution of Stephen one of the first deacons. This guy was as anti Christ or as anti Christian as anybody could be. And then Jesus met him on the road and gave him a new life.

He called him to be an Apostle. The word Apostle you might get a little confused. Sometimes we get a little confused. We we've got the word Apostle and and sometimes we say well is that person an Apostle.

Is that person a disciple. What's the difference. They can be the same person. A disciple means anybody that's learning from Jesus. But not every disciple was an Apostle. See an Apostle was a small group of people that that saw Jesus that walked with Jesus that lived with Jesus that that received a commission from Jesus to go and do something specific same.

The same title could be applied in a secular way to anybody today for a special messenger a special envoy of some sort. We tend to only use it within Christianity. But in this context Paul's a special messenger of Jesus.

Paul is a special messenger of Jesus the risen Lord. Just for kicks I decided to. I went on Facebook and I just typed in the word Apostle into the search bar. You know there's people today that claim to be an Apostle.

They do this guy right here. I blurred his face. I really don't want to promote this guy. That's why I blurred out his last name. Don't follow this guy. But if you notice he's got four hundred and twenty seven thousand followers.

This guy claims to be an Apostle. He claims to have as much authority as the Apostle Paul or the Apostle Peter or James or John. But is that true. Could he be an Apostle. Well the qualifications to be an Apostle.

You can't just decide to call yourself one. You actually have to have somebody send you. You actually have to have somebody commission you when challenged on it the Apostle Paul defended himself by pointing out that he had seen the risen Christ when Jesus appeared to him on the road.

Jesus personally gave him a commission to go and preach the gospel. And nobody alive today can claim to have received that commission from Jesus. It's just nobody alive today has seen Jesus in that way.

Paul was different though. Paul is every bit as much of an Apostle as Peter as James as John and the rest and like them. He was called by Jesus. And he goes on to say in the first verse that he was set aside for this very reason.

He was set apart set aside set apart to do one thing and that's to preach the name of Jesus. He also wrote almost half of the New Testament. See that's what God does. He he takes people that we would think are the last person in the world that we might expect to see testifying about Jesus or sharing Jesus.

And he says yep I'm gonna use that guy. I'll never forget the the week after one of the first times I was in church. I think I've told this story before. But I ran into a manager at my workplace and she said I saw you in church this past week.

She said yeah. I almost fell out of my chair. She was surprised I was the guy that was there the last person in the world she expected to see was me there. But it's amazing how God tends to work that way.

He takes those that we don't expect to be used and he uses them for his glory. He takes those who hate him. He takes those who who don't want to have anything to do with Christianity. Like the Apostle Paul was arresting Christians and doing worse to them and he changed their heart.

He gave Paul faith. He called gave him a new purpose and a new calling. This gospel was promised beforehand. And in verse number two he says when when he which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Spirit Holy Scriptures see as early as Genesis chapter 3.

If you go back and look at Genesis chapter 3 there's a reference to the to the Redeemer that's going to come someday. They didn't know what he looked like. They didn't know who he was going to be. They didn't know all the details of it.

But there's just a hint that there's going to be a Redeemer someday there's a hint that there was going to be somebody that would come and make things right after Adam and Eve had sinned and fallen. He's spoken that throughout the Old Testament.

And over time it got more and more and more clear until Jesus came and Paul was called to be the one that proclaimed Jesus. Jesus told him I'm you're going to be my instrument to reach Gentiles and Kings and and preach to the Jews.

And while we are not Apostles our dent our identity as believers in Jesus do begin with him and they should begin with him. We're called to be in service to him. We're called to glorify him. We're called to proclaim his message of forgiveness.

Did you know that. Think about that responsibility that we have. He decides to use us to be his mouthpiece. He's going to use us to do that. But but we're going to go a bit deeper into the message itself.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ: David, the Son of God, and the Resurrection

And that's point number two is is we read about the message of the gospel the message of the gospel. So what's what's the message that Paul's being called to proclaim. What's what's this message that we see.

We see a reference to it in verse number three and four here. Verse number three says 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.

There's a bit to unpack here. There's a little bit to process we we can sometimes I know when I tend to sit down and I read a book read from the Bible I read a book of like the book of Romans. Here I tend to skim through those first seven verses and I don't really give him a lot of thought.

But there's really a lot here to unpack. See. Jesus walked the earth as a man. He was born as a baby to the woman Mary. And this is important because he was a descendant of the great King David. See David was Israel's greatest King.

David is the guy that everybody remembers. David was the king during the glory years of Israel. David is the guy that they point to. David is the one that was a man after God's own heart. And it was King David that God promised would have a throne that would endure forever.

Did you know that in 2nd Samuel 7 he said God is speaking David. And he said and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words.

In accordance with all this vision Nathan spoke to David. God spoke to David through Nathan and said those things. See Jesus is the promised Messiah that that the prophets spoke about he. He's a descendant of David.

He was born as a descendant of David. So when Jesus was born he was born in that line of David. And just like a king has to be a descendant or an heir to the to the man before him Jesus was an heir to that throne of David.

He's qualified to sit on that throne that God said would be established forever. But he's also God the second second person of the Trinity. Verse number four says that he was declared to be the son of God the son of God.

Don't let don't let that word son fool you. Sometimes people see that and they think well he's a son. He was born he he's he's a lesser being. He's not fully God name. They might think that he's not really God because he's the son of God.

Some people they just don't think he's fully God. But no Jesus is God. He's fully 100 God and he's fully and 100 human being. He's uniquely able to be the Messiah that died on the cross and rose again.

And it was the resurrection that proved that his death was profitable. It's the resurrection that proved that he achieved his purpose. It was the resurrection that demonstrates that he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

And it was the resurrection that God declared with that the work is done the work is done the sacrifice is complete. Think about that no other religion teaches that no other religion offers complete and total forgiveness of sins.

Mormonism certainly doesn't. No other. No other religion offers offers that that we are completely and 100 forgiven. There's other religions that that will tell you that God only sees you as being good as long as you you've done good for him lately.

But the beauty of the Gospels that were made new we are changed from the inside out. We don't have to go to a priest to confess our sins because there are sins are just done away with. In fact we don't have to go to be forgiven for sins we did yesterday because it's done.

We don't have to go to be forgiven for the sins that we do tomorrow because they're forgiven. We're not just forgiven for the sins that we remember or the sins that confess that we confess. We are forgiven for every sin that we have ever done what every sin that we ever will do.

Why. Because the changes from the inside. He he didn't just die for the sins that we remember. He gave us new hearts and he changed us from the inside. And when the inside is clean then the outside becomes clean as well.

Jesus said he's talking to Pharisees and says you blind Pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and the plate. Then the outside may be clean. That's what Jesus does. It's hard to accept for some people a lot of people just they can't quite grasp that.

I don't want to grasp that but Jesus cleaned us from the inside out. When we believe in Jesus we become a new creature. We are completely clean. We are completely made new. That's what we call born-again.

We have to be born-again into Jesus. We are born-again with a new heart with with a new with new creations. It's amazing how many people tell you that the only way to please God is by the things we do and the sacrifices we make or or or by the things that we give.

And we'll get into that later on in the book as we go on. But the message of the gospel is that through Christ's sacrifice we are forgiven completely because he paid the price. We don't have to pay for it anymore because he did it once and for all.

The Mission of the Gospel to All Nations

But but my third point is and is as we look to wrap up is the mission of the gospel. Paul's writing about the mission of the gospel in verse 5 and 6 here he says 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.

When Jesus called Paul to be an apostle he forgave Paul of all his sins. This is a guy that stood and watched the cloaks of the people that were stoning Stephen. This was a guy that he referred to himself as the chief of sinners.

But Jesus called him to preach the message of forgiveness. And it's through the gospel that people are forgiven. It's through the forgiveness of us and redemption that God is glorified. So we preach the gospel to all.

But look who he says we should preach the gospel to do. You see that. Look who he says through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his of all the nations including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

He says all nations he's to take that gospel and go to all nations say well why is that important pastor we send missionaries overseas now right. Well you see it didn't used to be that way. It didn't used to be that way.

In the first century the only people that were God's people were considered to be the Jews. They considered themselves to be God's people. They were intensely proud to be God's chosen people. Yahweh was their God.

They were his chosen people. Other sure others could come to to convert to Judaism. But by and large the only people that worshipped Yahweh were were the Jews. And now that's all changed. Anyone who believes in Jesus is forgiven whether it be Jew or Gentile.

Anybody that calls on the name of Jesus is forgiven. Someday when we get to have when we get to heaven there's going to be people from every nation. You think about that. There's gonna when we get to heaven there's gonna be black people white people and every shade in between.

There's gonna be people from every ethnicity every nation every language. When we believe in Jesus when a heart is changed from the inside and the outside becomes clean as well. That's why verse 6 here says they'll come to the obedience of the faith.

We don't obey simply because we have to. We don't obey because well we try to earn our way to heaven. We don't obey because we fear the punishment of disobedience. We we don't fear being rejected by God.

We don't fear that if by golly if I just do the wrong thing then God's going to throw that lightning bolt at us and cast us out because of Jesus. He's never going to reject us if we have faith in him.

But when we do have faith in Jesus that faith is going to produce a desire to please him. It's going to produce a desire that we make much of him and less and less of ourselves. It was John the Baptist the guy that announced the coming of the Messiah to come.

John the Baptist said he must increase. I must decrease. I see attitude we need to have. He must increase. He must get bigger me I'm just an instrument that's being used by him. He must increase. I must decrease.

That's the attitude of a Christian. Our will always submits to him. It's no longer about us. It's no longer about our desires. It's about him. And he's writing this. If you think about this he's writing it.

We see this in verse number seven. It says 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. He's writing this to Christians that are living in the in the city of Rome perhaps one of the most corrupt cities of the day.

He's telling them that they were called. He's telling them they're forgiven. He's telling them that they are loved by God. They're called to be saints. If you notice it's Saints with a lower case s there.

Sometimes we we look at Saints as some kind of a special category of believer. But a saying it's just a word that's used to describe any believer. It's not a special person. It's anybody that believes.

It's you. It's me. It's anybody. All it means is the word Saint means one who is set aside. It's they're set aside for his service. And and Paul is saying anyone here that believes in Jesus is set aside for his purposes.

So this this group of believers that he's writing to in this filthy debauched unholy city of Rome. He's saying they're called by God. They're loved by God. They're forgiven by God. They'll never be rejected by him.

The same could be said of any Christian today. We are called by God. We're we are loved by God. We are forgiven by God. We will never be rejected by him if we have faith in Jesus. Paul says they are everything that the city of Rome is not.

They're holy and they're set aside for his purposes. They're set aside to serve him to honor him to worship him. And the same applies to us. Same applies to anybody who believes in him. We're called by God along with the Apostle Paul.

We are his messengers. And our message our message is the gospel. It's it's forgiveness through Jesus Christ. And the mission. The mission is for his glory. That's what this book of Romans is all about.

As we as we get into later on in this chapter into two three four as we go on and it's gonna break it down. It's gonna explain it in some very simple terms. Some of it's a little bit a little bit heady but it lays it out and explains what the basics of the faith are.

And I encourage you to come with me as we go through this as we as we look at this we'll learn what the the basic things about our faith are. So we'll close with this thought. And it's may we glorify God as messengers of the gospel.

May we glorify God as as his messengers of the gospel. Let's pray by the way we do. Thank you for this time together as we worship as we lift your name up we pray that we would be effective messengers.

We pray that we would be effective as we testify of your love as we testify to your grace. We pray father that you'd work through us that would use that you would use us to reach those in our lives those that we our family our friends our neighbors our co-workers.

We pray that that we would glorify you and all that we do we. We pray father that we would glorify God glorify you in the way that we live and through sharing Jesus with them and and living a life that points to you.

And I'll close with the the verse from Romans 1 7 the benediction grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.