Alright brethren, turn to Romans
chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. And we're gonna be looking, I
have some notes further, but we're gonna be looking at verse
one today. I don't think we're gonna get
past that. And I want to begin going slowly. I want to go slower
in the word here because I know that some of the parents are
starting to have their children sit out here. And so I figured
the first hour I'll go slow so that the children that are sitting
here and listening, they can hear it and absorb it and, you
know, maybe have some questions and you guys can talk about it.
And then the other benefit, of course, is that in me doing that,
It also helps the adults here as well because it's important
for us to hear, it's important for us to absorb the things that
we're hearing, to have the time to meditate on it, reflect on
what's being said, and hopefully we'll retain what we're hearing. And then we can prayerfully consider
what it is that we're hearing. If you notice, it's a practice.
I don't have to do it this way. There's no command for me to
do it this way. But it's a practice that I believe will enable us
and help you, brethren, to hear the gospel more easily, to hear
what's being said. So it's a practice. And it's
how you can see and understand, OK, by the things that we do
and how we do them, Rather than a hindrance to the gospel, it's
a help for us to hear the gospel and to hear what's being said
and what the Lord is teaching us. as you could probably understand
in what I'm saying, you can realize, all right, that can be helpful
to me. And the reason why I'm saying this here is because that's
what Paul is actually doing here in this letter. In Paul's opening
statements, he's taking great care with these brethren in Rome,
these Roman brethren. They've likely probably never
met him. Maybe a few of them have met
him, but likely the majority of them have not met Paul. And so he provides each of them
with important credentials. He's given them important credentials
of who he is. And the value in that is this
letter, as you know, we're looking at Romans here, this letter is
a very doctrinal letter. It's a very doctrinal letter.
And what is doctrine? Doctrine is teaching. It's just
simply the teaching that God gives us of himself. Because
knowing God and understanding him, that's not natural to us.
It's not natural to our understanding. So this doctrine is just teaching. And it's a doctrinal letter,
And it's also a letter with practice. There's a lot of practical things.
Once you get to chapter 12, if you recall, Paul begins to speak
a lot about the things that we practice in the church. So the
doctrine or the teaching in this letter, it makes known to us
As we get through verses, through the first six verses, it's an
outline of everything that's to follow. It's an outline of
what's to follow in this letter, and it's probably one of the
largest introductions that Paul does. It wasn't the first letter
he wrote. It's believed to be not the first letter, but it's
definitely one of the earlier letters, but it lays out why
Paul, who Paul is, who God is, and what he sent of God to do. It lays out salvation, that Paul
has been raised up of the Lord to come and preach, to declare
the gospel of salvation so that sinners know how they are accepted
with God. how God saves sinners, how he
receives sinners, and then as I said, as the letter goes on,
well first the doctrine informs us how we are to live, but then
in chapters 12 and following, he begins to then speak of things
that are practical, practical things of how we are to live
and behave ourselves among, in the church of God, before our
God, and in dwelling with one another. And so the first thing
that we'll see, because we're probably going to get more into
this introduction next week, but the first thing that we see
is that this word of salvation comes to you. And there's a great
blessing in that, because not all hear the word of salvation,
and fewer still even believe the word of salvation. So it's
a great comfort to us to know that God has sent a man to preach
the gospel and we believe and trust, as long as he's speaking
that gospel, that he attends that word with his spirit so
that we hear it in spirit and in truth and believe the things
concerning our God. And so in bringing this word
of salvation to us, this message of salvation, he raises up servants,
he raises up men, gives them gifts to go and speak this word,
and he sends them to his people. He sends these messengers out
to his people to preach the word of salvation that we might know
how it is. First we're going to learn and
understand that I'm the sinner. I'm the one who's offended God.
I've rebelled against God. I didn't know that. I thought
everything was fine. I thought what I did was right
and acceptable and that among my peers I was generally a pretty
good person and I did my best among the people but now I see
through the preaching of the gospel that I'm the sinner. and
I need salvation, that I can't save myself. And we hear He sent
Christ for this very purpose, that He sent the Son of God in
the flesh, just like my flesh, but without sin to put away my
sin. So He's bringing this word of
salvation to us. And that word, it's called the
Gospel. And the Gospel simply means good
news. It's good news because when you
hear, I'm the sinner, and the Spirit makes it effectual to
your heart to know, yep, I'm the sinner, what do I do? I'm
hearing that I can't save myself. There's nothing I can do to save
myself. It's good news because then you
also hear in the preaching of the Gospel, He sent His Son,
Jesus Christ. to fulfill all righteousness
for His people. Jesus Christ paid the whole debt
of sin that I accrued and built up. He paid it all by shedding
His blood and His blood cleanses me from my sin and He's put away
that sin forever so that now before God I stand holy and perfect
in his blood. And he sends the Holy Spirit
to reveal it to us that we really believe it in the heart, not
just in the mind, not just in practice, because that's the
place where we go, but he reveals it to the brethren in the heart. So he's the one who makes it
effectual to our understanding. Alright, so these opening remarks
by Paul, we see that it's an outline of the whole letter,
and it reveals to us how God saves sinners, that it's by Jesus
Christ, and that you who are hearing it Be encouraged and
rejoice that you are here and hearing it because that means
God has sent that word to you. We'll look at that a little more.
Our title is Sent by God to Preach Jesus Christ. sent by God to
preach Jesus Christ. And we'll have three, well, we're
just going to have one division. We're just going to look primarily
today at God calls men to serve. And as we go into it next week,
we'll look again a little bit at a review of God calls men
to serve, because we're going to have to get into what what
Paul outlines, the marks that he says God has given me to show
you that I am sent of the Lord. And then the next one we'll see
next week is called to preach salvation. That's why God sent
us, to preach salvation to the hearers. And then we'll look
at the blessing of that salvation brought to you. How God brings
that word of salvation to you, brethren. All right, so God calls
men to serve. He calls men to serve. So, Paul
opens this letter, and he begins with his name. Now, he says Paul,
and just by way of passing, we know that his name was Saul,
and his name was typically Saul when you read it, when he was
dwelling among the Jews. The Jews knew him as Saul, and
to the Gentiles, to the Greeks, he was known as Paul, so it was
probably his Gentile name, just like you see Silas, and Sylvanus,
they're the same person. One is a Jewish name, one is
a Greek name. Timothy, Timotheus, one is a Jewish name, one is
a Greek name, right? And it was just, it wasn't, it's
not hard and fast, but generally you see that when it's a letter
to the Gentiles, it uses the Greek name, when it's a letter
to the Jews, it's, or among the Jews, it's a Jewish name. Okay,
but in verse, One, what he does here is he provides three examples,
three marks of what the Lord did for him so that they know
who he is that's writing this letter to him. Romans 1-1. He
says, Paul, and he says, I'm a servant of Jesus Christ. and that he's called to be an
apostle, and that he is separated unto the gospel of God. And so what Paul does is he's
outlining the marks that God has put on him to show to these
brethren, to demonstrate to them that I am sent of the Lord. I'm
sending you this letter as one appointed by God to deliver this
doctrine to you, to deliver this teaching to you. to speak these
things to you. I have the right to say these
things in the name of God, and here's why. Here's why, because
God separated me, or God made me a servant, gave me a willing
heart to serve his son Jesus Christ. He gave me apostleship,
Paul's saying, we don't have apostles, we'll see that next
week, but he's an apostle, which was given to establish the church. the church in this world and
throughout the world the gospel of salvation is going out and
he gave some apostleship for that purpose to establish the
word among the people and he separated Paul out for this work. Those are the marks that he gives
and that's important for us to understand because we don't usually
take much time to think about that but Man is sinful and wicked
and corrupt and evil, and he does things that are wicked to
assert himself over his heroes, to assert himself to dominate
others and to be heard and to gain a following for himself.
And because of that, well, we know that there's many false
teachers that will arise. And so Paul is saying, look,
I want you to understand here that God has called me to this
work. He's made me a servant, he's given me the apostleship,
and he separated me out to this work. And it's because, and Christ,
he's careful to do that because Christ warned, he said, there's
going to be many false teachers that arise that are going to
come in and scatter the flock. They're going to come in and
wreak havoc among the people to damage and destroy that faith
and that work which God does among his people. They're going
to snuff it out through false teachers. And as Christ said
it, Peter brought it up to his ears. It says in 1 Peter 2, verse
1, Peter reminds these hearers about
these liars, and he says, But there were false prophets also
among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among
you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying
the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. So Paul, writing to the Jewish
hearers, said what Christ said before them. He heard and he
warned them there's false teachers. And then Paul in Philippians
chapter 3 In Philippians 3, verses 17-19, he said, Brethren, be
followers together of me, and mark them which walk, so as ye
have us for an example, for many walk, of whom I have told you
often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies
of the cross of Christ. And if they are enemies of the
cross of Christ, then they are enemies of your soul. They are
enemies of your soul. If they're enemies of the cross
of Christ, meaning they don't declare Christ, they don't preach
that Christ is all your salvation, and they turn you to the flesh
to look to your flesh for some justification to earn some favor
with God or to sanctify yourselves and make yourselves more holy
before God. If they're turning you to the
flesh for that work, then they're enemies of the cross of Christ
and they're enemies of your soul. That's what he's saying, and
he says, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and
whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. And
Paul, by this time, had many that were challenging him. He
went and ministered to the churches. There were those rising up in
the church that were challenging him and trying to gain a following
to follow them and not listen to Paul and challenge whether
he really was an apostle and raised up of God to speak the
things that he was speaking. And they were turning people
back to the law. even as we've seen in looking
at Galatians. That was probably one of the
earliest or first letters that Paul wrote was to the Galatians
who were so soon turned from looking to Christ alone back
to the law, back to something that they were doing in their
own flesh. And so to head off their doubts
of this man who's writing this doctrinal, heavy doctrinal letter
to them and with practical things at the end, he's telling them
I'm telling you who I am, that I'm set apart to preach these
things to you. And so because of that, because
there's false teachers and things of that sort, we're to be discerning
ourselves to ensure that you're hearing a man who's sent of God,
that's preaching the word, that's how you're going to know, am
I preaching salvation by Christ? Or am I making myself an enemy
of the cross? Am I preaching lies to you? Am
I turning you back to your flesh? Or am I preaching the gospel
that God saves sinners by His Son Jesus Christ? If I'm not,
run me out of here. Have me leave. Don't have me
here. I'm an enemy of your soul if I'm not preaching the gospel
of Christ. But if I am, if I am preaching,
then Believe. Hear what I'm saying. Hear what
I'm saying and consider it well what I'm saying because if I
am speaking the truth, it's only by the grace and the power of
God. I'm no apostle. I'm no apostle. The apostles
are done, but it does mean that God has called me to serve Him,
to dedicate my life, to sacrifice my own life to serve Him and
to serve His people, and that He separated me for this work. He's made me to have the gift
to know and understand what He's done for His people and to preach
that freely to the people, to declare what He's done for His
people. Turn over to Mark 11. Mark 11,
verses 30 and 31. Look at Mark 11. All right, Mark 11, verse 30. Our
Lord is speaking to the religious Jews, these are religious Jews,
and he says, the baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men?
Answer me. He's making them answer. He's
making them consider what he's saying. He's saying, was it from
heaven or of men? Answer me. And they reasoned
with themselves, saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will
say, why then did ye not believe him? Why then did you not believe
him? If you believe, if he's speaking
the truth, and you believe he's of God, why don't you hear him?
Why don't you listen to what he's saying? And we don't think
of it typically in those terms, right? But if you believe that
I'm sent to the Lord, then you're trusting. All right, Lord, let
me hear what you have to say. You're going to lay on this man's
heart the things that I have need of hearing for the salvation
of my soul, not in me, but in Christ. He's going to turn me
to Christ, and he's going to help me. He's going to be a helper
of my joy. He's going to speak the things
that are going to help us in the church that we can all hear
the gospel carefully and gladly. So, if I'm preaching that gospel,
If I'm preaching the gospel, then listen. Turn to the scriptures
and listen and say, Lord, help me to hear what's being said
because it's for my good, for my soul. If I'm preaching that
gospel, then if you're hearers, if you're hearers of the word
and you believe it, then we are to be doers of the word. to say
Lord help me help me to hear what's being said and help me
to put these things in to practice and I say that because we don't
want to be quick to dismiss it because that's what Paul thinks
people that were quick to dismiss what he said Who are you? Who
are you to say these things to me? Why are you talking about
that? I don't want to hear that." And they were shutting him down
because they didn't believe him. So they found reasons why they
didn't have to listen to him. He was short and bald-headed
and didn't speak well, apparently, from what he says of himself.
He didn't speak very well. And so they found reasons. And
so, for you, some of you are older than me. And you could
find an excuse and say, you're a young man. He's young. He doesn't
know. He's inexperienced. I heard that my whole life when
I would try to speak the gospel to my dad. You don't know. You
don't know. When you get to be 40, then you'll
know. And then when I got to be 40, you don't know. When you
get to be 60, then you'll know. and you won't say these things.
And then 70, you know, it just keeps on going. It's never enough
for the here. They always want you to hit some
other milestone or goal. And so, but the thing is, if
I am preaching Christ, even though I might be young or inexperienced,
although I wish I'm not young, I'm really not that young. I'm
getting close to 50. But even though I might be younger
than some of you, but if I am raised up with the Lord, then
the Lord is able to teach me and to lay a word on my heart
that's good for us to hear and a timely, and a word in season. And so, you know, we don't want
to say things like, well, I'll hear him when he's speaking of
the gospel, but when it comes to practice or administration
in the church, I don't believe what he says. I don't want to
hear what he says or listen to that because I don't agree with
it. And so, It's in respect, though, if I am sent to the Lord,
it's in respect to both the gospel that I preach, that's the first
thing. I need to be preaching the gospel of Christ. That needs
to be very clear. And then second thing, there
will be things that are relative to the administration. Does that
mean it has to always be that way, that this is the only way?
Not at all. No, that doesn't mean that, but
the Lord is going to lay it on my heart as the pastor. I'm not
just a preacher, but as the pastor, He'll lay things on my heart
that I'm looking at and saying, I think if we did it this way,
it'll be a help for the brethren to hear the gospel with fewer
distractions and the Lord will settle us. He'll grow us in that
way so that we can be hearers of the word. All right, now let
me show you that. I'll have to say, let me show
you this in 1 Timothy 3. 1 Timothy 3 and go to verses
14 and 15. Paul was writing to Timothy,
and he says these things, 1 Timothy 3.14, he says, these things write
I unto you, hoping to come unto you shortly. But, but if I tarry,
if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave
thyself in the house of God. Why? Because it's the church
of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Now
let me give you a good example of what I mean by, when he says
behave, behave in the church of God. What if Brother Bartholomew,
I'm going to use Bartholomew because no one here is Bartholomew,
but what if Brother Bartholomew is asked to come up and lead
the singing? And as he's coming up, he takes
his shirt off and he's standing up here shirtless to lead the
singing to you. All right, that would be a distraction,
right? It would distract us from worshiping
the Lord. And we'd be thinking, why is
he doing that? What is he doing? Why doesn't he put his shirt
on? So it's just a behavioral thing. It's just a practice that
we don't put, you know, we don't come up here shirtless and just
do certain things. I'm giving a very obvious one,
certain things, because it's a distraction to the gospel.
So that's what Paul's saying. I'm writing a few things to you
that you know how to behave. yourself in the Church of God
because it's the pillar and ground of the truth. And so that's why
sometimes I say things. I don't, I'm trying not to rush
or say things. Some things I don't even see
and the Lord will make it known to us in that time. And some
things I see things but I know I have to go patiently and slowly
because I love you brethren. I'm not looking to break fellowship
over certain practical things. I love you. I want you to hear
the gospel And that's my motivation. That's the only reason why I
say some of the things I say or speak to because I love you
and I want you all to hear the gospel. And so the Lord teaches
me how to be a servant, how to be patient, and do things differently
like even like I said I'm trying to go slower so that when you
bring your children out here I'm not just rapid-fire speaking
and they're not even hearing because it's so fast I'm trying
to slow down so that they can hear and absorb and it's a benefit
to you brethren as well because yeah I go fast so you know it's
things like that and you know Paul said He says in 1 Corinthians
14, 40, he says, let all things be done decently and in order. Decently and in order. And that
just means that he doesn't prescribe every single detail of what we're
to do. I don't have to stand here in
a black suit or certain colors or sing certain hymns. He doesn't
tell us all the practical things to do, but he just says, what
you do, do it decently and in order, because it's the house
of the Lord. And so we want to be respectful
and mindful that some people are going to be you know, hear
differently and they're gonna, you know, we don't want to do
anything that creates a problem. And then he actually gives an
example to the Corinthians in 11, 33 and 34. He said, Wherefore,
my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another,
wait for one another, and if any man hunger, let him eat at
home. that ye come not together unto condemnation, and the rest
will I set in order when I come." So, and he's just saying, you
know. Do you have to eat before you
come to hear the word of God? Is it things like that? No, he's
just addressing something that was becoming a distraction or
an issue in the church and he was saying, you know, do this
and I'll speak to other things when I get there and see how
things are going. So it happens. Now, as another
illustration, let me say this. We know Pastor Henry Mahan recently
passed away and What I came to find out is, second only to,
well first, the first thing everybody loved Henry for was how faithful
he was to preach the Lord Jesus Christ. They loved how faithful
he was to declare and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and to debase
man so that we could hear how it is that God receives sinners,
how he saves them. And the second thing that he
was probably most praised about was repetition, how he repeated
himself in the scripture, in the preaching of the gospel.
Because one, our minds are going fast, and we don't always hear
things. We zone out. And so it gives
the hearer a chance to zone back in and to come back into what's
being said without missing a lot. But it also was a practice of
his. He didn't have to do it this
way, but it was a practice of his because it enabled his hearers
to hear the gospel more easily with fewer distractions. They
could hear. And so it was a practice, a conscious decision of his to
speak in that manner because it helped the brethren hear.
And that's what the practice should be. It shouldn't be for
our justification or sanctification it's to help one another, to
hear more clearly. Will it be different from another
church? Yeah, it might be. Some sing more hymns, some sing
fewer hymns. Some do things differently, but
either way it's done in order, in an orderly way, so that it's
helpful for the brethren to hear. And he says, that we may know
how we ought to behave ourselves in the house of God, which is
the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth." So it is serious, and there is value. We want our brethren
to hear that word. If a man is sent of God, and
you know whether he's sent, whether he's preaching the truth, whether
he's preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and not turning
you to your flesh, but turning you to Christ, pointing you to
Him, then if that's what he's doing, then we don't want to
be quick to dismiss and say, well, I don't care for what he
says about that. We want to make sure that We
at least pray about it, even if it's hard for us at first.
Pray about it and consider it and think about various things.
I mean, even me, I have a pastor and I sat under a pastor and
he said things and I didn't always understand why he said them and
some things I didn't even necessarily agree with. But if Christ learned
obedience through the things that he suffered, and that suffering
also means what we accept and we say, Lord, You're doing it. You bear with it. You're patient
through it. You suffer it. Then if Christ
suffered things and learned obedience, then surely we suffer things
and learn obedience through some of the things that we're brought
to suffer and bearing with one another and bearing what the
Lord is doing. It's a growth in that way. And it got to the point where
Clay could just say something And we didn't even, we just said,
you know what, if that's what you want to do, then we're going
to do it. And I tried not to just be like, whatever, it's
your choice. But I tried to say, Lord, if
this is what you're doing, then that's good. It'll be, I trust
you, Lord. You sent the man, so I'm going
to hear you. All right? And the thing is, if we dismiss
it, we rob ourselves of hearing a word in season. Because the
Lord's laying it on the man's heart for a reason, your pastor's
heart for a reason, because it's at that time where I think, you
know, it's probably good. We can work towards this. I think
that we've been together long enough and we can work towards
this thing or a certain thing. And I like the way Paul said
it in 2 Corinthians 1.24. It's not for that we have dominion
over your faith. It's not that we are lords over
you. We don't have dominion over your
faith. You're the lords. But are helpers
of your joy, for by faith ye stand. By faith ye stand. So one of the things I would
encourage us again, I think I said it before, but I would encourage
us is that we try to get here 15 minutes early, 15 minutes
before the service starts. And you know, we used to, I know
we can do it because we used to start at 10 o'clock. And we
met at 10, and people will get here right about at 10. And then
we push it back to 10-15 after you're used to it, and we get
here at 10-15. Now everybody gets here at 10-15 because that's
when it starts. And it varies a little bit, give
or take 5 or 10 minutes. But the value of 50 minutes,
is it a law? Is it a requirement? Absolutely
not. No, it doesn't mean that you're any more justified or
more sanctified than your brethren, but the value, the reason why
I say that this is what we should target doing and work towards
is because it gives you time to get in, to see your brethren,
to say hi, to say hello, and say that, and then you with children
gives you time to get them settled in the back, and then you can
come out before the message, you know, the first message starts,
and you can get settled, and those of you, whether you have
children or not, you can you know breathe and and get your
your mind ready to hear because you know when you're when you're
coming out of there you know it your your mind is still racing
on all the things that you were just dealing with or if you get
here at the last minute i know that's how it is for me when
i get here if i get here late i'm not thinking about the lord
and what i'm about to say to you i'm thinking about all right
let me check my teeth in the mirror to make sure i don't have
something in my teeth that it's a distraction you know i'm doing
all these other things and not really quietly, you know, saying,
Lord, help me to hear what you have to say today. And so that's
why I say, you see, it's not meant to have dominion over you,
but to be a helper of your joy in the Lord, for his gospel,
for what he's done through his son, Jesus Christ. So, you know,
Paul is laying out these credentials because he's saying things that
are new to the people. This is new. It's the Gospels
being revealed to not just the Jew who served under the Old
Testament, but it's new to the Gentiles who had many gods and
many superstitions and many various beliefs that were contrary to
the Jews and contrary to one another. So that's why he did
it. I'm not even going to get into the first thing. We'll look
at these marks next week because it's getting late. But I would
just say that what Paul shows to these brethren is that the
Lord has raised up men, He's raised up servants to come and
preach this word. And the word that they are sent
to preach, first and foremost, is the gospel of your salvation. that we would know and understand,
I'm the sinner. My flesh gets pricked by the
things of God. My flesh gets rebellious to the
things of God. I'm the sinner. Naturally, I
don't know how to please Him. I'm an enemy of the Lord, God. But He sent His Son, Jesus Christ,
to be the propitiation, to be the means of my forgiveness,
to sacrifice Himself to bear my burden of sin in His own body,
take it up there to the cross before God, and God poured out
the wrath that should have been poured out upon me to put away
my sin. And He did that. He succeeded
in what He came to do so that His people are set free from
their sin, and He gives the Holy Spirit to attend to that gospel
word, because many hear it, but not all believe it, but he sends
the Spirit so that we are made to hear that word by his divine
power, not in the flesh, but by his power, so that we are
made to believe it. And brethren, as we'll see, when
you just look at these first six verses, that's a blessing.
That's a blessing to you. That word of salvation has been
brought to you. So be thankful and rejoice. And
if I'm sent to the Lord, then hear the gospel word that I'm
preaching and hear the things that we speak of in regards to
administration, because it's just for our health and our joy
and our gladness. And again, I'm happy to work
with any of you, and I love you. And so I just want us to be able
to hear the gospel. So I pray the Lord will bless
that word and bless his gospel to your heart, because that's
the greatest blessing we have. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for... Lord, because it's you that raises
up men. It's you that stirs up the heart
of a man, and even women, Lord, to serve in the church, to have
a willing heart to serve you, to hear your word, to rejoice
and be glad in the word that you give. And Lord, help us. Lord, help us to grow because,
you know, Many of us, if not all of us, Lord, have grown up
in religion, seen the abuse of authority, the abuse of men who
lord over their hearers. Lord, and all your preachers
are, all your pastors are, is under shepherds. Lord, you alone
are the Lord, and you are worthy of praise and honor and glory. Lord, help me to be a faithful
servant to these people, and help these people, to be faithful
hearers, Lord, made hearers by your Spirit, and that there be
peace and joy and gladness among us. We pray this and rejoice
in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, so we'll
come back in about 12 minutes.