01 | Romans | Romans 1:1-2 | Paul, A Servant of Christ Jesus

INTRODUCTION

The Gospel in Romans | the power of God for salvation

I hope you’ve already turned in your Bibles to Romans.

And for the next three months, I hope you remain there in your homes and in the break room and as you walk the dog in the morning.

That in many times as places …

… as a church together

… we take hold of this gift of God to us in his Word.

Our prayer for this series is that over the coming years the Lord would build for us a foundation for our faith in the power of God for salvation.

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THE CHURCH IN ROME

Glance ahead to v7.

We know very little about the founding of the church in Rome.

We can be confident that it was not planted by the Apostle Paul … the author of this letter.

We know there were visitors from Rome, both Jew and proselytes (Acts 2:10), at Pentecost, in Acts 2.

A 4th century commentary on Romans(Ambosiaster) The Romans had embraced the faith of Christ, albeit according to the Jewish rites, although they saw no sign of mighty works nor any of the apostles.

This church in Rome appears to be a church founded by visitors to Jerusalem at Pentecost …

… who, already faithful to the Hebrew scriptures,

… when confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ

… when Peter made this call to faith

… repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Having confessed faith in Jesus …

… they returned to Rome

… and sharing this gospel with others

… began to walk in faith as a body together.

This letter, then, is an apostle’s effort to bring …

… some theological clarity and unified foundation

… that the whole of the church

… both Jew and Gentile

… would stand on the power of God for salvation.

This one foundation is both theirs and ours …

… as we are together, Christ’s church.

Romans 1:8 — Their faith is “proclaimed in all the world.”

Paul is often is prayer (thanksgiving) for the church in Rome.

They are faithful, in the face of adversity and persecution …

… they have held to their hope in Christ.

I think it is instructive for us that when Paul considered what was needed …

… for this already faithful church

… was to be grounded all the more in the gospel.

Whether it was in the face of adversity or tensions from within or without …

… what is most needful for the church

… is to stand confident in the gospel

… for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

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PRAY

Transition

While we know little about this early Roman church, we know a great deal about the one who wrote this letter to them.

PAUL, A SERVANT OF CHRIST JESUS

Read Romans 1:1

Romans is written by Paul, but the message and messenger belong to Jesus are about Jesus.

Paul presses this point home with three statements about himself.

A Servant

This is not Paul’s letter nor Paul’s gospel.

Paul writes as a servant.

Servant does not mean, “as a humble guy”

1 Corinthians 7:23 (ESV) You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.

Paul knows that he has been purchased.

He is “bought and owned” (Piper)

INTRODUCE John Piper’s “The Great Letter Ever Written” Sermon Series

John Piper Here in this history-making letter we are not dealing with a man and his genius. We are dealing with a man and his Owner and Ruler and God.

Paul is writing as a servant of God.

As one who is bought and owned …

… whose pen moves at the behest of his master.

But here is the thing …

… as we listen to Paul’s words

… it is clear that he loves his Lord

… for it is by the Lord Jesus Christ

… that he has been set free from his slavery to sin and death.

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Paul is in a long line of servants: Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets.

All of these saints in the scriptures …

… have spoken on behalf of the Lord

… not because they are great religious men

… but because they are servants of their great Master.

Paul is placing himself in this long line of those who speak as a servant of the Lord.

And so, he is acknowledging Jesus as the Lord of all those who speak in the name of the Lord.

Paul is writing this letter as a servant of Jesus.

What we find in this letter is not his idea or labor or authority.

He is a servant to this God.

And he is a servant of the gospel truth (see next point)

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Called to be an Apostle

That is what it means to be an apostle.

The word “apostle” means “sent one.”

He has been commissioned by the Lord himself.

Galatians 1:11–12 (ESV) 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.

I encourage you to read Acts 9 for a fuller account of Paul’s (also called Saul) conversion.

Saul is not merely a church missionary.

He was not merely identified by a local church and sent in the name of the Lord.

He was called by the Lord himself …

… and having witnessed the resurrected Lord with his own eyes

… was sent as an apostle to testify to his gospel.

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Set Apart for the Gospel

There are many valid interests for a person in this life.

Elsewhere Paul calls this other interests, “civilian pursuits.”

But … (2 Timothy 2:4) No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

Paul is an enlisted man.

He has been set apart for a specific mission …

… and so he is a servant with a singular interest.

Paul has been made captive by his call to proclaim the gospel.

Introduce John Murray

Mid 20th century theologian …

… and professor at Princeton Seminary

… and founder of Westminister Theological Seminary.

John Murray all bonds of interest and attachment alien to the promotion of the gospel had been rent asunder

test

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APPLY

Paul is a servant.

He is called and set apart.

By these three statements, Paul is not trying to tell you amazing things about himself.

He is telling you something about God and his gospel.

Note where all three of these statements points.

Paul is the author of Romans. He wrote it.

But the whole point of his introduction is to say that Romans is not Paul’s book.

It’s not his letter. And it certainly is not his gospel.

Romans is written by Paul, but the message and messenger belong to Jesus are about Jesus.

I have to say that I am challenged by this first verse.

I want to stop here and consider.

Do I belong to the Lord?

Just how entangled have I become in civilian pursuits?

Am I a man with a singular interest?

Jesus Christ has made himself known to me.

Do I live to make him known?

I hope you too feel the gravity of this reality this morning.

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Read v1b

THE GOSPEL OF GOD

If there is anything we should see from Paul’s first three statements just in v1 it is that …

This is God’s Gospel

From beginning to end and all the way through …

… gospel foundation that Paul describes belongs to Jesus.

Romans 11:36 (ESV) For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

There is already a powerful implication for us today.

I hear this statement (or some variation thereof) all the time.

“That’s not who God is to me.”

Or people who make grand statements about God’s character …

… or what God’s love is like

… or how God would have us live

… but have made little or no effort to listen to God’s words in scriptures.

The gospel is God’s gospel.

We don’t get to make it up.

God has been making himself known for millenia.

He has used many servants …

… to speak many words.

If we want to know who God is or what is his gospel …

… we don’t get to make it up from our own minds

… or our cultural presumptions.

No, we have to listen.

This is God’s gospel. The Lord’s good news.

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This is Not a New Gospel

Read v2

Ray Ortlund Your gospel is old. You have given me something real and solid in the midst of my paper-thin, anti-historical pop culture.

ILL: TikTok reposted on Instagram.

Listen, I’m an technology early adopter.

I downloaded instagram in 2010 when it first came out.

I was on Twitter when it was still 140 characters or less because it forwarded all your twitter stream to your text messages and most phones couldn’t handle messages longer than that.

But one thing that has me exhausted by technology and specifically instagram is this very thing.

It seems that only right now, this moment, is of any value at all.

Let me give an example by considering the life cycle of a TikTok video:

Someone posts a video on TikTok.

It begins to go viral and a new TikTok trend is born.

Within a day or two those videos originally posted to TikTok are reposted on Instagram and as Youtube shorts.

But if you tell someone that you saw this video on Instagram or Youtube or elsewhere …

… you’re too late.

The trend has passed on TikTok, just a few days later …

… you’re too late

… and the internet is on to the next great thing.

Days! Perhaps even hours!

That’s how long something is considered valuable or interesting!

A video might be reborn a few weeks or months later as part of a video montage of recent trends on Youtube …

… but by then its just nostalgia.

In this culture there is something in our souls that asks …

… is there anything of enduring value?

… is there anything that lasts, that is not simply passing away?

Paul suggests that the credibility of the gospel is not that it is trending in social media …

… that its going viral in the Roman world.

Yes, the gospel is so powerful that it has made its way all the way from Jerusalem to Rome in only a matter of years.

But the amazing thing is not that the gospel is trending …

… but that it is not actually new at all!

The gospel of God is the ancient news long promised.

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The Gospel Long Promised

The message that Paul declares can be examined by comparing …

… this claim of gospel fulfilment in the person and work of Christ …

… with the claims of the gospel promise in all the scriptures that came before.

This is what Jesus himself did both in his ministry among the disciples and following his resurrection.

See the Emmaus Road (Luke 24:27) And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.)

The gospel is promise.

It is the guarantee of God and is only as good as his word.

And its value to us is only insofar as we take God at his word (i.e. faith).

We will look at this faith in much more detail Romans 4.

John Murray Extant Scriptures contained the gospel in promise; the subject matter with which the apostle is going to deal is the gospel in fulfilment of that promise.

test

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Through His Prophets; In the Holy Scriptures

No one found some sacred text hidden in a golden vase or descending on a cloud.

The scriptures come through the writings of men who have ben called and set apart by God.

2 Peter 1:21 (ESV)

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

No, the gospel isn’t discovered in some long forgotten religious treasure box.

No, God has made his message known through jars of clay.

Through otherwise weak and failing men like Paul …

… God has made his message known.

The scriptures are holy and cannot be denied.

So that, even if an angel came speaking another word, we should not turn from them (Galatians 1:8).

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APPLY

I want to know what is true.

Not what is new, but what is true.

If I have been made by an infinite and eternal God …

… I want what to know what is infinite and eternal.

… I want to know what is promised and what is holy.

You and I were made for such things.

Again, there is a cutting and powerful challenge for us here.

What am I seeking all day long?

What compels me?

Sure, I’ve stepped back from my days of social media.

I don’t check twitter or instagram anymore …

… and I’ve moved them off the front home screen of my phone.

But, I know for myself, I am constantly reading articles and watching news and listening to podcasts.

And I think that is part of what has gone wrong with my own soul.

And maybe it is so for you as well.

Maybe its social media or news or Netflix for you.

But, if you are alive today, you live in an age of distraction.

Perhaps, what is needed is to calm down and sit for a season in some very old news.

News long promised and holy.

I know for myself and my household we will be taking these weeks in Romans …

… slowing down to listen to the words of an ancient servant of God.

We want to hear news of holy things.

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APPLY

I have come to love Paul, the man, the servant, the apostle.

Romans 10:15 (ESV) And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

It is through this servant’s voice …

… alongside the other servants of God such as Peter and Matthew and Mark and Luke and John

… that good news has come to me.

I have heard and I have been rescued because these servants bear.

It is gospel. It is good news.

The gospel in Romans is justification by grace through faith and the power of God for salvation.

It is Jesus, the Son of God …

… crucified in the place of sinners

… raised in power

… reigning in glory.

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