Alright, let's go back now to
Romans chapter 1. I'm going to try to begin a new
series in Romans, and so we're going to just take the first
seven verses today. We will not cover everything
in these. We'll come back to it again,
but these will be some things we'll cover here. Paul begins
this epistle by declaring who he is. He says in Romans 1.1,
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. A servant of Jesus Christ. Not the servant, a, one among
many, a servant of Jesus Christ. Men like to speak about themselves
being free and having a free will. What would a man be free
from? What would he be free from? Free
from God? Is that possible? In Him we live
and move and have our being. Is it possible to be free from
God? Scripture says He turns the heart whether so ever He
will. I mean, there is no way to be
free from God. And what would our will be free
from? Free from His law? Free from Christ's Word? Free from the Gospel? Free from
what? Truth is, all men are divided
into one of two categories. All men. It fits one of these
two categories. We are either the servant of
the devil unto sin, or the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ unto
righteousness. Go with me to Romans 6. Look
at chapter, verse 16. Romans 6.16. Know ye not, and he's speaking
to believers, know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants
to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey? whether of sin
unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. It's one of those
two. One of those two. Christ said
no man can serve two masters. Now listen to this. He'll either
hate the one and love the other or else he'll hold to the one
and despise the other. Cannot serve God and Mammon. But all men serve one or the
other. That's just fact. That's the
scripture. And all those that God saves, we were once under
the power of the devil. The same power that's working
right now in those that are yet under his power. Ephesians 2
says that. It says, where in time past you
walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air. That's the devil. The Spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom we
all had our conduct. We were all under His power,
all those God saved. The only thing an unregenerate,
natural-born sinner can do is sin. And first and foremost,
that sin is not believing on Christ, not bowing to the Gospel,
not receiving the Gospel. Christ said, whosoever committeth
sin, Remember what he said? He said, when the Spirits come,
He's going to convince you of sin. Why? Because you believe
not on me. That's the chief sin. And when
he says here, whosoever committeth sin, he's talking about whosoever
it is that denies Christ, denies the gospel, denies God's people,
will not bow to Christ. He says here, whosoever committeth
sin is the servant of sin. That means he's the slave. That's
what the word means in our text, the slave of Christ. And this
man that will not bow to Christ is the servant of sin. But those
that are born of Christ, though we're sinners and we yet sin,
in the new man, all we can do now by Christ, all we can do
now is bring forth good fruit. And that means we cannot sin. Because His seed remains in us,
according to John. John said, He that is born of
God doth not sin, because Christ's seed is in that new man. That
new man doesn't sin. That new man only does what's
good. That new man believes on Christ, and thus in Christ all
the law of God is established. And by God's grace, with Christ
dwelling in him, he has love for God and for his brethren.
That's all of God. And so Christ said, even so every
good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth
forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
We're all in one of these two categories, brethren. All are
either the servant of the devil unto sin or we're the servant
of Christ unto righteousness. But no man's free. We're going
to all yield to one of these two. So Paul begins here declaring
which category he was in. He said, I'm the servant of Christ. I'm the slave of Christ. So how
does one go from being a servant of the devil unto sin to being
the servant of Christ unto righteousness? Our subject today is the making
of Christ's servant. the making of Christ's servant.
How is a servant of Christ made? Well, when we see how Paul was
made a servant of Christ, we see how all God's elect are made
servants of Christ. It's by being called and separated. First of all, who calls and separates
us? Who does the calling? Who does
the separating? And secondly, from what are we
called and separated? From what does He call us and
separate us? And thirdly, unto what are we
called and separated? First of all, servants of Christ
are made by the sinner being called and separated by God. called and separated by God.
Look there in Romans 1.1, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called
to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. And look down
at verse 6, speaking to believers, among whom are ye also the called
of Jesus Christ. That means you were called by
Christ. He said there, by whom we have
received grace? By Christ. He says there, to
all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. All who were called, all who
He calls, all who God calls, are beloved of God. That be loved
of God means loved before. Loved before. in eternity before
the foundation of the world, God, in sovereign love and sovereign
grace, chose and called and separated all His elect in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Speaking to believers in Ephesians
1, Paul said this again, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by
the will of God, Not by our will, not by His will, by the will
of God. Now, it wasn't against His will
because He makes us willing. He gives a new heart. He gives
you a new willingness that you didn't have before. But that
giving of that new will is by the will of God. So He's the
ultimate cause, not us. He said, by the will of God.
And He's writing to the saints which are at Ephesus and to all
the faithful in Christ Jesus. And He said this, Blessed be
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. All spiritual blessings
in heavenly places. According as He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world that we should be holy. That means separated out. Called
and separated out and without blame before Him in love. God the Father blessed His elect
with all spiritual blessings when He chose us in Christ. That
means when He chose us in Christ, right then, whom He did foreknow,
that is who He foreordained, He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Right then, whom He did predestinate,
then He also called. Right then, them He called, He
also justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. All right then. What else is
all spiritual blessings? He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings. That's all of them. And He did
all that right when He chose us in Christ. That sounds like
He saved us before we needed saving. That's exactly right.
That's what he did. Before I formed thee in the belly,
I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb,
I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. That's what he told Jeremiah,
and that's true of all his people. These who believe do so because
before we were ever born, God ordained us to believe. I preached
Thursday night, and I I quoted Ephesians 2.10 where it says,
We are His workmanship created unto Jesus Christ unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
And I made the statement that one of those good works is faith.
God ordained before the foundation of the world that all His people
are going to walk in faith. That's one of those good works
that He before ordained. And so He brings it to pass.
And so he sends the gospel. And we read in Acts 13.48, when
Paul and Barnabas preached Christ to the Gentiles, it said, as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed. That's who's going
to believe. Those God beloved. Those He loved
before. Those He ordained before. That's
what Scripture means when it says God declared the end from
the beginning. And from ancient times, the things
are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, I'll do
all my pleasure. Men don't like that. We didn't
like that by nature. And men hear this message by
nature and they say, well, I don't think it's fair that God ought
to give all men a chance. You know, think about this. A
wise man that's going to build a house, that's what God's doing,
He's building His house. A wise man's going to build a
house in this earth right here. He doesn't leave anything up
to chance. You try to figure beforehand. You figure where
every dollar is going, every board that's going to be in that
house, every piece of everything is going to be in that house.
You figure where the money is going, how it's going to be placed
in there, where it's going to be placed. You got plans drawn
up. You got everything's planned
out. Well, if a changing feeble man does that, Do we not expect
God our Father to do that in building His house? The difference
with Him is He said, my counsel shall stand and I will do all
my pleasure. We have to change our plans sometimes, not God. We are heirs, we've obtained
an inheritance because we were predestinated according to the
purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His
own will. You want to talk about a will
now, being free? God's will is free. He's not
answering to anybody. There's a free will. And everything
that He does in this earth is all according to His will. And
since God predestinated His elect to experience His salvation,
in His set time, He's going to call each one and separate us
in regeneration. Everybody that He ordained to
eternal life, He's going to send them the gospel, and He's going
to give them life, and they're going to be given faith, and
they're going to believe the gospel. All who shall be saved
by God shall be called and shall be separated by God through the
gospel of Christ. Paul said, when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace. He separated me before I was
ever born in divine election. And then in time, He called me
by His grace and revealed His Son in me. that I might preach
Him among the heathen. And when He does that, you do
what Paul did. He said immediately, I didn't
confer with flesh and blood anymore. It don't matter what mom and
daddy believes anymore. It doesn't matter anymore what
the preacher believes. It doesn't matter anymore what
the church believes. Now I behold the gospel. I see Christ. Because
He revealed Himself in me. But He separated me from my mother's
womb before I was ever even born, before I had done any good or
evil. By His grace. And then He called me in time.
Called me in time. That's the first part of this
thing. Who does the separating? Who
does the calling? God did. God did. And then secondly,
from what are we separated? From what are we called and from
what are we separated? Well, we're called and separated
from our vain ways. There's many ways that seem right
unto a man, Scripture said. But the end of all those ways
are death. You can't convince a man of that,
and I can't either. Try, but you can't do it. God
alone is the only one that can call us and separate us from
our vain ways. We have to be separated from
the darkness of our sinful flesh. We're under the dominion of our
sinful dead dog-man until God frees us. You've got to be called
and separated from the power of Satan. You have to be called
and separated from this present evil world. Peer pressure. The pressure of wicked friends
is one of the greatest constraints there is to keep a sinner from
confessing Christ. He's so ashamed of what men are
going to think of him. When God calls you, you won't
be. Now you'll be ashamed of what God will think about you.
rather than what men think about you. We've got to be separated
from our idol gods and from our false gospels. You know, Paul,
before he was called, he said, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
You know what the word Pharisee means? It means separate ones. It means those who distinguish
themselves from others. Now this is just history right
here. I'm going to give you a bit of history. How did the Pharisees
distinguish themselves? This is in the scripture. How
did they distinguish themselves? They made them separate and distinct
from others by outward observance of external rituals. That's how
they did it. They distinguished themselves
by outward forms that they considered to be holiness. ceremonial washings,
fastings, prayers, almsgiving, and they prided themselves on
all these good works. And they claimed to believe and
look for the Messiah. That's what they claimed. They
claimed to believe Christ and look for Him to come. But there
He stood in their midst, and they couldn't hear Him, and they
couldn't believe Him, and they hated Him, and they despised
Him. And you know what the sad fact is? That describes 99% of
religion in our day. 99% of religion in our day is All consumed with outward observance,
outward morality, outward works, outward doing, advertising their
almsgiving, advertising their prayers, doing all the things
Christ said do not do. Do not attract men by those things. Yet that's what they do. Priding
themselves on those things. Paul had separated himself. When
he was Saul, he had separated himself. He had all confidence
in himself and no confidence in God whatsoever. Go over to
Philippians 3. Philippians 3, look at verse
4. He said, Though I might have also confidence
in the flesh, if any other man thinks that he has worth, he
might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcised the eighth day, that's
what he put confidence in. You know anybody that tries to
equate baptism with circumcision and so they sprinkle their children
and they put confidence in that? For one, baptism is not a symbol
of circumcision. It's not the New Testament version
of circumcision. Circumcision is what God does
in the heart. In the heart. But he put confidence in that.
He said, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of the Hebrews. He put confidence in who his
genealogy was, who his mom and dad was, who his grandparents
were. He said he was an elect child because of that. Natural
things. He says it's touching the law.
I was a Pharisee. It's concerning zeal, persecuting
the church. Everybody didn't believe like
him. He was killing them. Touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless. That is, outwardly. Outwardly. You see, by all his works, Paul
thought he had separated himself. He was separate from sin and
separate from sinners. and united with God, that's what
he thought. But by all his works, the only
thing Paul did was separate himself further and further from God. That's all he did. The very religious
men and the very sinful men that he claimed to be separated from,
those he would say, don't come near me, I'm holier than you
are, he was one with them the whole time. Because he was committing
the chief sin. taking Christ's glory, stealing
Christ's glory, committing spiritual adultery, going after the lust
of His flesh rather than after Christ. He proved it because
He would sooner embrace the lies of the Sadducees than He would
those that had truly been called and separated by Christ. You
ever run into people like that? They claim to believe sovereign
grace, they claim to believe the doctrine of election and
limited atonement and irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints,
and total depravity. They claim to believe all this
doctrine that we hold dear, but then when it comes right down
to it, they'll side with what they call our brother Armenian
brethren. And they'll turn on you. And
that's the case. By all his religious work, the
only thing he did was separate himself from God. That's what
Scriptures mean when it says, your iniquities have separated
between you and your God and your sins if it is faced from
you that He will not hear. He said that to Israel and that's
what Israel was doing. We read Isaiah 1. They came into God's temple,
they made many prayers, they were making sacrifices, they
were doing all these things and putting confidence in all that
outward work they were doing. God said, and your sins separated
you from God. So we have to be separated from
that. We got to be separated from that. The darkness of our
own depraved hearts and all our spiritual ignorance. We got to
be separated from it. We were ignorant of God and His
providence. We were ignorant of ourselves
and our sin. We were ignorant of the scriptures
and of the gospel. We were ignorant of Christ and
His righteousness. It is ourselves and our sinful
religious works that we have to be separated from. You know,
Near Knoxville, the Tennessee River flows south. You cross
that river near Knoxville and the river is flowing south. You
get over on I-40, you keep going, you get over to Jackson, Tennessee,
and you'll cross the bridge over there and the river is flowing
north. But you know what? It's the same
old muddy river. And a man will change directions.
and he'll start trying to live right, and he'll start trying
to dress right, what he thinks is right, he'll start trying
to do all this, he'll get baptized, he'll join a church, and he'll
enter into a frenzy of religious activities, and yet it's just
the same old muddy water running in a different direction. When
a sinner turns his life around, brethren, outward reformation
is not regeneration. A new lifestyle is not a new
nature. An outward form of holiness is not sanctification of the
Spirit. To have the form without the power is worse off than before. To have the form of holiness
without the power of God in the heart that created it is worse
than before because now a man is calling darkness light. And
it's just darkness. He's calling death life and all
it is is death. He's twice dead now. He thinks
he's alive dead, further dead. And you know, it's harder for
that man. Christ said that. He said to the Pharisees who
were doing it, He said, the harlots will go in before you go into
the Kingdom of Heaven. The publicans will go in before
you go in. That man is twice dead. He's
got a false hope. I'd rather meet somebody that
never knew a thing about anything about the gospel and be able
to preach the gospel to them with a clean slate than somebody
who was steeped in false religion because they just won't let it
go. Lastly, unto what are we called
and separated? He says there in verse 1, Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. Separated unto
the gospel of God. Since the last apostle died,
nobody has ever been called to be an apostle. Christ did that
personally. He personally called his apostles. And when they died out, he called
no more apostles. The apostles were used to establish
the early church and to write the scriptures. And when that
was finished, there was no need to call any apostles after that.
But we are all called to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody
He calls are called to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ
calls us to Himself. He makes us willing bondservants. Remember that picture of the
willing bondservant in the Old Testament? He's a man who was
a slave at one time. It's like we were a slave to
sin, but then the time comes for him to go free, and he says,
I don't want to go out. I love my Master. I want to stay
here. I want to serve my Master. And
I love my children. I love my wife. I love my children.
Just like Christ's child says, I love Christ. He's my master. I love His people. This is my
family. I don't want to go out. I don't
want to be free from them. And so the Lord takes him and
He opens his ear and puts a mark on him. And He gives him a mark
in his ear so it knows that he's His. And that's what Christ does. He puts His mark on us. We know
we're His. And He makes the world to know
you're His. He makes the world to know you're
His. I was listening to a message this week. Brother Don was preaching
and he gave this old illustration that Brother Henry used to always
give. I've heard Henry give it on sermons.
I listen to him a lot. He was talking about a little
boy came out of the church service and he asked his daddy, he said,
Daddy, how big is the Lord Jesus? And he said, well, He's God.
He's bigger than everything. He said, no, I mean like size-wise,
how big is He? And his daddy said, well, I don't
know. We don't have any pictures of Him or anything like that,
any true pictures. He said, I don't know. I guess
He's probably about my size. And the little boy said, well,
if He's in me, like the preacher said, wouldn't He stick out? And that's true. If Christ is
in you, He's going to stick out. He's going to make it known that
you're His and others are going to know it. You can't hide it. You can't hide it. Obedience
to the faith. What is that? He says there,
by whom we've received grace for obedience to the faith. What
is that? It's to be made to bow and trust
the obedience of the author and finisher of our faith, Christ
Jesus. That's the obedience of the faith. It's to come and bow
and cast all your care on Christ by whose obedience we've been
made to righteousness of God. It's to be made to trust Christ's
obedience as your obedience. Christ is your righteousness.
Christ is your holiness. You're not looking for any Anything
else but Christ. He set us free from the curse
of the law. He set us free from our sinful flesh. And now we
are accepted of God. And we can serve God, our Father,
and our Lord Jesus Christ by His grace. The law doesn't have
anything to do with it. Now we are freed from that. Now
we can hear Him, and obey Him, and follow Him, and do what He
commands. is to be separated not only from
ourselves and all this, is to be separated not only to be His
servant and to trust His obedience, but is to be separated unto the
exact work that Christ would have you do in His church and
in His kingdom. He said there, look there, He
says, we've been separated for obedience to the faith among
all nations for His name. For His name. Go to Acts 13.
Let me show you this, what that means. Acts 13. Look at verse 1. There were in
the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers
as Barnabas and Simeon, that was called Niger, and Lucius
of Cyrene, and Manion, which had been brought up with Herod
the Tetrarch, and Saul, that's Paul. This church had a lot of
faithful preachers there. The Lord had raised up in this
church. And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy
Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto
I have called them. You see that? It was the Holy
Spirit that did it. He laid this on the hearts of
all the people in the church. Separate Saul and Barnabas for
the work I have called them to. And so what did they do? When
they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them, and
they sent them away. And so they, being sent forth by the Holy
Ghost, departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to
Cyprus. You see, you may not be called to preach, but you're
called to be a servant of Christ, and He's given you a specific
talent, and He's put you in the place He'll have you be in His
church to serve Him. to serve Him. And whatever Christ
has called you to do, whatever He's gifted you to do, do it
with all your might as unto the Lord. With all your might. Because He's the one who gave
you the privilege. That's what it is. It's a privilege.
I've seen, I've dwelt among God's people since I was about 17 years
old. Well, I have all my life. But
I knew I was where I was at about the age of 17 by God's grace.
And I tell you something I've seen in all God's people. They're
always ready to do whatever they can do for the cause of Christ. Always. They're not wanting to
get out of doing things for Christ. They're ready to do it. They
want to do it. And that heart comes from the
Lord Jesus Christ. He gives each of His saints gifts
and abilities so that His church is complete. 1 Corinthians 12
verse 4 says there are diversities of gifts, but it's the same Spirit. There are differences of administrations,
but it's the same Lord. There are diversities of operations,
but it's the same God which worketh all in all. We saw it when we
began remodeling our building, didn't we? Whatever we needed
done, there was somebody here God had provided and given a
talent to take on that job. So everything was provided for.
And what is all those talents collectively, all the work He's
given each of us to do, what's that all collectively for? What's
the purpose of it? So we can send the gospel into
all the world. That's the end purpose. This is our purpose. We're all separated unto the
gospel of Christ. The gospel of God, I mean. He
says there, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God. And we're all separated unto the gospel of God. This
is the end purpose for which we're called. The end purpose. The gospel that we're sent to
preach. He tells us there, and we're
going to look at this another time, but he tells us it's what's
written in all the Holy Scriptures. The Gospel is what the Scriptures
are about. And what is it? Verse 3, it's
concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David according to the flesh. He's a man, came through
the lineage of David, declared to be the Son of God with power
according to the Spirit of holiness. We saw God anointed Him with
the Spirit. He went about healing people
while He walked this earth. That bears witness that He's
God. And then by the resurrection from the dead, He had the spirit
whereby He could raise Himself from the dead. He came out of
the grave. So those two things show us He's man and God. And
all the gospel is concerning the God-man, Christ Jesus the
Lord. All the scriptures are concerning
Him. And only Him. Everything. We're not to preach
morality. That's not just morality. We're not preaching that. We're
not preaching church laws. We're not preaching man's works.
The gospel is concerning God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the gospel. And it's called the gospel of
God because God is the author of it. God's free and sovereign
grace is the cause of it. God's Son is the subject of it.
And God's glory and the salvation of His elect is the purpose of
it. It's God's gospel. And it's only when we've been
saved by the power of the gospel. Now get this, brethren, this
is important. It's only when we've been called and separated
by the power of the gospel that we'll no longer be ashamed of
the gospel. We'll know that it's the one
way God saves. And we won't be ashamed to say,
this is how God saves. I know it now. I've experienced
it. I know it now. Look at Romans
1.16. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ. Let's go to verse 15. As much
as in me is, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you that are at
Rome also. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. This is what he knew. This is
what he experienced. It is the power of God unto salvation. to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein, this is why
it's the power of God, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. As it's written, the just shall
live by faith. The gospel, when he talks there
about the righteousness of God being revealed, he means God's
got to reveal it. And this is how He's going to
do it, through the preaching of the gospel of Christ. He's
going to reveal it in the hearts of His people. And when He does
that, He reveals the righteousness of God. He reveals how God can
be just and the justifier of His people. That's the gospel. God sent His sinless Son who
willingly was made sin for us. This sinless One, the just One,
willingly went forth to be made sin for the unjust. To lay down
His life for His people. And then He was willingly made
a curse for us. He bore what we deserved, all
the stripes that we deserved, all the bruising that we deserved.
And then He was separated from God in judgment. And by His blood
now God is just and God is the justifier of His people. You
just think about that. Christ Jesus was separated from
God and from His people. He was totally separated. Abandoned. in order that He might make God
and His people one, bring us together. That's what He had
to go through. That's what He had to do to satisfy
justice. And then through that gospel,
God comes and He reveals this message to us, that Christ is
the righteousness of God. And every bit of this, God's
choosing us, Christ's redeeming us, and the gospel being preached
to us, every bit of this, and us being regenerated, every bit
of this to the praise of the glory of God's grace. We praise Him and we glorify
Him because He did it. And now, this is important to
understand. Did He just call me and separate
me so I could sit in the pew and hear the Gospel preached
and enjoy the Gospel for myself? Well, He did do that, but that's
not the only reason. That's not even the chief reason.
The chief reason is so now you can be used of God together with
his local church, his people, to send this gospel forth. to
do whatever it takes, to have a building, to have the recording
equipment, to send the preacher off and to support the preacher
week in and week out, to be here to preach. Everything is for
the cause of the gospel of Christ going forth. He said there, He
called it, He said, By Christ we receive grace for obedience
to the faith among all nations for His name. Christ gave us
a command and He said, Go ye into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. And he that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be
damned. Go over to Romans 15. I want to show you something.
Romans 15. This is why he sends us to preach
the gospel. Verse 16, Romans 15, 16. He said, He called me that I
should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering
the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable,
being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. That's why we preach.
That's why we preach the gospel. He said, look at Romans 16, 25.
And as we preach, He says, now to Him that is of
power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching
of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery,
He has to reveal it in us. That's how He establishes us
in the gospel. And all this was kept secret
since the world began, but now is made manifest and by the scriptures
of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting
God is made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. It's
by the commandment of God He said that we're going forth and
preaching this. Who's He talking about? Christ said go into all
the world and preach the gospel. There's the commandment of God.
Christ is God our Savior. He said go into all the world
and preach the gospel. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him
in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him
of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? What
did the Holy Ghost say about Saul and Barnabas? He separated
them out and it says, So they went forth preaching according
as the Holy Ghost had sent them. How can they preach except to
be sent? There's a lot of preachers that haven't been sent. They
sent themselves. That's why they don't preach
the truth. Those that Christ sends, they're going to preach
Christ and only Christ. That's how you know the difference.
As it's written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach
the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.
What does he do through the gospel? Go to Acts 26.18. Why does He send us forth? It's what we saw this morning,
Acts 26.18. He says, He called Paul and He
said, I'm sending you to open their eyes, to turn them from
darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. We've been
called and separated from and unto. He said that you turn in
them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto
God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among
them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. And that's
why we're bound to give thanks always to God for brethren because
You're beloved of the Lord, and God has from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit, belief of the
truth, whereunto He called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's why He called
us. He called us to go forth and
preach this gospel. And we've been made His servants.
That's what we're doing. Willingly, we delight to do it. See what He's done for us? When
you see what Christ did for you, in all the depths that He went
to, to make you one with God, is anything unreasonable service
to God? Is there anything that's unreasonable
that Christ puts in our hands to do? Nothing. Whatever He causes us to do is
nothing compared to what He did. for us. That's why Paul said
Romans 10 is our reasonable service. I believe it's Romans 10, Romans
11 somewhere, Romans 12. I don't know, somewhere there.
It's our reasonable service. Go over now to Romans 8. I'm
going to show you one last thing. When we're called and we're separated
unto Christ, can we ever be separated from Christ? And once we've been
separated unto Him, can we ever be separated from Him? Not a
chance. Not a possibility. Look at this,
Romans 8.35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword? As it's written, For thy sake
we're killed all the day long. We're counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we're more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. For I'm persuaded neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. You'll never be separated from
Him. Aren't you glad He called you and separated you? That's
how a servant of Christ is made. Amen.