Title of the message this morning
is Concerning Jesus Christ. Paul, verse one, Paul, a servant,
a bond slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated
under the gospel of God, which he had promised to for by his
holy prophets in the holy scriptures, verse three, concerning his son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, if we're going to truly
call ourselves Christian, It stands to reason that there are
three things that we should really know and be sure of, be settled
on without any debate, any argument, or any division. Number one,
who Jesus Christ is. If I'm a Christian, I know who
Christ is. And secondly, what he accomplished,
what he came to do, Why he came to do it and what he accomplished
when he obeyed unto death, his death on the cross. What exactly
did he accomplish now? Not just that he died. You know,
everybody says, well, we all believe in Jesus. We all believe
he died, was buried and rose again. What did he accomplish? What does the Bible say? And
this is what the Bible's about. What did he accomplish when he
died? When he was buried, when he arose
again? Because there are different views of that now. And my question
is, what does the Bible say? I have a view of that. I believe
I can prove it with the Bible. And so that's number two, who
Jesus Christ is and what he accomplished when he died. And then thirdly
is what he says. What did he say? What he commands? Now, a lot of people look at
that like they look at a red-letter Bible. Now, you may have a red-letter
Bible, and I'm not trying to shame you for that, but understand
that the words in black are just as valid as the words in red.
This is God's Word. Genesis 1 and 1 are the words
of Jesus Christ. Revelation 22, all of it, it's
the Word of Jesus Christ, either historically recorded, but this
is the Word of God. So what has he commanded? Now,
Paul made the statement in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 2. He said,
I strive not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and
him crucified. Now, the Bible has a lot of various,
a lot of different subjects in it. Not different because they're
all basically all the same. They all fit together. They're
not in opposition or contradictory. But what Paul was saying there
is that whatever I'm going to teach you or preach to you, I've
got to teach it and preach it under the umbrella and center
it around and found it upon the person and the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In other words, there's no subject
that I'm, you know, I heard a preacher say, well, I don't preach the
gospel every sermon unless it's in the text. The gospel is in
every text in essence. Now, not that it's stated out
in every text, But it's there because it's all founded, the
word of God is founded upon the gospel message of how God saves
sinners by his free sovereign grace through this person, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and based upon what he accomplished by
himself as the surety and substitute of his people. So if I'm gonna
preach today on the Sabbath, all right, What is the Sabbath?
It's not Saturday, it's not Sunday, it's Christ. We rest in Christ. Now Sunday, the first day of
the week, is what we normally refer to as the Lord's Day because
that's the day that we meet together corporately as a body, a local
body of believers to worship God. And that's what we should
do. That was the pattern set forth
in the New Testament after the resurrection of Christ. But Sunday's
not our Sabbath. We don't have a Sabbath day.
That was under the law, and it was Saturday. And I had a Seventh-day
Adventist one time ask me, he said, show me one scripture where
the Lord said, I'm gonna change the Sabbath from Saturday to
Sunday. And I looked at him, I said,
it's not there. And he was kind of taken aback. because everybody
else has tried to prove to him that that was changed. Well,
that wasn't changed. The change that took place concerning
the Sabbath was when Christ died on the cross and made the statement,
it is finished. And that's the work of God. That's
the work of Christ. It is finished. The finished
work of Christ is the Sabbath that we rest in. And you can
look at it in Hebrews chapter four. Now look here in verse
three, it says, concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. Now obviously,
this is talking about who Jesus Christ is, it's talking about
his sinless, holy humanity. And we did a whole lesson on
that when we talked about it in verse one, Paul, a servant
of Jesus Christ. Who exactly is Jesus Christ?
Well, He is man. He is God in human flesh. He is God-man. He is the Son
of God incarnate. The word incarnate means made
flesh. In John chapter 1 verse 14 it
says, The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We read in
Hebrews chapter two where it talked about how Christ was made
like unto his brethren. Now his brethren are who? Well,
that's God's elect. That's the ones he came to save.
That's the ones he died for, the ones for whom he was buried,
for whom he arose again the third day. That's the ones for whom
he is seated at the right hand of the Father ever living to
make intercession for us. He is their righteousness. And
I always tell people, today and every day, that that's what the
resurrection is all about. It's not just the miracle of
life from the dead. God created life. One old theologian
said that God stood on nothing, spoke to nothing, and created
something. Well, that's God. God is life.
You know, when the Bible says God is spirit, that's telling
us that God is not in some kind of a human form or physical form. That's true. But it also means
God is life. Life comes from God. Only God
can create life. No man can create life. I don't
care what they're doing a test to. They cannot create life.
But God creates life. Well, the miracle of the resurrection
is life from the dead because Christ finished the work and
made an end of sin. That's what that's about. Righteousness
has been established. Sin demands death. Righteousness
demands life. So he had to be made like unto
his brethren so that he could die. He had to have a human body
and soul so that he could fulfill the requirements of the salvation
of his people, the first requirement being sin had to be paid for.
Ransom, redemption had to be accomplished. Now there is a
major, major, major difference between the humanity of Christ
and our humanity, and you know what that is. That's sin. We're
sinful humanity. Christ is sinless humanity. And you know there's a big controversy
today on how he was made sin. There's a verse in 2 Corinthians
5.21 says he was made to be sin. And people take that one word
made and boy they go to town with it. They're gonna parse
it, dissect it, define it, expound upon it till they just reason
themselves right out of the faith. which they never had. How was
he made to be sinned? Well, he was made to be sinned
in the sense that the sins of his people, his sheep, his church,
were charged, accounted, imputed to him. And that's why he had
to die. That's why he was guilty. What
does guilt mean? Guilt doesn't necessarily mean
you're contaminated with sin. It means that you're subject
and liable and responsible to be condemned for the sin. That's
what it is. And that's what Christ became.
He was guilty because he owed a debt. God's justice. It's a debt that he didn't run
up, we did. We fell in Adam, and then with
our own personal sins, he ran that debt up. We ran that debt
up, but he took our sins, he took our account. And so that's
why he had to have a human body. Now it says here he was made
of the seed of David. Well that was the specific human
line that God determined in his good wisdom and providence to
bring the humanity of Christ through. You remember it was
through the tribe of Judah. You know, God chose the Jews.
They weren't Jews when he chose them. He chose them in Abraham
to be the human line that Christ would come through without the
aid of man. And so the human line was from
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and he's prophesied in Genesis
49 Remember when Jacob's on his deathbed and he's blessing his
12 sons, and when he comes to Judah, you can read about this,
I think it's Genesis 49, 10, or somewhere around there, he
says, the scepter, that's the scepter of the king, will not
depart from Judah until Shiloh come. In other words, there's
going to be a king in Judah, that tribe of Judah, that specific
tribe, and The kingship, the royal scepter, the authority,
will not depart from that tribe until what? Until Shiloh come. Now what does Shiloh mean? Well,
it's peace. And who is the prince of peace? Who established peace
between God and sinners? Christ did. So when Christ come
and did his work, the scepter departs. Now people wanna keep
the scepter in Judah today. But it's not right, it's not
biblical. And that's no rejection of the Jewish people. Anybody,
listen, Christ said, all that the Father giveth me shall come
to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,
and that's Jew or Gentile. Do you see that? The gospel is
the revelation of God. It's the power of God and the
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Gentile,
the Greek also. So that's not the issue. So Christ
came through the line of David, who was of the tribe of Judah.
Somebody said, when you look down at the line, Matthew chapter
one and on, when it talks about the human genealogy of Christ,
it starts with Abraham, goes through David, and then comes
through Mary. And he mentioned Joseph of Mary.
Now Mary was a descendant of Judah, just like Joseph was. Now, he says of the seed of David
according to the flesh, and that's sinless flesh. And then verse
four, says he was declared to be the son of God with power. Now notice, it doesn't say here
he was made to be the son of God with power. He was declared
to be the son of God with power. That word made, it's the word
that, it's like generation. It's like something has come
into existence that did not exist before. And his humanity had
a beginning. His humanity was conceived in
the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. And it had a
beginning. But now his deity wasn't made
in his deity as the son of God. Remember what he said back here,
he says concerning his son, God's son. His deity had no beginning. has no end, he's the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end. In other words, he himself
has no beginning, has no end, he is eternal in his deity. And this is a mind-boggling truth.
This is something that we as limited human beings, and especially
as sinful human beings, cannot fully grasp in our finite minds. The person of Jesus Christ, who
he is, he is God in human flesh. He's God in human flesh. Sue
was telling me about a friend of hers who had, I don't know
whether she'd stopped going to church or not going to church,
and she said some Jehovah's Witnesses came by. And she told Sue, she
said, I think I'll go and check out what they're doing. Well,
let me tell you about Jehovah's Witnesses. They do not believe
in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, here's what that
means. That means they don't worship
and follow and trust the same Jesus that we do. Now, that's
what that means. Somebody said, well, that's awful.
We all believe in Jesus. No, we don't. And the Bible tells
us there are false Christ. There are counterfeit Christ.
And it'll get worse and worse as we approach the final day. It'll get worse. In fact, that's
the greatest sign. If you want to talk about signs,
we're not looking for signs, but Christ has shown us that
the greatest thing that will happen, the worst thing that
will happen as we approach his second coming, is that false
Christianity will take on its own life and it will abound in
the earth. And that's why we, this is a
day in which we need to engage ourselves as individuals into
self-examination according to the word of God. It's not what
our friends and family say, it's what God says. And we hope our
friends and family believe what God says. That's our prayer for
them. But that's what this is all about. That's Jesus Christ.
Now, it says here that he was declared to be the son of God
with power. That word power is the same word
power in Romans 116, the gospel is the power of God. So where
we get our English word dynamite from? He was declared to be the
son of God with power. Now what power was it? Well,
we know it's his power to put away our sins. It wasn't just
his power, he displayed his power in his earthly ministry. For
example, he turned water into wine. He walked on the water. He healed the sick. He fed the
hungry. He raised the dead. He calmed
the storm. He displayed his power. Now his
glory, as it were, in his deity was hidden for a while in his
humanity because as far as his outward appearance, it was nothing
special. Read the book of Isaiah chapter
53. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. We hit our faces
towards him. All of that, you see, that wasn't
manifestly known by looking at his face, you know, or you see
a lot of these paintings of Christ that claim to be of Christ. They're
not of Christ at all. And he didn't have a halo around
his head or anything like that. He didn't have wings on his back.
He was just a man. And that's what he appeared to
be. So his glory was hidden, but he did display his power. And you know why he displayed
his power? It wasn't just to do magic tricks
or miracles. It's because of his word. That's
why he gave the apostles and some of his disciples in the
early New Testament church the ability to perform miracles.
It was to bring godly authority to what they were preaching.
And so all of this, his power was displayed there, but the
greatest power of all was displayed on the cross when he purchased
his people. when he redeemed us from our
sins, when he paid the sin debt in full. And that power was displayed,
it says here in verse four, according to the spirit of holiness. Now
that, you know, a lot of times when you see the word spirit
written out, sometimes there's a minor debate over that. Should
it be capitalized or should it be in small letters? Small, you
know, the word spirit. We get our English word breath.
from the word spirit, that's what it means. And even the word
used for the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity,
that's the same word, but it's talking about the person of the
spirit who is life from God. He is the, the Holy Spirit is
the sovereign agent who applies life, who imparts life from God
in Christ. Alright? So you could say this
means both. You could say it means the Holy
Spirit because it is from Christ and the power that Christ finished
and displayed on the cross that the Holy Spirit comes to give
life. Isn't that right? You know, Everything that we
have by way of the new birth, the source of our life, the source
of all the benefits and blessings of salvation that we have, come
from Christ by the agency of the Holy Spirit to us. So now
listen, Christ died. He was buried. Why is the burial
of Christ such an issue? Because it's showing, years ago
there was a movie I can't think of, it's called The Last Temptation
of Christ. And they pretty much portrayed
the death of Christ as a hoax. He didn't really die. They just
put him in a coma or something like that and gave him a drug
and then he, no, he was buried. He really died. Christ died on
that cross. It was a real death. And he died
because of sin. Sin demands death. I'm gonna
talk about that in the message at 11 o'clock. It's sin that
brings death. The only reason we get old and
die physically is sin. And the reason that people die
and perish eternally in eternal death is sin. Well, he was no
sinner. Christ was no sinner. He didn't
become sinful. He wasn't contaminated with sin. Everything that he did on that
cross, dying for sins that he had, he did it perfectly. Do you know he displayed perfect
faith on the cross? You know that? He said, Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit. Would you have done that? Being
crucified? You don't even display perfect
faith when it's going good. Neither do I. So, but he, everything he did,
everything he thought while he was on that cross under the wrath
of God for his people, everything he did in himself was perfect.
He did not commit sin. He didn't have a thought of sin
anyway. But he died for sins that were
charged, imputed to him. And that's why he died. He was
separated from his father, every bit of that. And what I'm describing
is the power of sin to condemn because of the law. It condemned
the holy, perfect Son of God. The law condemned the perfect
Christ, and he was perfect and remained perfect, but he was
guilty based on sin imputed. And it was real. They really
drove nails in his hands and in his feet. They really put
a crown of thorns on his head. He was really separated from
the Father legally, and that's mind-boggling. He said, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What power. That's the power
of sin to put to death. But that's not what power he's
talking about here. He was declared to be the Son
of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, look
at the last line, by the resurrection from the dead. Now there's what
the resurrection is all about. Out of his death, for the sins
of his people imputed, charged to him, comes life from the dead. And what does that mean? That
means righteousness has been established. Sin demands death.
Righteousness demands life. Where am I going to find righteousness?
Only in Christ, through the blood of Christ. How can God be just
and justify? only by the righteousness of
God revealed. Who is the righteousness of God
revealed? That's Christ crucified and risen from the dead. I have
a righteousness that answers the demands of God's justice
so that sin cannot condemn me because God doesn't charge me
with sin. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's? That's
the power that declared him to be the son of God, who he really
is. The resurrected glory of Christ.
Some of the old writers used to talk about the resurrection
life of Christ. That's what the Holy Spirit imparts
to us in the new birth. It's the resurrection life of
Christ. Well, what is this power? It's His resurrection, but not
only His resurrection, but the resurrection of all His people
from the dead. Now there's the power. There's
what He accomplished. If he accomplished anything less
than that, he's not who God says he is in this book. If he only
died to make us savable, or if he only died to redeem us, but
it doesn't take unless we put our stamp of approval on it,
if that's what it is, then according to the Bible, he didn't accomplish
this power that we're talking about here. You see, it's not
only who he is, it's what he accomplished. And that's important. That's the doctrine of Christ.
Well, now look at verse 5. He says this, he says, and that
word declared, let me say this, that word declared means to be
marked out and identified. In other words, this marked him
out. This separated him out. This
person is different. You see, he's not just like,
you know, they say, well, he's a good prophet. Well, he is.
He's the great prophet, but there's no other prophet like him, like
Christ. He's the high priest. Well, there
were many high priests in Israel for 1,500 years. that he's the
great high priest who passed through into the heavens for
his people. There's no other high priest like him. That's
why in Hebrews it's talking about the priesthood after the order
of Melchizedek. Nothing like him. He's not like
those other priests. When he went into the holiest
of all, he went in not for himself, but for his people. He's a surety. He's a substitute. And he's a
king. Well, there have been many kings.
There have been some, what people call in the eyes of men, as we
judge it, good kings, and most of them are bad kings, but there's
no king like him. He's the king of kings, you see. And that's what that word declared
to me. He's the son of God incarnate. He's the successful sovereign
savior. Well, all right, look at verse
five. Paul says, by whom we have received grace and apostleship.
It's by Christ. Not by man, not by our wills,
not by our power, but by Christ, by whom we receive grace. Grace is for salvation. Paul
said, I'm a sinner saved by grace. I'm justified based on the righteousness
of another. That's grace. And even apostleship,
even the office that God gave him, even the gifts that God
gave him, even the powers that God gave him were from Christ. Here's a simple way of putting
it, John 15. Christ said, I'm the vine, you're
the branches. Okay? He's the power, he's the
source, he's the ground, he's the foundation, he's the chief
cornerstone, and everything comes from him. Everything good comes
from him. Every gift, every grace, even
our faith comes from him. For by grace are you saved, through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. It's all from him, he's it. He's
our all. That means something, all right?
So he says, by whom we've received grace and apostleship for obedience
to the faith among all nations for his name. Here's the fruit
of it, salvation, gifts, obedience to the faith, that's believing
the gospel, clinging to Christ, among all nations. Now that among
all nations is a very, very, very significant point. If you read the book of Acts,
and you know, some people, you know, the book of Romans was
not the first epistle that Paul wrote. But it was somewhere down
the line. But it's the first epistle that
appears in the New Testament. Now, why is that? Well, that's
where God wanted it. That's why it's there. But it follows the
book of Acts. And in the book of Acts, what
you see is a continual conflict between the ministers of Christ
preaching the gospel out into the world to both Jew and Gentile,
and then you see unbelieving Jews, even many who claim to
be Christian, trying to hinder that, trying to thwart it, trying
to stop it. Wait a minute, you can't bring
these uncircumcised Gentiles into the church. They've got to keep the law of
Moses. They've got to be circumcised. And you have that conflict constantly. The book of John talks about
that all the time. That's why it talks about Christ
being the savior of the world. It's not that he's the savior
of every individual without exception, because every individual without
exception is not going to be saved. It means that God has
a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
Jew, and Gentile. And they're gonna be saved. But
if you look up the page there in your Bible to Acts, to the
last chapter of the book of Acts, Acts 28, and the last two verses
of that book, it says in verse 30 of Acts 28, Paul dwelt two
whole years in his own hired house. That's in Rome. That's where Paul was. He was
like a prisoner in Rome. And he had a house and the people
could come in and go out and see him, but he couldn't leave.
It says, he received all that came in unto him, preaching the
kingdom of God, teaching those things which concern the Lord
Jesus Christ, and with all confidence, and look at the last words, no
man forbidding him, literally unhindered, that's what that
means. There was no, listen, there was no human boundaries
put upon who Paul could preach to. Oh, you can only preach to
the Jews, or you can only preach to, no. Somebody asked me one
time, said, you know, years ago, they said, well, if you believe
in election, why don't you preach to the elect? I said, I preach
to everybody, and God calls his elect. I'm not God. That's his
business. Who am I gonna preach the gospel
to? Anybody that'll listen. Anybody that'll listen, how about
that? Isn't that all right? Unhindered. And that's what he
means here, among all nations. Now Paul is going to identify
himself later on as the apostle to the Gentiles because that
was his special office. Look at verse six and he says
for his name in verse five, I forgot that, that's for his glory. It's
all for Christ's glory. I'm not here trying to draw attention
to me, I want to draw attention to Christ. Verse six, among whom
also you are the called of Jesus Christ, the called. What's that
called? That's the invincible, irresistible
calling of the Holy Spirit in the gospel when he makes it the
power of God unto salvation. When a sinner comes to, hears
the gospel with spiritual ears and believes that gospel, then
he can say, I'm one of the called. That's why Peter said, give diligence
to make your calling and election sure. There's a general call.
I'll give you an example of the general call, Stephen preaching
in Jerusalem. And as far as we know, nobody
there believed him at the time, and they killed him. They were
held accountable. But now here's the invincible
call, Peter preaching at Pentecost. And how many were saved? They
were called. Many are called, few are chosen.
There's a general calling, there's a special calling. This is that
invincible, special calling of the Spirit. And if that doesn't
come, we're not gonna believe it. We're not gonna be brought
to faith and repentance, which are the gift of God. Well, let
me conclude with verse seven. He says, to all that be in Rome,
beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm of the opinion
that everybody should read the Bible. Now I know, and I encourage people
to read their Bibles. When I preach on TV, that's one
of the things I always say. I say, you need to read the Bible.
You need to stop listening to this opinion. You need to read
the Bible. Now I'm well aware that if God the Holy Spirit doesn't
give life, That it's basically a closed book. Unless he shines
the light and reveals, they're not gonna understand these truths
savingly. Now there may be unbelievers
who gain some temporal good from reading the Bible, that's okay.
But it takes the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth
of what's in this. But I know, there was a time
I read and studied the Bible and come to hate it. I told my mother one time, I
said, I wish it'd never been written. And I was reading it, and it
wasn't that I didn't, and somebody said, well, I just don't understand.
I understood what it was saying. It was saying I was lost, that
I was an evildoer, that I was an idolater. That's what it was
saying. I thought I was a Christian. I was in seminary. But I began
to read this book, and I thought, I don't like what that says. But then, by a sovereign act
of God's power, the Lord opened my eyes. He gave me eyes to see
and ears to hear. So my point is this. This was
written to believers in Rome. It's written to all believers.
But any unbeliever who reads this and applies the benefits
and blessings of salvation to themselves, I want you to know
you're reading somebody else's mail. This is a letter written
to believers. Now, that doesn't mean that unbelievers
shouldn't read it. Read it, and I pray that the
Lord will open your eyes. But when he talks about this,
he says, to all the beloved of God, does God love me? Does God
love you? Well, the only way you're gonna
know that is if you're clinging to Jesus Christ as your only
hope of salvation. And if you apply the love of
God to yourself without that, sorry, you're just fooling yourself. It's only because you think there's
something in you that's lovable. You may not even admit that,
but without Christ, listen, there's nothing lovable about us in God's
sight now. But in Christ, herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Saints, I've heard people go both ways on this. I'm a saint,
well, that means sanctified, set apart. Until you're clinging
to Christ for salvation, you're no saint. Now, I've heard other
people say, well, I'm a Christian, I'm no saint. Well, if you're
truly a Christian, you are a saint, sanctified by God's grace in
Christ. and then grace to you and peace
from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. That has to do
with reconciliation. Has God been reconciled to me?
Is God at peace with me? Have I been reconciled to God?
Am I at peace with God? Well, if I am, I'm clinging to
Christ for all salvation, for all forgiveness, for all righteousness,
for all holiness, for all assurance, clinging to him. by God-given
faith, repenting of my dead works of myself and clinging to Christ. All right.