Good morning. All right, we're going to be
in Romans chapter 1. Romans 1, and we'll be looking
at verses 1 through 6 this morning. So last week we were looking
at why. Why Paul gave his credentials
to the Romans. He was letting them know that
he is sent of God and why it's important for us to hear a man
sent of God. And so looking last week at why,
we now look at what. What is Paul telling us here
in these first six verses. We consider last week that it
is a very doctrinal letter, doctrine meaning teaching, it's a letter
full of teaching us about the Lord our God, about ourselves,
about salvation. These first six verses we'll
see, it's a very brief outline in showing what the minister,
what the servant of God preaches, why he's sent of God and what
it is that he's teaching. And what we find is that this
letter reveals to us salvation, how the Lord God accepts a sinner,
or reveals to us that we are sinners, and then how it is that
God receives sinners, how he can be both just and justify
sinners without his holiness being looked upon as though he's
not holy. So the Lord reveals to us how
it is that he can forgive sinners, and it's through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then finally, what we also
see, what Paul says here is that it's to bring salvation to the
people of God. It's to make known to us how
it is that God saves his people. Alright, so our title is Sent
by God to Preach Salvation. Sent by God to Preach Salvation. And we'll have three divisions. First we'll look at God who calls
men, who calls servants to this work. And then we're going to
look at the fact that they are called to preach salvation. And then just the beauty in the
last couple of verses, verses 5 and 6, where we see that this
salvation is brought to you. and the blessing that that is,
in having this word of salvation brought to you. Alright, so let's
begin looking at how it is that God calls men to serve. And Paul opens the letter saying
in verse 1, he says, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be
an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. And so Paul is
outlining these marks that God has put upon him to show to these
brethren, who most of them have never met Paul, it's to show
them that he is indeed sent of God. God has done this. God has
called him to this work. And he did this because at this
time there's many teachers coming up in the church, just like we
see today. If you wonder, why are there
so many divisions and sects? Well, it's no different than
it was in the day of the apostles, which the Lord told us that it
would happen. And then we see in the days of
the apostles, there were many false teachers rising up, and
they were challenging Paul. They were saying, you're not
an apostle. Who are you to say these things?
And so they came challenging what he was saying. And Paul
is saying, I have every right to preach in the name of God.
And let me show you why. Let me tell you why I have every
right to preach in the name of God. And so first he says, I'm
a servant of Jesus Christ. I'm not a servant of men. I'm
not a servant of myself, serving myself. I'm a servant of Jesus
Christ. And he was, his life was dedicated
to serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Going where Christ sent him,
saying the things that Christ sent him to speak. He was a servant
to serve Jesus Christ. That starts with Christ our Lord. He himself came as a servant. So if Christ himself came as
a servant, so his people, the people that he sends, they're
going to be sent as servants of the people of Jesus Christ. Our Lord said in John 6, it was
in John 6 and first he says in verse 38, He said, I, this is
the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, I came down from heaven not to
do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And that's
why we say Christ came as a servant as well. And he ministered salvation
to his people. He ministered to them. In verse
40 he tells us what the will of God is. He said, This is the
will of Him that sent me, speaking of His Father, that everyone
which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting
life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Christ now,
as he ministered salvation, as he did the work, he now raises
up other people, other men, to go forth serving, and the way
they serve is they preach, they deliver that very message that
God has given to them to preach the way of salvation, to teach
how it is that God receives sinners. So these servants, they're going
to be preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. They're going to serve
in the same manner that He Himself served. They're no different
from the Lord. And Christ said in Mark 10, 45,
He said, even the Son of Man, that's another name for Jesus
Christ, even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but
to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. And so because
Christ learned what it was to suffer as he served the people,
as he fulfilled the will of God for the people, so it is that
Christ is going to raise up men and as he gives us power to know
him and understanding and life by his spirit to know him, so
we're going to know what to speak. We're going to know that, all
right, we're to teach and preach the way of salvation, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we do that until Christ be
formed in you. It's for that purpose, that Christ
be formed in your hearts, that you too would know how it is
that God saves sinners. Alright? He convinces us of that.
The second thing that we see briefly here is that Paul was
an apostle. He said, Paul, call to be an
apostle. Alright? Now, an apostle is a
special office given to the church. And there's no apostles today,
but at that time it was necessary because this is revealing the
gospel of God which was hidden in the Old Testament and not
well understood by many. It was concealed, if you will. And so the apostles were given
special power to make known that this is indeed the gospel of
God. They were establishing the church
in the earth. Now an apostle, they saw Christ. They were ones who saw the Lord
Jesus Christ, and they were sent by the Lord Jesus Christ, given
this special power, this special office of apostleship, to establish
the Church, to endure the hardship that went along with initiating
the beginning of the Church. And we're not going to look at
all the passages now, but Paul says of himself in 1 Corinthians
15, He said in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 8 through 10, speaking
of himself, he says, and last of all, Christ was seen of me
also as one born out of due time. Now if you remember, when Judas
fell, Peter and the other apostles said, all right, we need to find
a replacement for Judas. And they, through human means,
just through the drawing of a straw, of a stick, to see who would
draw either the longest or the shortest, that would mean that
that person was to be the next apostle. And that's what the
apostles did. And they chose Matthias, a man
named Matthias. And then you never hear of him
again. But Christ chose Paul, and we hear of Paul. Christ chose
him and he raised up Paul to go forth and be the apostle to
the Gentiles, and now we have all these teachings of the apostles,
of the apostleship which was given to them. We now have their
teachings here, and we'll look at that a little more later when
we get further down into verse, I think it is five. So Paul said
he was born out of due time, but Christ met him. Christ met
him on the road to Damascus. Christ, he was seen of Christ,
and Christ sent him. Christ is the one that put him
into this work, not man, like Matthias. That was nothing. There's 12 apostles, and Christ
chose Paul to be the 12th apostle. All right, and then he said,
verse 9, for I am least of the apostles that am not meet to
be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace which
was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly
than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me." Right? And we know that. As the Lord
said, this man's going to suffer for me. He's going to labor for
me in the church. I've appointed him to this, and
then Paul went and did it. In the strength and the power
of the Holy Spirit, that's exactly how he came and ministered. An
apostle, what was special about them is that they had many gifts. They had that strength and that
endurance, but they also had many gifts where they could speak
in other tongues and understand other tongues if that was necessary.
They could heal persons. They could do many wonderful
works so that people knew this is of the Lord. And an apostle
could lay their hands on another person. The Holy Spirit would
come upon them and they would receive a gift, one or two or
a few gifts as God determined for them to have. But those people
could not go and also lay their hand on another person and give
them gifts. It ceased with the apostles. It ceased with them. You know, someone might receive
the gift of healing in a special way and they could touch someone
and that person would be healed. Today, we pray that the Lord
heals and we've seen, I've seen people be healed through praying
and begging God to heal somebody, the Lord has done that. But none
of us has that power to go up and just touch a person or look
at a person and say, be healed. None of us has that power, the
apostles had that power in that day. The Lord still heals, he
still does miracles, but we seek him in prayer. We seek him in
prayer asking him to be merciful and to heal and to do that work
for his people. Paul adds that he was separated
unto the gospel of God. Separated unto the gospel of
God. And what that shows us is that
no man, no woman, just takes this serving. When I say woman,
I mean there's women that serve in the church, but only men are
pastors and ministers. And no man takes that service,
that work, unto themselves. If they put themselves there,
well, then the Lord can take them right out of it. But we
see people do put themselves in the church as pastors, as
ministers in the church. And I remember meeting a man
when I was a young man, and we were just talking, and he had
no love or interest in Christ. And yet he was telling me that
he was thinking of maybe one day becoming a pastor. Because
to him, all that a pastor was was a person who made you feel
good about yourself, or a motivational speaker. They can inspire you
to do good works or moral things and things like that. And that's
why he was interested in being a minister. But he knew nothing
about Christ and why Christ came. He wasn't a true minister of
the Lord. So, it's the Lord that separates
men to this work. And it says in Acts 13 verse
2, It actually says, this is now in Antioch, and it says,
as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said,
separate me, set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work
whereunto I have called them. Alright, so they were separated
unto that work of the Lord. Now, we do still have today pastors
and teachers and evangelists, those who go and speak in the
name of the Lord, to teach the Lord's people, to pastor the
people, to minister to the people. And you can see that in Ephesians
4. Ephesians 4, verses 11 and 12 speak to the various offices
which Christ gave to the church to serve, to minister to the
church, till Christ be formed in your hearts, to reveal salvation,
to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ to you. And in Ephesians 4.11,
I'll read it, he says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets
and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ. All right, so true ministers
of the Lord are set apart to this work. They're called of
God and separated and given a gift of the Lord to know him and to
speak that, to communicate that to his people, the body of Christ,
that Christ be formed in them, that they know Christ, that they're
settled in Christ, anchored in Christ, joyful in the Lord Jesus
Christ for what he's done for them and saving them from their
sins. Alright, so... It's a work, well
the next thing that we see here, what that work is, is that they're
to preach and to teach the gospel of God. The gospel of God, that's
what he says there in verse 1, to preach the gospel of God,
and it's which he had promised to for by his prophets in the
holy scriptures. Alright, he spoke of these things
in the holy scriptures. So the gospel is good news, that's
what it means, it's good News. That's the gospel. Good news.
The reason why it's good news as we, you know, who hear it
and are given life to understand it, it's good news because when
the Lord convinces us of sin, when he shows us that we are
sinners, that we've offended God, that we ourselves are worthy
of eternal death, that we've earned hell, we've earned punishment,
we've earned that death, We also learn with that that we can't
do anything to save ourselves. We can't correct it. We can't
fix it. We can't change God's mind. Nothing we do pleases Him. But the reason why this Gospel
is good news to us is because He also reveals to His children
that salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the sinner's
salvation. He is the sinner's hope. And
so it's good news because though we find we can't do it, though
we hear we can't do it, and we know by experience that we really
can't do it, because we're sinners, to hear and know that Christ
is the Savior. To be convinced in the heart
that Christ is not only the Savior, but He's my Savior. That He died
for me and put away my sin. To be convinced of the spirit
of that, to know that is a blessing. It's good news. It's very good
news to be delivered from that. That's what the Lord is showing
us, that we're the sinners, but that Christ Himself came to do
that work of salvation. That's why He came, perfect,
holy, spotless, blameless before God and before men, having no
fault or any sin. So as the spotless Lamb of God,
He came to do the work of salvation, to take upon Him the sin of his
people, to bear in his own body his people, to go to the cross
and bear as the ark, bear that wrath of God being poured out
on him, and so that the payment for sin was paid for. The sin
is put away by the payment of his own blood. He redeemed us. He purchased us. We are His people
now. We have been delivered from that
death. And He gives us His Spirit whereby
we know these truths. Whereby we know what Christ has
done for us. That we may know Him and walk
in Him and grow in Him. And man-made religion, those
people that call themselves to this work, they turn from Christ. They don't know Him or if they
have some idea of what Christ has done, they turn from what
Christ has done, they turn from preaching the Lord Jesus Christ
and lifting him up, and they begin to preach the law and what
you need to do better. And so they put the work of salvation
in your hands, or they speak of it in such a way that you
think, oh, maybe there is something that I need to do. Maybe I do
need to add to this work. Maybe Christ isn't sufficient.
Maybe it's not a rebirth, a regeneration by spirit. I just do things in
the flesh and I try my hardest to be good. And so there is no
spirit, there is no life, there's no regeneration. It's all a work
of the flesh. And so that's what the men in
the flesh do. And that's why it's important
for us to to sit ourselves, to be seated
under a minister of the gospel, under that one who preaches Jesus
Christ, to know that salvation is by the Lord Jesus Christ and
to hear and sit under that ministry and not just to go anywhere that's
convenient for us to go that might be maybe is closer to her
home or something like that but to support the ministry and and
to go to that ministry because there's so many false liars out
there there's so many other voices out there there's so many so
many other places where they're turning us away from Christ to
our own flesh. And so, a false teacher will
belittle Christ's work. They'll speak lightly of what
Christ has done. They won't continue to speak
of Christ. They may have a good message here and there that sounds
good, but it won't be long before they turn from Christ and put
your focus back on your flesh and law-keeping and doing better
in your flesh so that you're you're left to trusting in your
works. And our Lord said, beware false
prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but amberly
they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles? And I know
I've said it before, but it's good to be reminded that what
Christ is saying is, you'll know them by their works, not, because
that used to really confuse me. Well, if everybody's doing good
works, how am I going to know them by their works? And what
he's saying there is, if they're turning you to your flesh, which
can only produce thorns and thistles, that of the curse. If they're
turning you to your flesh, how are you going to get grapes and
figs, that which is good fruit, that which is profitable? The
only place you're going to get good, profitable fruit is from
Christ, from the Spirit. So they're going to turn you
away from the flesh, the thorns and thistle producing flesh,
and they'll turn you to the Lord Jesus Christ who produces fruit
in his people. He's the one who does that work.
All right? The other thing that we do, well,
let me just say a quote that I heard Henry Mahan once said.
He said, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. And
the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. And so,
we now, who know Christ, who now know that salvation is in
the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't preach the shadows and the types
as an end of themselves. When we look at these things,
when we look into the law, when we look into the Old Testament,
we see Christ. We see the end of what those
things were preaching, or what they were saying. We preach the
end of the law. In Hebrews 4.2 it says, for unto
us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word
preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in
them that heard it. Because men were teaching the
law as an end to righteousness. That's how they were to gain
righteousness. So when we preach the law for righteousness, you're
going to die just like the Jews died in the wilderness who didn't
know the truth. They died because they didn't hear of Christ. All
they heard was the flesh, the flesh, the flesh. And only those
who understood that, no, this isn't about the flesh, this is
speaking of Christ, this is showing us our need of salvation by the
Messiah. And so they saw the end, so we
don't preach the end, or rather we don't preach the law, we preach
the meaning what the law is pointing to, that it's pointing to our
need of a Savior, that it's pointing to Christ as the Savior, that
He did that very work. So that's why... We, when we
go there, that's what we see. We see Christ and what it's speaking
to. And in Hebrews 10, 1, it says, for the law has a shadow
of good things to come and not the very image of the things.
All right, it has a shadow of good things to come. Well, that
means then we must see Christ in it because when you just look
at the law on its own, it condemns us, it shuts our mouths and it
causes us to fear and to be afraid if we see it rightly, if we see
that we can't do it ourselves, that we need the grace of God.
Let me go on to our next point, which is called to preach salvation. Called to preach salvation. So
Paul is saying, what he says in the next two verses, in verses
three and four, he's showing that we're called, men that are
called of God, sent of God to preach, are called to preach
salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so look at verses three and
four. He says, we're sent to preach the gospel of God concerning
his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh and declared to be the son of
God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection. from the dead. I remember when
I was a teenager and began to be religious myself. I began to seek the Lord again
and I didn't know the truth. I knew that this Jesus was the
Christ. I understood that. I knew that
I was a sinner to a degree, but I still had no understanding. And I remember someone saying
to me, saved from what? Saved from what? What do you
keep talking about being saved from something? What are you
saved from? And I couldn't say it. I couldn't explain it. I
didn't even know. I hardly understood it myself. And so I had nothing
to say. But what the Lord has shown us,
or shown revealed to me now and what he reveals to his people
is that I am the sinner. My sin, the works that I do in
this flesh, I've earned hell. I've earned that damnation. And
every sin I commit, every wicked thing I do, every foolish act
I do, It just sinks me further and further and further down
to a lower depth in hell. And there's nothing I can do
to save myself. And to think that I can save
myself from it and start to claw my way up out of it thinking
that by my good works I'm earning favor with God and he's going
to save me for that only plunges me down further. We shouldn't
go on doing wicked works because that's just earning us a deeper,
darker place in hell, but there's nothing at all that we can do
to raise ourselves out of hell, to get ourselves out of that.
And Christ came, and he's the one that came down, and by his
righteousness, he reaches down and pulls up his people. He brings
them out of that, out of that punishment, out of having to
pay that price because he paid it for them. He did that work
of salvation in shedding his blood to deliver them from the
punishment of their sins. So we're saved from the dominion
of sin, having that rule and reign over our hearts, keeping
us in that darkness, keeping us lusting after and looking
to those things. and seeking to enjoy those things.
And the Lord breaks that, that union and that love of the sin,
so that in the new man, we don't desire those things. The flesh
is still wicked. The flesh still, at times, there's
that lust that comes up in our flesh and that wickedness. But
he delivers us from going back into that filth and that wickedness
as well as delivering us from thinking ourselves righteous
and that we can work our own righteousness by our good works.
He destroys all those works and calls us to himself and to behold
that he's delivered us. from hell. I'm not still trying
to work a righteousness for myself, but He's delivered me from that
because He is Himself my salvation and the salvation of His people.
And the way I know that is by His Holy Spirit coming into the
hearts of His people, giving us life whereby we know these
things, whereby these things are revealed to us in the heart.
So that we're not just hearing it, and nothing, you know, nothing's
going on, but we're hearing it and he creates that faith in
our hearts to believe it. To say, yes, Lord, I'm the sinner.
I deserve eternal death and damnation, but Christ is sent by you. He's
the perfect salvation. He's the Lamb of God. He's put
away my sin, cleansed me of my sin, and delivered me from that
death. That's the salvation, is that
he's done all the work for his people. Alright, and then finally
we look at our last point and we see the salvation which is
brought home to us, brought to his people. And so in these last
verses 5 and 6, What Paul is saying is that to these Roman
brethren and to us, we read it as that this salvation has been
brought to us. It's come to us, to us that are
gathered here. And that's a blessing, not to
just be overlooked or quickly dismissed or forgotten in any
way like that. Alright, so let's look at verses
5 and 6. He says, By whom we have received grace and apostleship
for the obedience to the faith among all nations for his name,
among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ. Paul is first
confirming that all of us are saved by grace. He says we have
received grace. And what he's doing is he's including
all the ministers that God raises up and sends forth to minister
in the church. He's saying we too, just like you, his people,
have received grace and need his grace for salvation, same
with us. We've received grace. We need
grace for salvation because we're sinners just like everybody else.
God didn't put us to this work because I'm somehow better than
anybody else. I'm just as much, if not more,
a sinner than any of you. I received his grace. That's what Paul is saying. And
he called himself the chief of sinners because he saw what he
was. God revealed that to him and
made him to know that. And then the next thing he says,
that we've received apostleship. We've received grace and we've
received apostleship. And what Paul is saying there,
and this is what I think many, this is what the dead church
and dead letter religion, what they miss is that the Lord God
revealed salvation through Christ to these apostles. And he used
these apostles to go out and to establish the church. They
were very faithful. They were made faithful to the
truth. And when works started to challenge it and come back
in, they remained faithful. Especially if you look at Paul.
Paul remain so faithful to Christ and that salvation is by grace
so that we have that truth now. If Paul didn't stand there in
there when they were preaching works again, when that started
coming back and bringing the law in, if Paul didn't stand
there we wouldn't know this the way we know it. The clarity that
salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone and not by any participation
of our works, not by anything we do. And so what Paul is saying
is we've received apostleship, therefore we who speak in the
name of Christ are to preach what was revealed to the apostles,
what's been recorded here. And we have that help and that
blessing by His Spirit helping us to see what was revealed to
them so that we keep speaking and preaching what was given
to the apostles. And that's what Paul's saying
by we've received grace and apostleship. It's for the obedience of the
nations, and that's what he says, it's for obedience to the faith
among all nations for his name. So that's why the Lord raised
up these apostles to be very faithful, very true to salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and not to depart from that. And so we're to stick right there,
not to be motivational speakers. not to lead you away or to be
good moral citizens and put our hearts and minds on good works,
but to keep your hearts and your minds and your focus and your
attention on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. That's the apostleship
that he's speaking of there. And Peter said it wonderfully
to Cornelius, to him, to Christ, give all the prophets witness
that through his name, whosoever believeth on him shall receive
remission of sins. There is salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then verse 6, he shares that
blessed word, that among whom are ye also the called of Jesus
Christ. The called of Jesus Christ. And
what he's saying there is that He's revealing that blessing
that has come to you. That God has revealed to you
that you are sinners. That God has revealed to you,
you can't save yourselves. But that God has revealed to
you, that's why he sent his son Jesus Christ, and that Christ
has accomplished salvation for his people. We know that God
is satisfied with what Christ did because he raised him from
the dead. And so, therefore, you who hear
this word, You who hear this word and are praying and seeking
of the Lord, keep me faithful to preaching Christ because you
know that's your salvation, that's your hope is the Lord Jesus Christ
in Him and you don't want to hear something else. rejoice
because as God has given you a minister to be faithful in
preaching Christ, by God's grace keeping me to be faithful to
the Lord Jesus Christ, so you continue to hear this word faithfully
and keep seeking and praying and asking the Lord to reveal
it to your own heart that you would hear and know, Lord, I
know I'm a sinner. Lord, I know you're the Savior.
Have mercy on me. Reveal that to my heart. Deliver
me out of this death and darkness so that we see that. So I pray
the Lord will bless that to your hearts and convince you that
you too are among those who are the called of Jesus Christ. Alright, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you for for sending this word of salvation. Lord,
we thank you that you have brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to
us, that you've revealed to us that we are sinners, that you've
revealed to us our need of salvation, and that Christ and Christ alone
is the savior of sinners. Lord, help us to be faithful,
to that word which you've revealed through your apostles and by
your spirit to our own hearts. Lord, keep us faithful to Christ,
ever looking to him. We pray this in Jesus' name,
our Lord and Savior. Amen.