Romans: An Introduction
- The great preacher and pastor Donald Grey Barnhouse tells the story of how he began his pastorate at Philadelphia’s 10th Presbyterian Church: “When I first became the pastor of the Philadelphia church, I began my ministry by preaching on the Epistle of Romans. My first Sunday in that pulpit found me giving an exposition of the first verse of the Epistle…For three and one half years I never took a text outside of the Epistle to the Romans. I saw the church transformed, the audience filled the pews and then the galleries, and the work went on with great blessing. But just as important as the transformation of the church was the transformation of the preacher.” (Barnhouse’s commentary on Romans, Preface)
- No book of the Bible has so impacted the world as Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.
- Swiss commentator Godet, who wrote on the great revivals of history, said, “The Reformation was certainly the work of the Epistle to the Romans…and it is probable that every great spiritual renovation in the church will always be linked, both in cause and effect, to a deeper knowledge of this book.”
- It was Romans 1:17, “the just shall live by faith”, that transformed a monk named Martin Luther and led to the greatest spiritual and theological reformation in the history of the church.
- On May 24, 1738, a discouraged and depressed missionary named John Wesley entered a Moravian meeting on Aldersgate in London, England. It was there that he heard Luther’s preface to his commentary on the book of Romans. He later wrote, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” (Wiersbe, Be Right, p. 7)
- John Wesley would leave that meeting a changed man and would lead the greatest revival England has ever experienced.
- Chrysostom, one of the great fathers of the church, had the book of Romans read to him twice a week.
- Coleridge once said that the Epistle to the Romans is “the most profound writing that exists.”
- John Bunyan, who wrote the most widely read Christian book ever, outside of the Bible, A Pilgrim’s Progress, was transformed by the book of Romans while in a London prison.
- Ex. Once I was picking up my girls from ballet, when a woman who heard and recognized my voice from the radio, came up to me and told me just how much she loved my radio broadcast. She made an interesting comment: “I can tell it’s you whenever I hear you say, ‘verse such and such’, and then you challenge us to live for Jesus and be born again. So many other broadcasters and TV hosts are always giving us the opinion of man and the positive message of the human potential of man. You direct us to the potential of God as found in the scriptures.”
- I was pleased to hear her comments.
- No other book of the Bible exemplifies to us the sinfulness and depravity of our “human potential” and the greatness and power of “God’s potential” as the Epistle of Romans.
- If every pulpit in our great country taught verse by verse through the book of Romans, we would see a 3rd Great Awakening in our country.
- The Epistle to the Romans has the most complete diagnosis of man’s sin, and the most glorious setting forth of the remedy of justification by faith, apart from the works of the law.
- The overarching theme of Romans is the righteousness that comes from God, the glorious truth that God justifies guilty, condemned sinners by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone!
- The first 11 chapters of Romans present the theological truths of that doctrine.
- Chapters 12-16 detail the practical application in the lives of the Christ-follower.
- The story of this book is that salvation is available to anyone in any stage of sin. Whatever you have done, wherever you have lived, there is salvation available through our Savior Jesus Christ, who went to the cross and reconciled us to Himself!
Vs. 1
Paul…let’s just stop right there
- We cannot completely appreciate the Epistle of Romans until we understand the life and times of the author.
- Paul was a Jew, once named Saul, who had grown up under the great Jewish teacher, Gamaliel.
- He was a Pharisee, like his father before him, and he grew up zealous for the Jewish religion and the Law.
- It was the Pharisees who were the most consistent and intrepid enemies of Jesus’ message of being the Messiah.
- Saul had grown up believing that the Jews had a patent and a copyright on God and the Scriptures.
- Saul, his name before his conversion to faith in Christ, was not an anti-semite (meaning anti-jewish), he was a semite-anti. If anyone opposed the way of the Jews, he hated them vehemently.
- Saul was a bigoted persecutor of Christianity, who killed anyone who opposed the doctrines of Judaism.
- Saul believed that the promises, given to Abraham in the Old Testament, were only for the Jews.
- But then something happened to Saul that changed his life forever.
Acts 9:1-22
Vs. 1
- The word Saul means “destroyer”, “terminator.”
Vs. 2-5
- A goad: a sharp pencil shaped stick in the backboard on a wagon or plow. If an ox didn’t want to go forward and kicked back to reverse course, the goad would jab into the leg of the ox.
- God had been working on Saul’s heart, maybe when he saw the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 6-7), and possibly as he saw the faith and peace of the Christians as Saul hauled them off to prison.
- Maybe one of the children had shared with Saul just how much God loved him. We don’t know.
- But God had been working on Saul’s heart.
- Are you kicking against the goads today? Are you kicking against God’s will? Are you screaming at those Christians who are bugging you to come to church?
- But spiritual goads are not jabbing the calves of your leg. God’s goads are sticking you in the heart, in your pride!
- God is knocking you off your “high horse”, and you only have one thing to do. Look up!
Vs. 6-22
- Saul has now become Paul.
- Paul means “worker”, “bondservant.”
- He went from persecutor to preacher!
- Now look back at Romans 1:1
Romans 1:1
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ,
Paul identifies himself as, first of all, “a bondservant of Jesus Christ”
- This term of being a slave would have been meaningful to the Romans because at that time there were over 6 million slaves in the Roman Empire.
- Slave can also be translated as “bondservant.”
- “Bondservant” is a term that goes back to a ceremony described in Exodus 21.
- It was a unique term that was used of a slave who actually had the opportunity to go free, but chose to be a slave.
Exodus 21:1-6
"Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them: 2 If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing. 3 If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. 5 But if the servant plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,' 6 then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.”
- There were slaves who knew the love and mercy of their masters and wanted to serve them out of love, for the rest of their lives. Their ears were pierced as a mark of being a bondslave, a willing servant to a loving master.
- Paul had chosen to be “a bondslave of Jesus Christ.”
- The story has been told in one of the hymns of Frances Havergal:
I love, I love my Master;
I will not go out free.
For He is my Redeemer;
He paid the price for me.
I would not leave His service;
It is so sweet and blest.
And in the weariest moments,
He gives the truest rest.
- Ever since the fall of Adam, man has been enslaved to a thousand masters. Sin is a cruel taskmaster.
- Slavery to self is a bondage that includes all other slaveries.
- There is no freedom apart from the work of God in one’s heart.
- In the midst of your bondage, if you haven’t willingly given your life to Christ, open your heart to the greatest freedom known to man, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!
- Become a willing free “bondservant of Jesus Christ” today!
The secret of Paul’s greatness lies in the order of the phrases in Vs. 1
Romans 1:1
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle,
- Paul was first of all a “bondslave”, utterly and completely surrendered to Christ. Then he was an apostle.
- Apostle means “sent out one.” It might be better understood as “missionary.”
- Paul was first a loving and committed slave of Jesus before he was a missionary for Him.
- Paul was one who had fallen in love with His master, before He served His master.
- God had done an amazing work of grace in Paul’s heart. He had hated Christians, and now he was a brother with those he had persecuted.
Paul says he was “called” to be an apostle
- This was not Paul’s idea. Whom God calls, He equips for that calling.
- Ex. There is a story of a dear old black pastor who understood the difference between those who are called and those who are not. A young minister, rather cocky, brash and full of self confidence came to preach at the old man’s church. After listening to him, the old man said, “Was you sent or did you just went?”
- Every minister should take such inventory! Have they been “sent” or did they just “went”?
- Ex. One great concern is just how many young men make the decision to take a pastorate based on salary, opportunity for advancement, and the applause of men. These things play too important a part, which may be why, in the U.S., the average pastorate is about 4 years in a church.
- Paul would have never understood such business like decisions. He felt called by God to be an apostle, and he suffered great persecution for that decision.
- Every minister must earnestly understand this. Have you been called by God?
Romans 1:1
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God
Next we read that Paul was “separated to the gospel of God”
- There can be no true work of God unless one is separated to the gospel of Christ.
- Ex. At times people ask me if we must give up things in order to follow Jesus. My answer is always the same: you’re not looking at this relationship with Christ from the right angle. Let me explain.
- If you are in Colorado Springs and you are traveling to Denver, you cannot be separated unto Denver without being separated from Colorado Springs.
- But you don’t think, “I’m being separated from Colorado Springs”, you think, “I’m going to Denver.”
- Paul doesn’t say “I gave up Judaism; I gave up this old life.” Rather he says, “I’m separated into Christ.”
- The person who tries to be separated from the world without being separated into Christ is in a strange position.
- There are so many believers who are so narrow and unloving because they are giving up things from the wrong end.
- There are two kinds of believers: one who constantly brags about what he gives up for Jesus, and the other who seems like a holy person, but doesn’t talk about what he does or doesn’t do. He just lives a life of joy.
- Joy is the result when we give ourselves to Christ first and leave the other stuff behind!!
- The word “separated” is a very interesting one. You may know it because there is an English word that is very similar. In Greek, “separated” is aphorizo, and if you look closely, it contains the word, “horizon.”
- It’s transliteration would be “off horizon.”
- All of us have stood on a mountain or a high place where we could see a panoramic view of the far horizon.
- Ex. Recently the staff were in Estes Park. As you drive into Estes Park on Highway 36, you come over this pass where, just as you crest the hill, there is a panoramic view of the Estes Park valley. I love that spot! It is beautiful and stunning!
- When we give ourselves to Christ, God gives us a whole new horizon!
Nehemiah 8:10
“…the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself also in the Lord.
- The great Puritan preacher, Richard Baxter said, “May the living God, who is the portion and rest of the saints, make our carnal minds so spiritual and our earthly minds so heavenly, that loving Him, and delighting in Him, may be the work of our lives.” (Desiring God, by Piper, preface)
- J.I. Packer, in describing Baxter wrote, “The hope of heaven brought him joy, and joy brought him strength, and so, like John Calvin before him, and George Whitfield after him, and like the Apostle Paul himself…he was astoundingly enabled to labor on, accomplishing more than would ever have seemed possible in a single lifetime.” (ibid.)
- The true follower of Christ never gives up anything! But there are many things that will give him up. They will go away one by one as we follow and fall in love with Jesus!
- If you are a follower of Christ, you should set your spiritual binoculars on the horizon of joy!
- The Westminster Confession of Faith reads, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
- Lets make a slight change in this great sentence:
- The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.
Have you discovered the joy of following Jesus?
Have you discovered the joy of your salvation?
Begin the great adventure today!!
This sermon was produced at Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs, with Senior Pastor Steve Holt. www.mountainsprings.org
|
Email This Page