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Prior to Christ's coming, the Jews did not understand how both Jews and Gentiles were going to be reconciled to God. They thought it was going to be by blessing the Jewish people, but it was through Jesus Christ when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.
Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky.
And greetings, everybody. Welcome to the broadcast today as we are in Romans chapter 15. Today looking at verses 8 through 13. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, Romans chapter 15, starting in verse 8.
For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written, Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.
And again it is said, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people. And again, Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let the peoples extol Him. And again Isaiah says, The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles.
In him will the Gentiles hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. So this section here begins in verse 8 by stating, For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness.
Now the circumcised are the Jews. If you go back to the thesis statement to the book of Romans, Romans chapter 1 verse 16,. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
So the Jews receive the oracles of God first. And it was to the Jews that this message of the gospel was first presented. Jesus in his ministry stayed entirely in the region of Israel, preaching to those who were the chosen people of God, but they would not receive that message.
And so God commissioned his disciples to go out to Jerusalem, to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So their ministry would begin in Jerusalem. And so it did with the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, which is where the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit.
They went out at Pentecost, speaking to the Jews, the gospel, 3000 of them were converted that day and were baptized into the faith. And then the ministry spread out throughout Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.
And we see the apostle Paul going out to the Gentiles and reaching out even further with the gospel of Jesus Christ. But first it began with the Jews. Christ became a servant to the circumcised. It was to them that Christ first proclaimed who he was and showed them who he was to show God's truthfulness, the promises that were given to the Jewish people and that from them would arise a Messiah in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs.
And verse 9, in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy as it is written. And then we have some references that are given from the Old Testament. And these references are provided from the historical books, from the law, and also from the prophets.
So every section of the Old Testament speaks of the Gentiles praising God. The first one comes from 2 Samuel chapter 22 verse 50, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. The next one, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people, that's cited from Deuteronomy chapter 32.
That comes from the law that was written by Moses. Then you have the next citation that comes from Psalm 117 verse 1. Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And then Isaiah chapter 11 verse 10, the root of Jesse will come.
Even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him will the Gentiles hope. Now, not only does that phrase, in him will the Gentiles hope, come from Isaiah, but it's also referenced in Matthew 12 verse 21.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. One of the things that Paul shows here with these references to the Old Testament and how the Gentiles would celebrate, Paul is showing how the Old Testament scriptures were fulfilled in Christ, pertaining to how the Gentiles would praise God.
And this would happen through Christ Jesus. See, on the Old Testament side of the cross, the Jewish people didn't understand how these promises of God were going to come to fruition. They thought that because God was going to bless the Jewish people, then therefore everybody else who blessed the Jewish people would also be blessed themselves, and those who cursed the Jewish people would therefore be cursed.
But that wasn't the way that God meant for his plan to come to fulfillment, but it was in Christ who would become the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets. We look at Ephesians chapter three, where Paul says, for this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation as I have written briefly.
When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the spirit.
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So it was a mystery to people in the Old Testament side of the cross, but it has since been revealed to us on this side of the cross how God was going to reconcile to himself both the Jews and the Gentiles.
And it wasn't going to be by raising up this king and making the Jewish people a great empire again on the earth, but rather that this was going to be fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Paul goes on in Ephesians chapter 3 verse 7, of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power.
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone. What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places?
We're talking about the spiritual forces that we can't see. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. So think about this, I'm going to come back to a part of this section here. Think about this. Paul says that he was appointed to preach the gospel to the Jews and to the Gentiles, verse 10, so that through the church, which is made up of Jews and Gentiles reconciled together in Christ Jesus, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
And this affirms something that Paul will later say in Ephesians chapter 6, where he says that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces that we cannot see. And so when we go out with the gospel of Jesus Christ, who we are doing war with is not the person that we are preaching to, it's rather the spiritual forces that have influenced a person to do the work of the devil rather than the work of God.
We have in 2nd Timothy chapter 2, it said to us that we need to correct opponents with gentleness and God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
So all people who are not yet in Christ Jesus have been following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, as Paul mentions in Ephesians 2. We've been captured by the devil to do his work, and then Christ sets us free from that, and we have been released from slavery to do the devil's work, and instead we have become free in Christ Jesus.
And before Christ, we did not know how both Jews and Gentiles were going to be reconciled to God. The Jewish people didn't understand how that was going to work, but it is a mystery that has since been revealed to us in Christ, that through him, all people on earth, no matter their race, their ethnicity, the language that they speak, their cultural background, whatever culture that they are a part of now, every single person on earth through the gospel would be able to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We are one nation that has been taken from every nation of men, and we have this new DNA that is not marked by flesh, it's not marked by the blood that courses through our veins, but it is a DNA in the Holy Spirit of God.
All who are in Christ Jesus have this spiritual DNA, and we are one people. Reading to you now from Peter, 1 Peter 2, beginning in verse 9,. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. And Peter, or I'm sorry, Paul also says something similar in Titus 2, verse 14, where he says that Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
This one people of God made one people of God through Jesus Christ. So look at your brothers and sisters in Christ as being part of the family of God. They are one in Christ as you are one in Christ. God has shown them mercy just as he has shown you mercy, so you must show mercy to one another.
Our great God, we praise you and celebrate you because once we were divided, we were hated by others and we were hating one another. We were doing the work of the devil before we had been set free in Christ Jesus and brought into the people of God, adopted into your family.
And so Lord, I pray that all prejudice would be put aside, that there would be no looking down on another person because of their race or ethnicity or their cultural background or the family that they may have come from in the flesh, any of these things.
But we are all one in Christ Jesus. And may we also see every other person who is not in Christ, that they are made in the image of God and must hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we go out spreading the gospel without prejudice, not looking at a person saying, hey, they need to hear the gospel, but this person does not.
Rather, it is to everyone that the gospel must be proclaimed, just as Paul and the other apostles proclaim the gospel without prejudice. So we must as well, for the sake of your name and your glory, that it would be proclaimed in the nations through Jesus Christ, your Son, in whose name we pray.
Amen.
Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.