Romans 1

Good Morning Journey, there is something powerful about being in a room together and worshiping our God who is able to do more than we can possibly think or imagine. Today, if I were to sum up this first Chapter of Romans I would sum it up this say, I am not Ashamed of the Gospel for it shows the Grace of God despite the Depravity of Humanity. We have a lot to go through today, so I want you to open up your Bibles to Romans 1. The book or Romans as Joel spoke about last week is one of the if not the single greatest writings in all of history, and gives us one of the clearest views of the Gospel we have. The gospel is the good news of salvation through the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, to rescue us from the wrath of God. I want to prepare you in advance, in this message this week, next week and I am sure the whole series, we are going to start and stop a lot. We may not get to every verse, but lets see what God does.

V.1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, These first 6 words we could spend and entire sermon on, but the opening to Pauls letter is incredibly important. In common days we begin our letters addressed to who? The person we are writing it to, however Paul starts by revealing who he is, and as the Church of Rome would know who Paul is, his name brings a certain type of authority as we will see. But Paul does not wield this authority like a pompous Manager or CEO and say, “I am Paul the greatest apsotle, now you Roman’s listen to me, no he says “a servant of Christ Jesus” His first identifying factor when it comes to his identity in Jesus Christ is a servant. This word servant in the Original language is “Doulous” this means multiple things that are all the same. It can mean slave, servant or Bond Servant. This very pronouncement of being a bondservant would shock the Roman world as at the time, more than 1/3rd of its population were slaves and 1/3rd had been slaves before. Paul knew this and he chose this very specifically because a bondservant is someone who is subservient to, and entirely at the disposal of his master. Paul was compelled to be a servant for what Jesus has done for him.

In American culture, for rightful reasons, we picture in our mind specific atrocities when it comes to slavery. And don’t get me wrong, a lot of people in Rome were in forced slavery, could be murdered for no reason, thrown into the colosseum and the like. But Paul here is referring to a Jewish type of servant hood or “slave” you see, if you owed a debt to someone and you couldn’t pay it, you were to become their slave until the debt was paid. But if your master treated you well, you started a family, and upon your fulfillment of the debt, you could become a bondservant, permanently and voluntarily. Paul knew that being in Christ Jesus there is a debt we can never repay, and in doing so, we become bond servants for Jesus. Jesus is not an add-on, he isn’t a supplement you take to make your life better, he takes over your life forever. When we understand the magnitude of our sin, being a servant for Christ on this earth is easy. What did being a Bondservant for Christ mean to Paul? Where God says Go, Paul went. Where God says No, Paul Stopped, How God says live, Paul Lived, Where God inspired Paul he wrote, where God placed Paul he preached. Everywhere he went he was a servant of Christ Jesus.

So you and I are servants of Jesus in our homes, in our workplaces, at the store, at the gym, in the middle of conflicts, everywhere you go Christian you are a servant for Jesus. Servants don’t do what’s convenient for them, they do the will of their master. We are all a slave to something, we are either a slave to our sin, or we are a slave to Jesus and righteousness. (Paul goes one to say this in Romans 6) You Choose. So Are you living a life that shows you are a servant of your master? Gotta keep moving those were the first 6 words.

V. 1b “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God” Paul used to go under his Jewish name Saul, and Saul was a Pharisee who hunted down Christian’s and had them killed. Go look back at Act 7. But being transformed and saved by Jesus he went under his Greek name Paul and he is called Apostle, the words “to be” are added for English. The office of apostleship was important because it meant several things, 1), you saw the resurrected Jesus, 2) You walked in the authority of Jesus 3) You were accompanied with signs, wonders and miracles from the Holy Spirit, 4) You received Special revelation from the Lord. As in Scripture Inspiration. The office of Apostleship to his day is closed based on that information. But Paul is making the case, as an Apostle he is Jesus' messenger, representation and authority in the church. What he is about to say comes from the Authority of God, not from his own thoughts. Based on that, all Christians come under the words of Paul and abide by them. We are set apart because we have been made new by the Gospel. We will see that clearly later.

V.2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul is referring to the fact that God all through the Old Testament has been pointing to Jesus as the Messiah and savior of the world. In the Old Testament starting in Genesis 3 all the way to the end we have around 456 different prophecies of a coming messiah, Jesus in his time fulfilled 324 of them and the remaining are about the second coming. Why is this important? Because the Gospel of Jesus isn’t something new, it's an old promise from God. This has been God's plan all along that through the line of David, meaning Jesus would be fully human, but he ends it with our Lord, signifying Jesus’s deity. We believe that Jesus is fully man and fully God, and he defeated sin and death with his resurrection from the dead.

V.5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. These two verses have massive implications for those who are able to come to faith in Christ. You see, before Jesus’s arrival the Jewish system was built on being separated from gentiles, to be separated from those who they would call unclean, meaning gentiles, those who would never be able to have a relationship with God because they did not have the special relationship with God that the Jewish people have. And yet, Paul, this once Pharisee turned evangelists makes the startling statement that gentiles can come to faith in Jesus. Why would he make such a pronouncement?

I am reminded of a man named Cornelius in Acts 10 who was a centurion in the Italian Regiment. He and his entire family were devout God fearing people, giving and praying to the God of the Israelites, but there was just one problem. He was a gentile in the Roman army the very army who held Israel captive. But yet God knew his name, in a vision God told told him to send meant to Joppa to and bring back Peter. Around the next day Peter in Joppa was on a roof of a building praying, and he was hungry and he fell into a trance where all kinds of four footed animals, reptiles and birds were. And God said get up and eat. Yet Peter, knowing the Jewish law, never to eat unclean animals told God “Surely not Lord, I have never eaten anything impure or unclean. And Jesus said “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Then the men Cornelius sent knocked on the door, and Peter went with the men. And this devot Jewish man, who had Jesus in his heart but the law on his mind,  who wouldn’t eat with gentiles, who wouldn’t drink with gentiles who wouldn’t go into business with gentiles, who would not be friends with gentiles, and surely wouldn’t worship with a gentile, now enters Cornelius’s house and realizes that God was not speaking just about food, but about people. When he says in the 28th verse of Acts 10 “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.” In the same way Paul is saying that whoever believes in Jesus Christ isn’t unclean, instead they have been washed with the blood of the lamb. They are clean in the eyes of God.

Paul then in the next several verses explains how eager he has been to visit Rome but that God has not allowed him to go. Why does he want to go to Rome you might ask? verse 15. “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. It is the message of the Gospel that drives Paul to Rome because he knows that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, the same is true for Journey, we are driven by the Gospel to plant roots in North Peoria because we know that the Gospel is the only way to bring light to this dark world. Because we believe exactly what Paul says next, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.

Paul reveals what should be the heart of every sinner who has been justified by faith in Jesus. That I am not ashamed of the gospel. In a city where Polytheism was rampant with fake gods sitting upon Mount Olympus like Zeus, Hepehstus, Demeter, Athena, ruling the sea in Poseidon or ruling over the underworld like Hades. These strong false man made gods did not bring salvation to people, but oppression. Paul is unashamed that God died on the cross for his chosen people who would come to faith in him. Because in bringing salvation it shows God's power. Despite all the power in Rome, despite its great armies, despite its conducting abilities and wealth it could not do one thing, they cannot make themselves righteous or justified before God. The same is true for you, the same is true for your neighbor, and the same is true for our nation. We cannot make ourselves righteous or justified before God. It is only believing in Christ Crucified that reveals the power of God in your life by justifying sinners. When God justifies a sinner it does not mean that he makes the sinner a good man. It does not mean that God finds reasons to prove that the sinner is right…rather justifications in the sense that Paul is speaking means that God treats the sinner as if he had not been a sinner at all…we will see more of this in Romans 8. We are not ashamed of the Gospel for by it we are made righteous.

On the heels of these jarring and incredible statements Paul then juxtaposes the goodness of the Gospel of Christ with the ultimate depravity of humanity. Because we can only truly understand God's goodness in the face of our fallenness, the next several verses are deeply dark. In fact when referring to this portion of Romans 1 the great Theologian and Preacher Charles Superon says, “This first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is a dreadful portion of the Word of God. I should hardly like to read it all through aloud; it is not intended to be so used. Read it at home, and be startled at the awful vices of the world.”

I would not say I am bolder than Charles Spurgon, but definitely more foolish, because I will read this in full. Listen Paul does this to show us, how us where the human heart Goes in a Christless existence and  to help us understand the goodness of the Gospel. Paul is making a blanket statement about humanity, but interestingly enough every culture, every generation, every creed, every person identifies with what he is about to say. From Generation to Generation, these words don’t just remain true…they become truer if that’s even possible.

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. In short: they don't believe because they don't want to. The problem is not that truth is unavailable; the problem is that truth is being ignored. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools the wisdom of man if foolishness to God 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts, God's wrath is handing us over to our own thoughts, if you want it that way, have it that way and see where it gets you. When we are left to our own devices, we don’t rise to righteousness, we fall into deeper depravity and we bring others with us.

The human race deserves the wrath of God, we have ignored the general revelation of Creation that shouts the power of God, that’s is why we are without excuse.  The wrath of God is not wrath as we think of it on human standards. Rather the wrath of God is 100% righteous. In a courtroom when someone receives a sentence for their crimes, that sentence isn’t out of anger, it is out of justice and righteousness. In Christ, we are saved from this wrath as we are not handed over to our own way of thinking, but given a new mind to think, as Paul will say in Romans 12. But for those outside of Christ God allowed us, gave us over to…

to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 They are senseless, faithless, heartless and ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Is there no more graphic portrait of your heart and mine? You were described in there, and I was described in there, this is who we are, this is what we would be if not for the Gospel. Paul, who later had all the knowledge and understanding given to him by the Holy Spirit, would call himself the chief of sinners in 1st Timothy, knows the condition of the human heart left unattended to by God. We are revealing God's wrath when we sink lower into our depravity. Here are some examples, People today deny God's existence, Satan and his demons don’t even do that. People believe science can disprove the existence of God, in doing so they fool themselves. We worship our sin, we ignore God's design for Gender and sex and approve of those who do it, we kill God's creation in the womb and approve of those who do it. You can make the list, without Christ we are seeing a country and society not only ignore God's truth, but we applaud those who practice them…

I read this over and over again this week and I was reminded of 2 experiences I had when I went to Israel where I visited the Holocaust museum and saw the monstrosities that at that time in the 1940’s the most “educated” country in the world at that time, a country devoid of God. In fact it has been attributed to Hitler when he envisioned Nazi Germany’s future, I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of conscience - imperious, relentless, and cruel

You would walk and see images that are seared into your mind of starved men, women and children who were murdered and experienced by Josef Mengele. Images of 2 Tons of women’s hair that was shaved off of their heads before entering the gas chambers. Then I walked into the Children’s Memorial where in it it looked like this…(image) a single candle is lit with hundreds of mirrors reflecting making it look like thousands upon thousands of lights. While standing in that room, pictures would circulate and over the speakers every 10-15 seconds a voice would read a child’s name, their age, and where they were from. This goes on 24/7 365. And if you stood in that room from the beginning of the list, it would take you 4 years to get back to the beginning. I remember crying because I was confronted with teh evil condition of the human heart devoid of God and of Christ.

The next day we went into Jerusalem and walked the Via Delarosa. The path Jesus took from his trial to his cross. It ended in two spots, where they believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected. The first is the church of the Holy Seplucar, the second, the Garden Tomb. In a very different sense I was overwhelmed, I was struck with the sorrow for my sins and being in the vicinity where my savior was crucified for my sin and having that stark reality in your face you can’t do anything but cry again. Because when Jesus hung on the cross he said it was finished…that his sacrifice would indeed be the very thing that cleanses people from their sin…..But then I walked into the empty tomb and rejoiced that he didn’t stay dead, he defeated death for anyone who believes in him…I am not Ashamed of the Gospel for it shows the Grace of God despite the Depravity of Humanity.

I am not ashamed that I needed a savior. I am not ashamed that my God can save and will save even the worst of people. I am not ashamed that the Gospel is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. So many times people will say, “Do you really believe in a God who would save someone like that? YES. Because he saved someone like me. I am unashamed in saying that God will and God can save anyone even those in those Concentration camps.  The gospel isn’t about the depth of depravity mankind can dig its way too, its about the fact that there is no depth mankind can go that God is unable to reach them. My friends, it is the Gospel that changes the hearts of men towards God, it is the Gospel of God that justifies sinners, it is the Gospel that changes the world. As Paul said, I am unashamed of the Gospel, and we should be unabashed in preaching it to others.

So my challenge for you is to ask yourself “Where do you put conditions on the Gospel?” At times we all do this, we think, this person will never believe, or they are too far gone. When we read lists like the one Paul laid out people come to mind that we just won’t try to reach, we put conditions on the Gospel. We may be ashamed that God would save such a person. Christian it is our job to present the Gospel it’s the work of God that saves. Investigate your heart and soul this week and begin to live a life that is not ashamed of the Gospel and see how God uses you to help others come to faith in him.

Pray