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Well, turn with me. Our sermon
text for today is Romans chapter one. I'll be reading verses one through
seven, and we'll be focusing just on the first half of verse
seven. So here then God's holy and inspired
word. Paul, a bondservant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God,
which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures
concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the
seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the
Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by
the resurrection of the dead, from the dead. Through him we
have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among
all nations for his name, among whom you also are the called
of Jesus Christ. To all who are in Rome, beloved
of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God
our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we
thank you for this opportunity to look into your word and pray
that it would not return void, as indeed you promised it will
not, that there may be much blessing here, maybe some conviction along
with it, some sharpening, but some challenging and some hope,
Lord, that you would guide your people in paths of righteousness. And please guide my tongue now
to keep from error. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
One of the hardest parts of conversation, I think, and whether that's in
written conversation or verbal, is often the first part. How do you begin the dialogue? Often it's as simple as, how
do you say hello? So I'll ask you, when you write
an email, how many words do you use to get the topic going or
to introduce yourself and send some greetings to the person
you're writing to? Or when you're writing a text message, how much
thought and meaning do you put into the salutation? Probably
not much. In our culture, we have kind
of a brevity, a quick, just jump right in type of habit. I certainly
do, especially if it's a text message. I got something earlier
the same day from the person, or five minutes ago. You really
don't need to introduce yourself, right? Without even saying hi,
you write. Sometimes, just as an older person,
I think, if I'm writing hi in a text message, does that mean
that, like, I'm distancing myself from the person? You know, younger
people can inform me on those things. But I would say that
the fact that we jump right in actually has meaning in and of
itself. It's not that we're without meaning,
it's that there's an implied meaning in the brevity and in
the immediacy of our communication. The fact that it's a person you're
familiar with, indeed that you did just write to them five minutes
ago, or that you write them every 30 minutes on average, every
day of the week. It is full of meaning because
there's familiarity. There is a common understanding,
so you don't need to reintroduce yourself. You don't need to say
hello again. You're just continuing the conversation. And so too, even though it's
different here, and there is a formality, and there is more
of a technical and a lengthier saying hello by Paul, which is
what we're gonna look at today. How does he say hello, and how
does he identify his audience? So too here is there meaning
by the lack of brevity, by the lack of quickness of jumping
right in. In the verse before us, really
verses one through seven of the greeting, verse seven I'll identify
as the salutation, so he's saluting, saying hello. So in the verse
before us, the apostle Paul is simply identifying his audience.
He's saying, you're the ones I'm talking to. Paul is not continuing
a conversation because he hasn't been there to Rome. He doesn't
know these people well. He's starting the conversation,
and so it makes sense that his salutation takes a longer form. So if you were cold calling somebody,
if you were cold text messaging somebody, you probably would
say more than just launch right into the topic, right? You'd
introduce who you were, verses 1 through 5, what you're going
to talk about, verses 1 through 5, and then you would identify
who you are intending to speak to, make sure that it's not some
rerouted phone number, right? So what I want to emphasize today
is that words have meaning. The words that we write, the
words that we speak have meaning, and the words certainly that
Paul wrote here by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit have meaning. They have meaning here and significance
as Paul was communicating with real, live people in a real place,
Rome, who he knew, not personally, but he knew broadly and very
confidently that they had been brought into a saving and loving
relationship with God. The remainder of the letter spells
out lots of theological detail that he wants to convey to them.
Doesn't do that all in the opening paragraph, but the remaining
letter spells that out. Just looking at the salutation
today, or really half of the salutation, verse 7a, we see
the significance of how he says hello to them. Perhaps we can
learn some things as to how we should say hello to our friends,
and how we should receive God's hello to us. So friends, let
us hear and understand wherever God's people are, He has brought
them, He's brought you, He's brought us into a loving relationship
with Himself. And we'll look at this in three
parts. The people in a place, God's love for them, and His
calling. So the people in a place, God's
love, and His calling. First of all then, First part
of this salutation is the statement, to all who are in Rome. I see here the fact that Paul,
again, was writing to people and in a place. In terms of the
people, there is some uncertainty as to what he means by all. One
theory, as I worded there in your outline, is he's speaking
to multiple congregations. So there's multiple churches
making up one bigger church in Rome. and it's uncertain the
population of the Christians in Rome at the time. Other theory
is that he's speaking to the multiple people groups within
one or more congregations in Rome. So is he considering all
the Christians as distributed throughout the city in different
congregations, or is he considering the different types of people,
the different ethnic or religious backgrounds? I tend to favor
the second, though of course it can include the first. But
to just limit it to the first, that he's only speaking to multiple
congregations there and encompassing them with the all, I think it's
a little limited and it's a bit sort of hypothetical. It's very
likely possible, certainly, that at that point in time there were
multiple churches. But if we look at the rest of
the book here, we'll see a major theme of this epistle is the
unity and to some degree the equality of the people of God
in Christ. Whether you're Jew or Gentile,
he keeps saying they're the same. And while there are some differences,
there is the unity in Christ. The key difference is that they,
the Jews, were the stewards of the mysteries of God, the stewards
of the scriptures. And that's a huge privilege and really a
huge point of accountability for them. You've had the scriptures
all this time, right? Have you been heeding them? Do you recognize
the presence of your Savior who walked the earth? So with that
difference, who and when did they encounter the scriptures,
there is the commonality of being saved only in Christ. That's
what I understand the all to be, is all the people like in
common needing to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. And there's
many points throughout the letter where he emphasizes that universality. All together then are in the
church in Rome. There's no divisions there. All
are collectively addressed in this letter. All are men without
excuse before a holy God, Romans 2.1. All are under sin, Romans
3.9. All are guilty before God, verse
3.19. All are justified by faith, 5.1. All are weak, ungodly people
who Christ died for, Romans 5.6. All are then free of condemnation
in Christ, needing to walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh.
Romans 8, 1, and on and on and on. So that is the all that I
see here. He's speaking to the unity of
the church, and yes, could well have been multiple congregations
there, but the unity of the people of God in Rome, the equality
of the Jew and Gentile. But of course, it's not just
in this letter to the Romans that this point is made. So I
really want to emphasize the unity of the people of God here. Acts 10 verses 34 and 35. God
shows no partiality, we read, in every nation. Whoever fears
Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. So that theme
of no partiality. God does not setting apart and
treating a separate people uniquely as if they don't have to obey
Christ. And there are people who posit
that there's different ways to please God, and that is not true.
It's only by Christ. A second important instance outside
of this letter is in Revelations 5, 9, where we read that Jesus
is worthy to take the scroll, having redeemed us to God by
His blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. So primarily that verse speaks
of the broadness of the work of the gospel and of calling
people out and building a people for himself. But in the very
fact that it's from a variety of places, it shows that they
all need to come to the same Christ, right? So we see the
meaning of the word all here. The unity, the standard way in
which God deals with people the world over is through salvation
in Christ and none other. Well, by way of application,
brothers and sisters, let us remember that while there is
diversity within the church, and that's with regard to age,
maybe even giftings, your work experience, your background,
a family situation, even multiple generation family situations,
so different ways in which God has dealt with this present and
past, really, when it comes down to it, we are very much the same. We are all just sinners in need
of salvation. Today's cultural agenda is so
often tried to divide and that just feeds a politics or a culture
of greed and envy and pity and It makes this us versus them,
or we're trying to put down the them and to elevate the us, and
whatever side that comes from, it's not healthy. It is not godly.
Properly, God sees everyone as a sinner, right? From the south,
the north, the east, the west, rich, poor, first generation,
tenth generation, we are all sinners in need of salvation
through Jesus. We need to be freed from sin.
We need to be freed from pride. We need to be free to love God
with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. So that's some
various aspects of the allness that we see in this first clause.
So let us, brothers and sisters, friends in the Lord, humble ourselves
before Him. An honest confession will simply
say to God, woe is me, right? I'm a sinner. I don't have anything
to bring to you. The idea that whatever my background
is or whatever my grandparents did in the church, as if that's
something to God, right? A humble person is simply going
to say, woe is me, Lord, do to me as seems best in your sight. And the beautiful thing is, and
we'll get to that in terms of God's love here shortly, the
beautiful thing is that in Christ what He gives us is love. He
doesn't give us the penalty that we deserve. He can't overlook
sin, as we heard in the communion meditation. He must punish it,
and He did. He does and will, but for Christians,
that penalty falls on Christ. He gives us what we don't deserve.
So all that to say, the first phrase in this salutation tells
us about Paul's audience, all who were in Rome, all sorts of
people, all alike, in need of God's grace and walking in the
light of the gospel, no matter their cultural, religious, or
other differences, Jew and Gentile alike, us, along with them, all
in need of Jesus. The second part of this, to all
who are in Rome, is the place. So Paul is addressing the all
of them, but this is not what we would theologically call a
general epistle, as if it's written to all Christians alike in that
era. He wrote it specifically for
Rome, right? Doesn't mean we can't learn a ton from it, and
indeed we do. But let us not skip over the
fact that this had a purpose and a people that he was writing
to. He was writing to not a mass
of people out there, but a specific collection of people, and all
of them, in Rome. It's not a cookie-cutter letter,
right? It has very specific things for
him to say to them, and even some people are mentioned by
name, but just because your name isn't written in there, because
you didn't live in the first century, it still is applicable
to us, but by way of application. The point is, it was written
to a specific people, really, truly written to living, breathing
people in Rome. Consider that for a moment in
terms of what was Rome. Who were the Roman people? Rome had humble roots on the
banks of the Tiber River, had grown to be the center of one
of the greatest empires throughout all of world history. Its wealth,
its power, its lack of virtue, its lack of attention to true
godliness and worship of the one true God were very well known
all throughout the world. Yet, within this very, very carnal,
human-made capital city, God had people. That's remarkable. In that place, Rome of all places,
God had his people. And there are so many stories
out there of God working in places and in times that we would not
have anticipated, right? If we were looking for who's
the really strategic person to go after, that wouldn't necessarily
have been on my list. I would never have known of them.
But of course, God, in His sovereignty, in His sovereign knowledge of
where His people are, and in His sovereign power to have the
ability to draw them to Himself, to change their minds and wills
and hearts, and to draw them to Himself He had a beautiful
plan. He had a beautiful plan in Rome,
had a beautiful plan in isolated places of Africa and Asia and
the Americas, North and South, East and West, all over the globe. So with all those stories of
God working in crazy, dangerous, and ungodly parts of the world
that we wouldn't have anticipated, places that seem despicable and
beyond help, we see the grace of God magnified. The movement
of His Spirit is not limited in the way that human efforts
are. God is working in similar places
today. So whether it's the proverbial swamp of Washington, D.C., or
the cesspool of Paris, France, or the tyranny of the U.N. in Brussels, Europe, where that's
headquartered, all of these places that are just pits of iniquity
and of corruption and other vice. God is working. Let us not be
surprised that He's there. Let us not turn our backs on
the gospel efforts that might be happening there. Let us be
encouraged and challenged to even support the church and the
gospel efforts in those places. One more detail before we finish
this beginning part of this verse. The Greek text here says, to
all who are in Rome. It's actually disputed in some
manuscripts, but going with the majority text, it definitely
has Rome. But it says, all who are in Rome, or otherwise translated,
to those in Rome. And obviously what's implied
is that it's people, right? I kind of covered that previously,
that it's a people in a place. But I don't want us to forget
that people had in mind real live people, not some just population,
not some just generic term like the church is on the door or
something like that, but actual people. Some of these people
are named in chapter 16, other people he looked forward to meeting
if he would have a chance to get there, but it's real people,
and that'll come to play in a moment when we speak of God's love.
But Paul is writing to real people, people that he cared for, people
that he longed to see grow in Jesus, people that he longed
to meet face to face. And just like when I prepare
a sermon such as this, it's for real life people, right? People
like yourselves that I care for and desire to see grow closer
and closer to Jesus day by day. So real people that we're here
to communicate with. to the next clause. Beloved of
God is how it is in our text. To all who are in Rome, beloved
of God. So the real, the live, the specific,
but also general, the allness of the people whom Paul is reaching
out to, they are beloved by God, which is to say valued and treasured
Regardless of being Jew or Gentile, regardless of setting aside those
age differences, those different religious backgrounds, even male
and female, in Christ they are all together objects of God's
special love. They are His own special people,
to quote 1 Peter 2.9. Deuteronomy 33 says God loves
the people. He keeps him as the apple of
his eye, which is to say his special, caring attention, Deuteronomy
32.10. He's focused on the people, his
people. He will not take his eye off
of them. They are his purchased possession,
Ephesians 1.14, bought, of course, at a great price. Let this just
drive home for us. Never forget, God loves his people. Do we think about that as often
as we should? I don't. Brothers and sisters,
ponder it for a moment. God loves his people. That is extraordinary. God is
holy, perfectly holy, omniscient, wise. Daniel is going through
the attributes of God. We can list them, we can meditate
on them, and it brings us to tears if we consider his greatness. And in comparison to that, especially
the natural man, much less even the greatest degree of sanctification
we can attain in this life, we are still so small. so impure. Yet God loves His
people. He loves the church. Each and
every one of you in Christ is loved by God. Beloved of Him, the wording here,
truly amazing. And remember, in terms of God's
special regard for His people, that He doesn't need anything
from us, right? He is not improved by the attention
we can give Him. He's not made more comfortable
or more encouraged, or He's not going to have a better day tomorrow
because He got better worship on Sunday from His people here
now. He's not lacking in strength
or skill or intellect or any resources whatsoever. All the
kind of improvements or little uplift we can honestly obtain
when we feel the love of the people around us, that is not
God, right? He does not need that from us,
yet He gives love and yet He is delighted to receive back
from us our praise and glory. We are beloved, it is for Christ's
sake and not for anything in us. One detail to highlight from
the Gospels, it's in each of the synoptic Gospel accounts. We read at Jesus' baptism, a
voice came, and then it says, you are my beloved son. So it's
in Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3. God the Father, stated over
and over again, loves his son. And then it's faith that unites
us to Christ. And so when the Father looks
at us, he doesn't see the sin stain, he doesn't see the wicked
thoughts, the greed, the envy, and all the other things, he
sees Christ. And he loves Christ. So therefore, he loves us. We can't appeal to the Father
for any favor, any merit in and of ourselves, only in Christ. Can we? Do we? Should we and need we to find
this privileged place? I want to read at a bit length
now two other points of scripture, one from Ephesians 3 and then
I'm going to read all of Psalm 136 actually to drive home just
this key point about God's special regard for His people. So first
Ephesians 3 verses 17 to 19. May Christ dwell in your hearts
through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width
and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which
passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness
of God. We think, you know, how big is
God's love? It's every dimension, huge. And now, Psalm 136. I'm gonna read from the Amplified
Bible translation in order to display that the word here translated
in the New King James as mercy is the Hebrew chesed. It's a
special aspect of his love, a covenant love. His loving kindness is
how it's worded here in the Amplified. You might be familiar with the
word mercy being here. I don't want you to fact check
me. Just be encouraged that the Hebrew word is chesed, God's
covenant love, which includes mercy. And it is this loving
kindness that he regards his people. So reading all of Psalm
136 from the Amplified Bible. O give thanks to the Lord, for
he is good, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.
O give thanks to the God of gods, for his mercy and lovingkindness
endure forever. O give thanks to the Lord of
lords, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. To him who alone
does great wonders for his mercy and loving-kindness endure forever. To him who by wisdom and understanding
made the heavens for his mercy and loving-kindness endure forever. To him who stretched out the
earth upon the waters, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure
forever. To him who made the great lights,
for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. To rule the sun
by day, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. The moon and
the stars to rule by night, his mercy and lovingkindness endure
forever. To Him who smote Egypt in their
firstborn, for His mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.
And brought out Israel from among them, for His mercy and lovingkindness
endure forever. With a strong hand and with an
outstretched arm, for His mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.
To Him who divided the Red Sea into parts, for His mercy and
lovingkindness endure forever. and made Israel to pass through
the midst of it, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.
But shook off and overthrew Pharaoh and his host into the Red Sea,
for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. To him who led
his people through the wilderness, for his mercy and lovingkindness
endure forever. To him who smote great kings,
for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. And slew famous
kings, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. Sihon, king of
the Amorites, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.
And Og, king of Bashan, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure
forever. And gave their land as a heritage,
for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. even a heritage
to Israel his servant, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure
forever. To him who remembered us in our
lowest state and imprinted us on his heart, for his mercy and
lovingkindness endure forever, and rescued us from our enemies,
for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever. To him who gives
food to all flesh, for his mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.
Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven for his mercy and loving
kindness endure forever. God's loving kindness, his mercy
continues. He continues to love his people. So then the third part of this
salutation, reading it together, to all who are in Rome, beloved
of God, called to be saints. So what of this allness, this
togetherness of the body of Christ in Rome, those who are God's
precious possession, the ones He loves, and He loves them in
so many ways, in so many places, through so many trials, And ultimately,
to a certain victory, what of this calling? So the last part
of Paul's salutation, I referred to this a little bit last time,
and it was in June, that I preached last from verse six in terms
of called of Jesus Christ. So the last part here, to all
who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. One, two
things to clarify at the beginning. One, the 2b, if you have the
New King James, you'll notice that's in italics, so it's not
in the Greek. If you take that out, it can
almost sound like called saints, as if that's a label. You know,
it's like the usher, he's called an usher, he's got a badge on,
but that's not what it is. So it's helpful to supply some
words. It's interesting to me as I did
some reading to prepare for this, if you've read many commentaries,
you know, often it's trying to explain this nuance, it's looking
through some different views here and there, and a primary
one, and I would recommend it to you as well, John Murray,
his commentary on Romans. I was a little startled by his,
it's called a strong opinion on the translation here, or actually
maybe it was Hendrickson, I'm sorry, I'm confusing, those are
the two I think it was Hendrickson who was so opinionated. He really
doesn't like this modern translation of called to be saints. He says
it's a habit, it's pervasive, and indeed it is. Very slight
variation in ESV and different things these days. And I would
agree with him that, not so much in critiquing so strongly, I'm
fine to go along with as it is with some explanation, but the
better wording, I would agree with him, and that's what I supplied
in the beginning of the headline here, Saints by Divine Calling,
because it's not a label you wear, and he really doesn't like
the to be in there because it seems to connote this future
state. You're called to be saints, like someday in the future you're
going to get to be saints. And of course, within a framework
of Roman Catholicism and all the abuses that they do with
sainthood, is a very good caution. So, saints by divine calling
is the point here. It's a settled fact that we,
as Christians, have been called. It's not that we will be, it's
not that we're gonna go through some beatification process by
somebody who respected us highly, documenting some miracles that
we were a party to, but rather, With proper biblical theology,
with Paul, we can agree that the present reality for every
Christian is that we are saints. So friends, don't think that
a bad day means you're not a saint, right? It may mean that you're
acting out of accord with who you really are, and through repentance
and appropriating God's grace, persevere in faithfulness tomorrow.
But you're not waiting to attain sainthood until you die, and
the Pope in Rome goes through a special process. right? Saintness is a present reality
for every Christian. We are the called ones, that
is, having responded to his voice, and he calls us into that relationship
of being saints, which is to say holy, and hence the wording
saints by divine calling. Puts a little different spin
on the word called. And at least it's useful in the
standard English translation that it's called past tense,
right? Ed is the past tense. So you have been called, you
are presently a saint, a holy one, and let us grow in that
calling. So fundamentally, this phrase
indicates the source of our salvation, that it's of God and that it's
a settled reality. It has happened because God You
know, is. He's not hypothetical. He's not
future. When it's dependent on Him, it's not dependent on us.
We can trust it for sure. So, in terms of the technical
wording here, let's settle that. We are saints by divine calling. What are some implications of
that? and I want to draw two that I put in your outline there.
First, that we're set apart, and second, that we are consecrated
for service. So having been called, which
is to say he put out his voice, right, and we have responded
to that, we are separated, we're set apart. And saint, as I said,
means holy one, just like the holy of holies in the temple,
it was set apart, only special people at a special time could
go there, Christians too are set apart. But notice a bit of
irony here. Previous, that is prior to our
new birth, we were separate from what, right? So my point here
is everybody's separate from something. Natural man, when
he's not a Christian, is separate from God. There is a wall of
separation, it's worded. We are barred from God's presence,
right? Only that which is holy can come
to God. And I've spoken in times past, in terms of defining the
gospel, it is the brokenness of this relationship. So, yes,
everybody is separate. Natural man is separate from
God, and that's a sad situation. But Christians are still separate
from something. No longer separate from God because
we're reunited. We are to be separate from the
world. So we need to maintain that holy
separation. Let me pull another quote from
Ephesians chapter two. Paul writes, remember that you,
once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by
what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that
at that time, so he's speaking of before you were redeemed,
you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope and without God in the world. And then, but now in Christ
you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood
of Christ. So let us celebrate every day
our separation, the solution to our separation from God, we're
now in union with him, but our maintaining separation from the
world. Previously separated from God
and wandering, now separated from the world and united to
him in Christ. But then, that's not all, what
does He free us to do, right? If we are separated from the
world in terms of those emotional and physical and enslaving attachments,
what does that free us to do? We are not just chess pieces
being moved around on a board subject to somebody else's will.
Yes, we are captured out of the world. As I've said, we are ransomed,
we're bought at a price, and praise the Lord that we have
been rescued from a life of sin and death. But also we are consecrated
for service. The old man is dead, the new
man is alive, being grafted, and I'm just kind of mashing
together a bunch of biblical idioms here, but being grafted
into a new tree, we bear different fruit, no longer that sinful
fruit, because just like we were, you know, everybody's separated
to something, everybody is bearing some type of fruit. Galatians
5.19, in those few verses there, speaking about a wicked fruit,
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, hatred, contentions,
jealousy, selfish ambitions, and the like, right? Everybody's
bearing some type of fruit. Is it going to be that fruit
or the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22 and following? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
So we're all going to be separate from something. We're all going
to be bearing some kind of fruit. Let us have the right separation
and the right fruit. And this right fruit comes by
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So we are to put forward yet
another idiom. We're students of a different
teacher, right? Everybody has a teacher. Everybody has a different
father. Jesus even says to people rather
powerfully, you are of your father, the devil. And he's encouraging
them instead to embrace him and his father in heaven. So which
father, which teacher, which fruit will we embrace? We are
to no longer have a futile mind with darkened understanding and
ignorance or in blindness. Instead, to learn of Christ with
true righteousness and holiness. So friends, by way of summary,
you, and let me affirm this, are saints by divine calling,
beloved of God. And we'll add here for our situation
in Omaha, right? You don't have to go to some
big city where God has worked in the past, Rome or Jerusalem,
in order to feel God's presence and to know that he's working
there. You are beloved of God in Omaha, Nebraska. And these
other points I put here with the arrows, just things for you
to meditate on, Lord willing, in the coming days. And to put
yourself into this text, to know that God's people, even today,
are the people. So you could say to yourself,
I am one whom God sees and considers. He knows your trials, your hurts,
your aspirations, your joys, your challenges. He sees you
and considers you. He sees you where you are. Again,
you don't have to be in a different city, in a different job, in
a different relationship to know God's mercy and peace. In the
place He has you, He has you for a purpose and He loves you
where you are, which is that third point there, you. I, friends
in the Lord, we are recipients of his special love. In all those
particular places, in all those particular situations, we are
recipients of his special love. And the effect of that, I, you,
are separate from the world, separated unto him. Live according to that reality
and be consecrated for his service. whatever that might be. So in
the midst of, again, our personal trials in this wicked world,
be encouraged, be challenged by the facts that in Christ we
are saints by divine calling, and God loves us for Christ's
sake. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this great,
great gift, your love in Christ Jesus. Amazing and impossible,
but for the work of Christ on our behalf. We were enemies,
but we've made friends. We were running from you, but
have been brought close and are inclined towards you. We thank
you for this great work, this change of heart for stirring
up in us these affections to desire to be in your presence
and to want to serve you and love you. Please confirm us more
and more day by day in the reality of your love and stir us up to
love and good works to show to a dying and a hurting world what
it is to be disciples of Jesus, to have true joy and peace in
the midst of this generation. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.
People in a Place: Beloved Saints
Series Romans
| Sermon ID | 9172440243319 |
| Duration | 37:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Romans 1:1-7 |
| Language | English |
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