So last week Mark started Book of Romans and he mentioned that you ought to try reading through the Book of Romans without all the chapter headings and all that. So if you're interested in doing that, I have about five copies. on the table in the room over there after the service, you can grab one. There are no chapter headings, there are no verse numbers, and it goes straight through without any breaks the way they would have received the letter. And try doing it. I did it. It's an experience. Well, good morning, loved ones. Glad we can all be here this morning. Glad we got the old faces back and new faces here. Thank you for joining us and the committed. As Martin would say, I'm not sure how you would use the word committed, but we are all here. So please, if you would, please open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter one. As I said before, I hope that by the end of this, I hope that your Bibles just open up to Romans, and it's just a tremendous letter, and I would encourage you to grab that back there and to read through it, or even as you're reading in your own Bibles, to mark up your Bible as you read through the letter. It is a fantastic letter, and I think, what'd you say, it was like about 13 pages? So, you know, I've done it a few times. I'm not a quick reader, but it takes me about an hour to read the letters. So with that, let's go ahead and pray and then we'll jump into this. Father, thank you that we can once again open your word, come into your presence and praise you. Thank you, Father, for today that we have and we get to worship you, Father, in our singing and worship you in our giving and worship you in the preaching of your word. Father, I pray this morning that you would put your Son on glorious display. I pray that we would see Christ in all of his humanity, that we would see Christ in all of his deity, that we would see Christ in all of his glory and his excellencies, and that you would draw us to you with your cords of loving kindness. Father, I pray that the sermon would glorify you. I pray that you would eclipse me. I pray that you would help me, that you would guard my words, and that you would use your gospel to bring much grace and comfort to all of us who need these things. Father, I pray, as I always do, that we would be encouraged, that we would be convicted, and that we would be changed, and that we would be conformed more to the image of Christ today than we were yesterday. And this can only be done through your word. So now, Father, I just pray that you would accompany the preaching of your word. Open our ears. Let our eyes see. Let our hearts believe what you have given us today. In your name, we ask all these things. Amen. So can you remember the time that the Lord saved you? There's some people that can remember the time that the Lord saved them. They can actually get to the exact date that the Lord saved them and the exact time. And then there's some that can't remember when the Lord saved them or what age they were. But it doesn't matter because what we have learned is that the Lord saves us through the proclamation of the gospel. And this is what we will see as we journey through these first seven verses, is what Paul talks about as he reveals to us. We'll see that there's a minister, there's a preacher of the word. There is a message that is to be proclaimed. The task and purpose of this message proclaimed, and the result of this message that is proclaimed. So look with me at your Bibles at Romans chapter one. This is what the apostle writes. He says, Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle having been set apart for the gospel of God. which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh who was designated as the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ our Lord through whom we have received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ To all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's look at our first point. Let's look at the minister or the preacher of the gospel. In Romans 1 and 1, Paul says that he is a servant of Christ Jesus. Now this word servant means doulos. Other translations will have it as a bondservant. So Paul gets this idea of his slavery or his servanthood from Exodus 21, five and six, where Moses writes, but if the slave plainly says, I love my master, my wife and my children I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him to God and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall be his slave forever. This is Paul's idea of his slavery to Christ, that he loves Christ, that he's going to be committed to Christ. And again, in 1 Corinthians 4-1, Paul uses a different word for servant. This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mystery of God. Now this word here talks about an under rower. Right, in the ships in the Romans' time, they had these galleys, they had these levels, and this would be the third row galley rower, the one doing all the hard work, the one who was insignificant, who wasn't about fame or power or prestige or wanting to be lifted up. And this is how Paul regarded himself, as this insignificant one. This one who is totally devoted to Christ himself, who gave him and gave himself for him. And Paul knew this as we looked at before in Galatians, where Paul says these things. This is who he was, he was a slave. Now, he had this office that was given to him, right? And it's, he was called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now, he's never been to the Roman church. He's never spent time with them, and so he's bringing his apostleship, right? He's bringing this authority of this letter. What he's bringing is he says that he's this apostle called by Jesus Christ, this word called. We've seen before it means that he was appointed a messenger. That's what this apostle is, of one who is sent. Now, in regards to this word apostle, that's all of us. All of us are apostles, we're all sent, we're all messengers of this gospel that we're going to see. Although Paul, he was one of the big A's. Right? He wasn't a little a but he was the big a apostle. He was one of the ones that saw Jesus resurrected. We know this from Acts chapter 9 and even in Acts chapter 9 we see where Jesus called Paul to himself. And he uses, as he's talking to Ananias in Acts 9.15, he says, So we see where Jesus has chosen Paul for this particular task, to go to the Gentiles to proclaim the gospel to them. In addition, Paul writes that the church essentially is founded upon the apostles and the prophets. In Ephesians 2.20, it says, built on the foundation of the apostles, talking about the church. Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. Jesus is the main thing that holds the church together. Paul's calling was a divine calling. He was called, he was appointed, he was set apart. is what he says in that first verse. This set apart is to divide or separate or sever, right? So we can sever our arm and it's gone, right? Or things are set apart and we can do that in our house, right? Just as the holiday time that we have, right? We have our Christmas dishes and they're set apart for a specific event. And they come out, the good china comes out, and we get to use the good knives and the good forks, and not the paper plates, although the paper plates are easier to clean up. But in this, Paul not only says it in Romans, but he says it in Galatians 2, and Galatians 1 and 1 and 2, he says, Paul, an apostle, not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. in all the brothers who are with me to the churches in Galatia we see this setting apart of the preaching of the gospel in Galatians 1 15 but when he who had set me apart before i was born and who called me by his grace In Galatians 1, 11, and 12, as we continue down, he says, for I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. So we see in that first verse that Paul is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's called to be an apostle, to preach the gospel of God. That means the gospel was not his. Paul was not the source of the gospel, but God is the source of the gospel. It is the power of God to save is in the gospel. The gospel is truly good news to the sinner, for in it is the life-saving work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. This is the beauty of the gospel. The gospel is simple, right? In 1 Corinthians 15, we read, the simpleness of the gospel. This is what Paul writes to him. He says, Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaim as good news to you, which also you received and which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I proclaim to you as good news, unless you believe from nothing. For I deliver to you of first importance This is the main thing, the first importance, Paul says, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas and to the twelve. This is what is of first importance, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus has come, he has died for our sin, and he has been raised for our justification. We are not declared right before God. We are guiltless before God because of the work of Christ. This is the gospel of God. It's God's idea. It is not our idea. And we see that the minister preaches this message, our second point, and the gospel was in the Old Testament. In Romans 1-2, Paul says this, which he promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. So we can go through the Old Testament and see the gospel. We see the first appearing of the gospel in Genesis 3, right, where God says that he will, as he's handing down these, you know, the woman's going to have birth pains, the man's got to work, the serpent's going to crawl on his belly, and we see then He in there says that there's gonna be a seed that's gonna come and he's gonna crush the serpent's head. This is the first appearing we see of the gospel. But not only that, as we read, we see that God had killed an animal and then he clothes Adam and Eve with a alien clothing that he does with us too, this alien righteousness that he gives us. He provides for them this picture of the gospel. Peter writes it this way in 1 Peter 10 through 12. concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesized about the grace that was to be yours searched out, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the suffering of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. things into which angels long to lurk. Now, I'm not really sure when Paul was writing this letter when he said the prophets, but we know that when the Bible says the law and the prophets, it's talking about the Old Testament. We have to remember that the New Testament wasn't completely written yet. So the message that Paul would preach, the gospel that Paul would preach, would come from the Old Testament. It would come from the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. For example, Moses. Moses was atop of Christ as the Redeemer. Jesus is the greater Redeemer in Deuteronomy 18. David, a type of Christ. You know, he was King David, but Jesus is the ultimate King. He's the fulfillment of the King. Isaiah talks about his sacrifice in Isaiah 53. He talks about what his name would be. Jeremiah talks about the new covenant that will be in his blood, where God remembers our sin no more. Ezekiel talks about a new heart that God will give us, a heart of flesh, and he'll take the heart of stone out. Micah talks about the birthplace of Jesus. So as we read through our Old Testament, we see where the gospel is very prevalent in all of it. Now, what is the message? Look at Romans 1-3. This is the message, it says, what the prophet spoke about concerning his son, who 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. So now we're going to kind of pick this apart really quick. I think I'm going to do it really quick. I hope. So descended from David according to the flesh. This is where we see Jesus' humanity. This is where we see his humanity, right? We see in John 1, 1, where he says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And then in John 1, 14, it says, and the word became flesh. So we see that God became flesh, and he dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. And this is Jesus Christ. He's in the flesh. God is in the flesh. He's fully human in the person of Jesus Christ. And Paul puts it this way, that he was descended from David. He had to come from David. He had to come from the tribe of Judah. He had to have that lineage, right? And we see that Mary and Joseph were descendants from David. In Matthew 1.6, it says, and Jesse, the father of David, the king, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah and then down in 116 it says and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary whom Jesus was born who is called Christ so we see Joseph is from this tribe Mary is from this tribe Luke 1 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David And the virgin's name was Mary. So we see that he comes from that line of David. He's descended from the line of David, and he has to come from that line because he is the greater king. And he is a king who rules in all humanity. Just imagine, brothers and sisters, Jesus has rose from the grave. He is fully human. He is a human who walks in heaven in the throne room of God who intercedes for you and I. This is who he is. That is why he's able to sympathize with us. He's able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because he himself was human. Philippians, Paul writes this about Jesus' humanity. In Philippians 2, six through eight, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. We see his humanity. John, in 1 John says, By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. So the gospel that Paul preached was a Messiah who is fully human. But we know from what we've talked about that we needed, we needed not a human sacrifice like us. We needed a divine sacrifice. We needed one who was perfect in every way, because our sin is an infinite sin against an infinite holy God, so it needed an infinite holy sacrifice. Therefore, the infinite Son of God had to come and die for our sin. So that's the next part we see. We see that he was declared or he was decreed the son of God in power by the resurrection. This is his divinity, right? Now, I don't want us to, don't get caught up here. Paul is not saying that Jesus became the son of God finally at the resurrection. This could be an easy way to look at this. No. Jesus was the son before his birth. He was Son at His birth, He was Son at His death, He was Son during His life, He was Son at His resurrection and ascension, and He was Son at His coronation. Jesus is the eternal, infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere-present Son of God in the flesh. Fully human, fully God. This is the gospel we preach. The demons understood this. Do we understand this? Listen to Matthew 8, 29. And behold, they cried out, what have you to do with us, O son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? The centurion believed this at Jesus' death in Matthew 27, 54. When the centurion and those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the Son of God. And in the very first verse of Mark in his gospel, it says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And we've read other places where at Jesus's baptism and at Jesus's transfiguration, God says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Kent Hughes, he writes this, he says, Paul wanted the Romans to know that his task in sharing the good news to preach that Jesus, in accord with the ancient scriptures, was the resurrected human divine savior. Therefore, the gospel that Paul proclaimed and the gospel that we proclaim is Christ-centered, not man-centered. It's Christ-centered. He was the Son of God. He was preexistent, so He was fully God. He was from the seed of David, so He was fully man, but He was the Messiah in flesh. And He is the Lord, the King on who sits on the throne. This is the gospel that Paul proclaimed. Now this gospel had actions to it. There's actions with the gospel. Look at Romans 1, 5-7. 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, to all those in Rome who are loved by God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul sees his apostleship as a means of grace. This was God's grace on him. It was God's unmerited favor, right? It was God was pleased to this. He shows favor to Paul in his apostleship. And this is the same thing with us in our saving, when God saves us and makes us these messengers, it is by grace, right? The verse that we always go to, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, for by grace you've been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Not a result of work so that no one may boast. Therefore, we are those who are saved by grace. Our ambassadorship to spread the gospel of reconciliation is a gift to us, and it's part of that great commission. In Matthew 28, 19, and 20, this is the charge. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Now the task and purpose of the gospel is so forth. It's to bring about the obedience of faith was what Paul writes. This is what was to take place in Romans 1, 5, 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. So true saving faith will always bring about obedience. True saving faith will always bring about obedience. This is the lordship salvation debate. Oh, Jesus can be your savior. but not necessarily your Lord, no. The Bible does not teach that, although there's some scholars out there that'll teach that. The Bible teaches Jesus is Lord and Savior. So true faith will bring about obedience, and obedience shows that we have true faith. Listen to Karl Barth, what he says. He says, faith is not obedience, but as obedience is not without faith. Faith is not faith without obedience. They belong together as do thunder and lightning and a thunderstorm. James puts it a little bit different. Listen to how James puts it. James says this, James 2.14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? That's a great question. James answers it in 17.18. So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works. What a great argument. Our faith produces works. Right? That's what he's saying. Faith produces obedience. Obedience comes from us having faith. Now, this isn't to be saved because we already know that we can't work our way to heaven, that works righteousness is not right, right? We're obedient to Christ because we are saved. We're not obedient to be saved. We have to keep that clear. And this is what he's saying is that our faith produces this obedience. And this is what the gospel does to us. We have this gospel faith, this saving faith of the gospel, and it produces obedience. It produces works. And in these works, they glorify God. So the purpose is for his namesake. Right? That's the purpose. Our obedience and our doing good works is for His namesakes. Our obedience is to proclaim the excellencies of who He is, not who we are, not what great readers we are, or how many hours we spend in prayer, or how many hours we spend in the Word, or how we can exegete the Word, or any of these things. No, our job as His children is to do what? proclaim His excellencies. That is what brings about saving faith to people is when we proclaim the glory of who He is. First Peter 2 9 and 10 says this, but you are a chosen race. Listen to this, this is very precious. 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. Brothers and sisters, this is it. Your salvation of grace produces obedience because you are faithful, because you have faith, and that faith produces you to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus Christ. This is the gospel that we proclaim. Now, what's the result for all believers? Paul sums it up in Romans 1-7. First of all, we have to understand this. We are loved by God. Do you believe that? Do you believe you're loved by God? And this is a tough one, right? Because I was just talking with a dear brother and we've had some bad things happen to us, right? And so we start to question those things. Does God really love me? If he really loved me, how come I'm going through this? Well, maybe you're going through what you're going through. Maybe you're going through hard times and trials because God does love you. Have you ever thought about it that way? We don't think about it that way. We think about when all of a sudden the garbage dump happens on us, we're like, oh, what did I do? What did I do wrong? God must not love me. But that's not what the word says. The word says that we are loved by God. Excuse me. Jeremiah, he writes this in 31.3. The Lord appeared to him from afar. I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. This is what God says to you and I, brothers and sisters. This is why our salvation is so precious. God says the same thing to us. He says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have continued my faithfulness to you. In Isaiah, he puts it this way, he says, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you. We see this, this is the Holy One of Israel. saying, I love you. Brothers and sisters, never think that God doesn't love us because we're going through hard times. No, we are loved by Him. In 1 John 3, 1, it says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. But we are children of God, and we are loved by God, fully and completely with an everlasting love. But not only that, but we are called. Now this is not, the word here is not used as a general call, right? A general call for all men to repent. No, this is a specific call. You were called. You were elected, that's what the word means. You were predestined, is what the word means. You were appointed unto salvation. Romans 8.30 puts it this way. And those whom, this is what God, those whom he, me and God, predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified. Those whom he justified, he also glorified. But what were we called? We were called to be saints. And oftentimes we look at stuff and we look at us and we're like, I'm not a saint. Holy smokes, I look in the mirror and I'm like, huh, I'm the farthest thing from a saint, right? This is a holy one of God. Right? We have in the Catholic Church, they have saints, right? And you have to have this sainthood or perform a miracle to get this sainthood. But what Paul tells us is that all those who are in Christ Jesus, whom Christ has called to himself, who Christ has saved, you guys are saints. You're all holy ones of who he is. 1 Corinthians. Now, we know in 1 Corinthians these people were whacked out, right? When we read this, you know, we read so many crazy things in 1 Corinthians, and you're like, man, these guys are crazy, right? They were crazy. They were confused. They were confused all over the place in 1 Corinthians. But listen to what Paul writes to them. He says, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints. Even though they were off the wall, they were still called, they were still believers, and they were still saints. So brothers and sisters, we are loved by God, we are called by Him, and we are His saints. And then listen, and only those who are loved by God, that are called, and that are saints can receive this grace and peace that comes from God. So to close, So to close, and I want to encourage you to be obedient to what God has called you and I to do. That is to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Paul did. This is the minister and his message. And now what we will see from somewhat of this point on is he will unpack the gospel through the rest of the letter. He will show us the excellencies of who Christ is through the rest of this letter. So this is to proclaim that the Lord Jesus Christ has saved you, that He has come to die for you, that He has taken your sin and He has taken God's wrath. And by believing in Him and repenting of your sin, you can be saved. You will be saved. Secondly, to show Our faith is in him, is being obedient to what he has called us to do by doing good works so that others will see our good works and glorify him. Third, that you and I would cherish the truth that we are loved and called by God, that we are his holy ones and in his sight, and that we are recipients of his grace and his peace. So let's pray for him. Father, thank you again for this time that we can come Just look into your word. Lord, I know that we can just very, very rarely, we just scratch the surface as we preach through this because of our time. But yeah, Father, I know that we can spend hours just in one verse. But Father, I pray as we've gone through these first seven verses, Father, of your word, that it would stick with us, that our hearts would truly be in awe of who Christ is, fully God and fully man, the one who has come because he loved his bride, the one who has taken the wrath of God, the one who has died, was buried, resurrected, and now ascended and sits at your right hand. Oh, Father, help us to be enamored with Him, with Jesus, that our eyes would be focused upon Him, that our hope would be on Him and His coming. Lord, do this work in Your people that we would see the beauty, the glory, the excellency of Your gospel. In Your name I ask all these things. Amen.