Time to be You!

The letter to Rome

Tonight I am opening from the book of Romans a letter that is authored by the apostle Paul

Romans 1:1-7 Paul a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,

This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News.

God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.

The Good News is about his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David’s family line,

and he was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.

And you are included among those Gentiles who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ.

I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people.

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Paul is giving us an introduction of who he is.

I am Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ

I am completely at the will of God my life is disposable for the cause of Jesus

Paul’s first thing he tells us is that he is a slave to Jesus!

To be a slave of something is to state that you are obedient and that you are submissive to it.

Paul is declaring that he is in subjection to Jesus.

Paul could have led with I am Paul an apostle,

I am Paul a Roman,

I am Paul I have authority,

I am Paul a famous preacher,

I am Paul a great leader.

That is not what Paul led with his opening statement:

I am a servant!

He goes on to say I am an apostle.

The Five-Fold Ministry is a Biblical outline of offices that are held by those that have entered into service to the Lord

You have the Teacher, Evangelist, Pastor, Prophet, and the Apostle

We might see or hear the word apostle and think it has great meaning and there is an authoritative connotation behind the word but it does not mean that!

The word Apostle means “to be sent off!”

This term to be sent off means you would be a nomad that there would never be a home for you that everything that you have needs to fit into a small bag or container.

You're going to need to travel light and fast.

The danger is up ahead and so you better be willing to move.

This is what it meant to be an apostle of Jesus and honestly still means to be an acting role of being an apostle

For Paul, It was an identity found in turmoil and hardship.

Paul gave us a lot to think about in his opening of this letter just packed within the first paragraph!

He doesn’t stop there in giving his opening introduction to who he is.

It goes on to say that Paul is set apart for the gospel of God.

Wow!

Paul had his hands full!

If you thought that your responsibilities were heavy imagine what Paul is dealing with.

I am busy but I still have a bed to lay my head in at night I still have a home to go to after a hard day's work.

Not Paul he is dealing with hardships and burdens that are beyond the things that we deal with.

Paul is unpacking a lot of heavy things onto the reader of this letter and just when we think that Paul is done he goes on in verse 5 and tells us more that we need to think about.

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 nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

A call from God comes with a heavy burden, a heavy price, and a great deal of learning and obeying.

This generation is called the greatest generation since the pentecostal movement began

You have the greatest opportunity to reach the world that you live in

You have the ability to reach the people that you spend time with at work, at school, at home, and wherever else that you spend time.

This is your time to shine the light in a dark world!

Like Diamonds, you are being formed under pressure and expectation.

You have in you the ability to shape the future of the world you live in.

I believe you understand that

I believe you want to see that

I believe you are doing that.

Amen?

Let’s do a little check box and go through the check box together.

Anointed and used by God? Check!

I see the anointed speakers in front of me, the anointed singers who use their talents to bring glory to God!

Devoted and dedicated to seeing the power and presence of God? Check!

I watch you pray and respond to messages and there is a hunger in you that longs to see God doing what only God can do!

Faithful in giving of your time, talent, and treasure? Check!

You are here tonight and when the doors are open I see you here and serving!

Giving even when you have little to give!

And using your talents for the Kingdom over the world!

This generation gets it!

I am swept away by the response and desire to see God do great things in your lives and in your friends' lives.

I wish that I would have had friends like you in my life growing up!

You get it!

You understand!

God has called you to be that generation that has prophecy and the power of God flowing through you!

But, you have some things to work out as a generation as a chosen and peculiar people!

Here it is; here is the blunt honest truth; you have to believe that you are called.

Not just the older youth not just the hyphen but all of us!

Everyone living right now no matter how old we are no matter how young we are has to believe that we have been called.

Corinthians 1:26–31

For consider your calling, brothers, that not many were wise according to human standards, not many were powerful, and not many were well-born.

But the foolish things of the world God chose in order that he might put to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world God chose in order that he might put to shame the strong, and the insignificant of the world, and the despised, God chose, the things that are not, in order that he might abolish the things that are, so that all flesh may not boast before God.

But from him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “The one who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.

We want to define calling.

We look at things like this pulpit and we think that the pulpit is a declaration of calling.

This pulpit is nothing if Jesus is not in it

A preacher, teacher, evangelist, apostle, or prophet is nothing without God!

Only God determines success

Only God rises up and sets down

Those that are chosen are not for the reasons you would think or associate with success.

Yet the world wants to tell us what makes someone successful

How do you define success?

Was Paul successful in the eyes of the world?

Do you think that Paul was successful?

Paul had spent time in prison on multiple accounts,

he had been in dire straits with being shipwrecked and stranded for days on end,

Paul had to work two jobs to make ends meet and lived in lowly circumstances

Paul did not use elegant or high minded words to preach

Paul died a martyrs death

Was Paul successful?

Paul was a proclaimed slave to Christ

Paul was a man who died a martyrs death

Paul was outcasted by the people to who he had been sent to set free and proclaim the gospel message.

This was Paul a failed Hebrew teacher

Paul was a failed man who carried a great burden and remorse for what he had done to the people he shared ministry with.

But yet thousands of years later we read the words that he wrote we see Paul not as a failure but as an example to us in this world we live in.

The thing that Paul knew that many of us fail to grasp is that great contentment is not found in what the world says of you and me

It is not found in the achievement of this life

It is not found in the bank account that you have or the possessions you have

Contentment is found in the relationship that you have with God

Do you know yourself?

Have you come to a place in your life where you can, without a doubt, say who you are?

What defines you?

Is it your youth group?

Is it the family that you were born into?

Is it the dreams that are distant you are striving to achieve?

What is your measurement of success?

The calling of God has been placed on you so I ask you what does success look like if that is your purpose?

I struggled when I first started searching out the calling of God in my life.

I would watch preachers from our movement and would feel so moved by the messages that they were preaching

I would kneel down in the room and respond to alter calls after Alter calls

Then one day I was given an opportunity to deliver a message to the church and I wanted to be like all those amazingly anointed preachers

The first message I delivered had the response is that it! Is that what I came for?

I was crushed! I felt like I had no business preaching no business speaking to any group of people

I was stuck in a trap

The trap of comparison

One of the greatest things that I ever heard in my life was Do not compare yourself to who someone else is today but compare yourself to who you were yesterday

For some of you, you are first-generation apostolic and you are on fire for God and there is a desire in your heart that says I want to do whatever God calls me to!

You might stay up at night thinking about how good God is and just how sweet it is to have been given this opportunity to know Him.

Then you come to church and you see people who are well put together and seem to be doing this God thing at a high level of excellence and you think that you don’t possess the same talents or giftings.

I get that thought of inadequacy and self-doubt about what you could do for God or how could you be what God wants to lead in revival or to preach His word or be a worship leader

Here is the thing God did not call you to be timid or fearful He called you to be bold and to declare His goodness.

2nd Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice but of power and love and self-discipline.

Even though you might feel like there is nothing special about you or that anything that you will do will compare to what others can do remember that it is not you that has to do it.

Sometimes the greatest of burdens are birthed from the greatest of guilts

We disqualify ourselves before God gets the opportunity to transform us.

Saul was a prosecutor and a determined killer of the gospel message!

It was Saul that was blinded and forced to wait in darkness until God set him free

It was Saul who had to wrestle with the guilt and the revelation that what he had been doing was a direct action against the God he believed that he was serving his whole life

It was Saul who had to have the scales lifted from his eyes and led to a place that would be his ultimate transformational movement in his life

It was Saul who became Paul as the fruit of the spirit of the people for who he had been a nightmare for

God’s plan for your life is so much bigger than the plan that you have for your life

This Paul who was once Saul went through a transformational process he had to suffer greatly to become great in the Kingdom of God

I know that none of us want to suffer we avoid it at all costs but the truth is that you are going to suffer whether you want to or not

God has called you out and made plans for your life

The suffering

the breaking

the hurting

the let downs

the falls

the stumbles

and the hardships are the things that will set you truly apart.

Paul found contentment in the hardship because he knew that it worked together for his good

For some of us, it is if I can make it through the overwhelming disappointment in my life then I will be stronger on the other side of it.

We want the Miracle without the need for the miracle

We want the anointing without the breaking

We want the authority without the submission

We want the treasure without the work

We want the blessings without the losses

It is the little things that make up the sum total of all parts.

Saul was called!

Saul was chosen!

Saul had a great thing to do!

Why Saul?

Why Saul?

Why Saul?

Who was Saul to have been chosen?

Who was Saul to have had the call of God in his life?

The reality is that Saul is who God was going to choose.

Saul was simply Saul and his life up to the point of calling was completely different than what God was going to call him to do.

This is what happens to us we think that God’s calling is supposed to be like our parents, our pastors, the preachers we see at conferences who inspire us and deliver words from God to us

So, we get trapped in the comparison to someone else’s anointing someone else’s talent, someone else’s status, and treasure.

Here is a sure word for you if you have ever felt like you are not good enough or if you feel inadequate for what God has called you to.

This is the principle though God does not respect the individual man or woman!

That is different from how we look at people.

We see someone who has talent and we think wow they seem so special!

Their praise team can surely bring the worship and the praise!

We look at how amazing their skills are, their preaching, their teaching, their voice!

I could never do that.

I don't have the voice for that!

I am really great at telling God why I am not good enough and not qualified to do something.

We should turn that into

Why not Saul!

Why not me!

Saul who would later become Paul would often wrestle with his call to reach the world around him.

Paul found success not in his own individual identity but the identity he found in Christ.

You will never know your truest potential until you have found your identity in Jesus!

This is in reference to Jesus and it is the grace and obedience of faith for the sake of his name

Are we ashamed of the Gospel or are we so in love with it that it has transformed us into the image of Christ?

What is the mark you are setting and what is the places you are going?

Closing