| Our Inheritance; Romans 1:7 |
Pastor Steve Holt
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Mountain Springs Church
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| 10/07/2007 |
Our Inheritance
Romans 1:7
As we study the book of Romans, your worldview, your spiritual horizons will be rocked!
God is going to shake each of us to the core as we learn just how much potential we each have in Christ.
Today we are looking at a vibrant, growing, dynamic church in Rome.
I have a motto that I placed in my tool room 10 years ago: “Build a Great Church by Building a Great People.”
Rome was a great church, even under severe persecution, because the Roman church was made up of a great people.
In Romans 1:7, Paul describes the congregation in Rome.
Romans 1:7a “To all who are in Rome”
- Rome was the capital and most important city of the Roman Empire.
- Rome was founded in 753 BC, but is not mentioned in the Bible until the New Testament.
- In Paul’s day, Rome had a population of over 1 million, making it one of the largest cities in the world at that time.
- It is interesting that most of Rome was made up of slaves.
- Rome boasted of magnificent and opulent buildings.
- Some of those converted on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem probably went back to Rome and founded the church.
- Paul had long desired to come to Rome, but he was prevented.
- And praise God he was prevented. It is because Paul had never been to Rome that we have this biblical masterpiece, the Epistle of Romans.
- Paul’s primary reason for writing the Romans was to teach the great truth of the gospel of grace, to believers who had never received apostolic teaching.
- There are many followers of Christ who don’t know all the wonderful things that happened to them the moment they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Ex. We are like a newborn baby who has no knowledge, whatsoever, who he or she has been born into. A little newborn doesn’t know who his or her mother and father are. He or she doesn’t know what his or her IQ will be, or couldn’t care less about the color of her hair or his skin.
- So it is with most of us who are born again. We don’t have a clue what or who we have been born into.
- Paul is about to inform these young believers in this young church about the divine things that have been given to them as new believers, by being grafted into a new family.
- We have been given a wonderful spiritual inheritance in Christ.
Paul continues in vs. 7, “To all who are in Rome, beloved of God”
1) Our Inheritance as Followers of Christ: We are Loved
- You may have grown up in a home where you never felt deep love.
- You may have spent your entire life searching for love, through relationships and different kinds of encounters.
- If you are searching for love, for true unconditional love, you can have it!
- Jesus sought you out and loves you so much that He died for you.
John 15:13-15
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”
- God is love! I love my wife so much, and I love my 7 children, but the Greek word is different for the love of God…AGAPE.
- God’s love is pure and holy. The Bible says, “God is love.”
Jeremiah 31:3
“…I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
1 John 3:1
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!
- He never gives up in His love for you.
- No matter what you have done, He loves you!
- He has the hairs on your head numbered! He knows your name!
- If you were the only person on the earth, He would have died for you! He loves you that much!
- He gave his life for you. Agape love is a sacrificial, giving love.
Next, Paul says we are “called to be saints”
2) Our Inheritance as Followers of Christ: Called by God
- What does it mean but that God has reached out to you and called you by name?
Matthew 22:14
[Jesus said,] “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
- Meaning that the invitation had gone out to the whole world, but few received it into their hearts.
- Jesus told the story of four kinds of soil, that signify four kinds of hearts or four kinds of responses to the message of Christ.
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. 2 And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. 3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!...18 Therefore hear the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. 20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulations or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. 22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and cares of this world and deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. 23 But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
- This means that God is the Universal Creator, but He is only the Eternal Father to those who are the beloved, those who have accepted, by faith, His invitation.
- According to the parable, three-quarters of those who hear the gospel will not follow, and are not chosen to eternal life. The invitation is for everyone, but the calling is only for those who “hear it and understand it and bear fruit.”
- If you are a disciple of Jesus, you have been called out of death into life, out of darkness into light.
Next Paul says that we have been “called saints”
3) Our Inheritance as Followers of Christ: We are Saints
- Do you want to see a saint? A real saint? If you are a born again follower of Jesus, just look in the mirror.
- It was not your righteousness, your good works, your holiness that got you anything! It was God’s righteousness, God’s works, and God’s holiness that called you.
- Note we are not called to be saints, but called saints.
- The words “to be” have been inserted and that is why they are printed in italics. The translators have added those words in English to fill out the sense. But once in while the added words serve to obscure the meaning, and such is the case here.
- Just as we are called, just as we are loved of God, we are also called saints.
- Your old name was “sinner,” your new name is “saint”!
- The difference between a sinner and a saint is a Savior!
- It is the Lord who takes a degenerate, wounded, arrogant, prideful person, whom the Bible calls a sinner, and immediately calls him a saint.
- The Bible says that God stoops down to us and accounts our sins to have been carried by Jesus, the Lamb of God.
- His righteousness is put to our account, so we are justified from all things by the blood of Jesus.
- Paul was one moment breathing threats of murder, and then the same day God invaded his heart, and he became a saint.
- Every man, woman and child living today, who has been born again, is a saint.
- The word “saint” comes from the Latin, sanctus and means “holy one”.
- Our sainthood is not intrinsic within ourselves but is found in Christ who lives within us.
- His righteousness becomes our righteousness.
- His truth becomes our truth.
- We put on the holy garment of Christ.
Romans 12:1-2
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Our inheritance in Christ means that we are loved, that we are called, that we are called saints, and that we have received grace and peace.
4) Our Inheritance as Followers of Christ: We have Grace and Peace
- The grace of God is the kindness and undeserved love of God.
- Day by day we are the recipients of God’s mercy and love. Our very breath today is because of God’s grace.
Romans 1:5
Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name…
- After receiving grace, we have been given apostleship.
- All of us are called to be apostles.
- But, let’s distinguish the office from the function. Most of us will never be in the office of a pastor or missionary, but still we have all been called by God to be apostles.
- All of us have been sent out to be a witness.
Acts 1:8
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me…”
- Your mission field is at your job, with your family, and in your city.
- The most effective witnesses for Christ are not pastors and evangelists, but men and women who build relationships, invite people over for dinner, and share the life they have found in Christ.
- Inserted into your bulletin today is a gospel tract, “The Four Spiritual Laws”. I would like each of you to at least give that tract away to someone this week. If you are really bold, read it to someone, and see what God does.
- The result of flowing in God’s grace will be peace! You want God’s peace, so flow in God’s grace.
- We really won’t experience God’s grace until we give away the grace we’ve been given; as we give God’s grace away, we get peace!
- That’s what Paul means by “grace and peace.”
Lastly our verse says, that all of this inheritance comes “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”
5) Our Inheritance as Followers of Christ: We have a Father
- You have been adopted into a new family.
- Many of us never had a loving, caring father in our home.
- But you do now! You have a Father that loves you so much.
Romans 8:15
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."
Galatians 4:6
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"
- The cry of our heart is for a “daddy”.
- God has answered that cry, and He is your eternal Father!
This sermon is presented as a service of Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs. www.mountainsprings.org
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