Let's read together the first
seven verses and then I'll begin where I picked up last week.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set
apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand
through his prophets and the holy scriptures concerning his
son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was
declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit
of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ,
our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship
to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his
name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong
to Jesus Christ, to all those in Rome who are loved by God
and called to be saints. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now last week, We really
stopped on the idea that Paul was called to be a servant in
the same vein as he was called to be an apostle. We looked at
briefly the idea that not all Christians are called to be servants
in like manner. Some people are called to be
servants in the gospel ministry as preachers. Some people are
called to be servants as prayer warriors. Some people are called
to be servants in the gifts of hospitality or I don't know what
you call, taking care of other folks, chaplaincy. I mean, there's a lot of different
places. We've just put so many labels to it that we pigeonhole
people into what they are to do and what they are not to do
in the word, I mean, in the church. But if we look at the word of
God, we see that everyone is to be a servant. Everyone is
to serve as God has equipped them to serve. That means that
everyone has a gift to serve. in as much as that we have a
gift to serve, we may not understand all the details of it. This past
Monday I had lunch with my father and we were listening, not trying
to, but the man next to us was talking rather loudly and he
was instructing two other men on how the church ought to operate.
And I thought it was really, really interesting that not any
time during that conversation did he open the scripture or
refer to the scripture or mention the scripture or even say the
word Bible or the word, word at any time. And he went around
and basically said, for example, Baptists, the way we operate
is that we can fire our pastors for any reason at any time. And
that's how Baptist churches are set up. Talking about polity.
I thought, hmm, that sounds familiar. And then later they kept talking
about things and how everyone has a place in the church. And
then this man got to spiritual giftedness. He'll listen to this
one day and go, I can't believe that man did that to me. But
spiritual giftedness. And he began to talk about all
the different spiritual gifts. And he started listing them sort
of as, you know, children's ministry, and choirs, and raking the yards,
and plunging the toilets, and changing the diapers, and cleaning
the church, and giving money, and all these different things,
which are indeed Evidence is, or not even evidence is the bad
word, fruitfulness of the Lord's work in us that we would do these
things as servants. But those in themselves are not
spiritual gifts. And that's what's wrong with
the world today. Let me say that. That's really ridiculous. That's
one of the many things that is wrong with the world today. is
that we speak in ignorance out of other orifices except the
mouth that we've been given. And we don't think with the head
that we've been given and the mind that God has given us from
any place of authority, which is the Word of God. We just talk
from tradition. And I found it interesting that
as I talked about these things, my dad could tell that I was
really beginning just to want to get into that conversation.
And he's like, I don't know if you'd do that. I said, I'm not
going to get in it. But if he looks my way, I says, what do
you think? I'm going over there. But as he heard this man talk,
I said, now, are you hearing this? He said, I can't help but
to. And I was able to share with my father that even Jesus rebuked
the traditions of men and said that the traditions of men come
on top of the Word of God and they cause a burden that's undue
and unbiblical amongst God's people. Friends, we live in a
day and age where the burden of religion, of so-called cultural
Christianity, is an undue burden that's been placed upon the hearts
and the minds of people. So what does it have to do with
the Book of Romans? Well, a lot in some aspects,
in some contexts, but specifically because last week we talked about
being a servant. And for those of you who weren't
here, I would encourage you to go to the church website and listen to that message
so that you can get an idea of apostleship and get an understanding
of the introduction and the place and the occasion and the reason
for Paul's writing this letter. But ultimately, everyone sort
of looks sometimes at the Scripture and they see the personalities
of Scripture. I'm not saying personalities of celebrities,
but the persons and their being and how they act and what they
say. So they see the personalities of Scripture and they say, I
want to be like Paul, or I want to be like John, or I want to
be like Jesus. Well, in what way? If you want
to be like me, what does that mean? You want to be pale like
me? You want to be ugly like me? You want to be talkative
like me? You know, what do you want to do? Do you want to be
in pain like me? What is it that you want to be
if you're comparing yourself to someone else? Well, do we
want to be like Christ and that Christ was loving to His enemies?
Absolutely. Want to be like Paul and that
Paul was zealous for the Word of God? Absolutely. But none of us have
been called to be apostles, and none of us have been called to
be John the Baptist, and none of us have been called to be
John the Evangelist. But we have all been called to
serve the Lord. And serving the Lord Jesus Christ
is not a burden for the church. Because the Spirit of God that
indwells us gives us the joy of knowing that all that we do,
we do it for the glory of God. And we all have a different place. We all have a different purpose.
We all have a different season in our life where we will engage
in different ways and different directions. And it's just as,
and one thing this man did get right is he said, you know, the
Bible uses the metaphor of the body, like there's a hand and
there's a foot and there's an eye and there's a mouth. And I thought,
well, at least he's given them that. So I guess he did refer to scripture
toward the end of the conversation. But everybody can't, and all
I could think about is my analogy about being a bag of eyeballs
or a bag of toenails and how gross that is and how, most importantly,
worthless it is. If we were all the same part,
everything is important. And you are important this evening.
As we go through Romans, don't think of your importance as is
measured by your ability to understand the depth of the doctrine that
is found in Romans. Because some places the doctrine
is deep. Some places, just as in this prologue, as you'll see
tonight, there are areas of ambiguity. That means they're sort of not
very direct. We don't really know exactly what Paul is referring
to. There's some language here in
tonight's verse that doesn't even sound like Paul, inasmuch
as that many scholars say Paul didn't write this. Something's
wrong. But we know that's ridiculous.
But still just the same, there are some things that could be
misunderstood. So we don't gauge our growth
and maturity and our usefulness of the church by the fact that
we can understand the implications and all the external aspects
of justification by faith alone. But it is most important that
we all understand the teaching that the Bible gives us, which
we call doctrine, about being justified by faith alone. in
its simplicity. And that we are all to serve
the church above everything else to make sure that we can explain
the gospel very clearly. And that we can understand the
gospel very simply. And so I pray that as we go through
this letter, that would be the grandest outcome of it all. Not
that we would be deep theologians. There's nothing wrong with that.
But not everybody's gifted in that area. And sometimes people
who are gifted in that area, their verboseness, somebody like
that. I don't know who they might be.
They can overwhelm and cause confusion with other people who
just want to eat and learn. And so as we read through this
letter to the Romans, we're going to do it in like manner as we
did in the latter part of the reading of Revelation. We're
going to go through it and we're going to discuss it verse by
verse, word by word in quick succession. So tonight, let's
look there at this first part. Listen to the text at verse 1.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, and
we talked about that last week, set apart for the gospel of God,
which we talked about as well last week, where Paul would even
say that he was one of untimely birth, but that God before the
world, from the beginning, predestined him to be an apostle to the Gentiles.
Paul never once ever said that he chose this path. Paul never
once said, I wanted to serve the Lord Jesus, so I decided
on this. You know, Fannie Crosby might
write hymns about how people have decided to follow Jesus,
but the scripture never gives us that truth. So here, beforehand,
God set him apart for the gospel. It's God's gospel. It belongs
to God. It doesn't belong to man. It's
not for us to interpret and to disseminate as we see fit, but
it's for us to read and understand simply and teach that which the
Scripture has shown us. And then verse 2 is where we
left off. I think Brother Mike said if
we go at this rate, it's about 460 sermons or something like
that. We're not going to take that long, but we do want to
make sure that we get this foundation, clearly. Which He promised, look
at verse, what did He promise? Set apart for the gospel, being
a servant of Jesus Christ, calling men apart, set for the gospel
of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets. What's
the point here? The point is that God's gospel
was promised. The good news of Jesus Christ
was promised to have a day of fulfillment. So there was always
a promise. What was the first promise given?
Okay, all you smarty-pants, yes, before eternity passed where
God said, I can see what Trey was thinking, the decrees of
God before there was anything. Okay, great. Now, where was the
first audible to a human being promise given? In Genesis chapter
3. In Genesis chapter 3 at the fall of humanity, Jesus is promised
the seed of a woman will crush the head of the serpent. And
God in His provision sheds the blood of a lamb or of an animal. And off of the shedding of blood
there is a covering of sins, not literally, but figuratively,
as they cover the shame and the consequence of their sins that
they found and discovered their nakedness and were ashamed and
tried to hide from God. And so in this now, Jesus is
promised that God will come into this earth and that He will crush
the work of the devil. He will abolish it. He will finish
it. He will overcome it. See how
good this parallels with John's Gospel? This is the teaching
of the Gospel. The Gospel of John is no different
than any of the other Gospels that we see in the writing of
Paul, or the writing of James, and especially the writing of
Peter, and even in the Gospel accounts of the other writers,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Gospel is the Gospel, and
there is only one Gospel. And it is the gospel of God that
He promised beforehand through His prophets. Through His prophets
that He would speak to directly and say, this is the word that
I want you to tell people. And they would go to towns and
they would say, thus saith the Lord, repent and live. Stay in your sin and die. Be
obedient and live, or stay in this current way and God's going
to crush you. Or the prophets would go to the
kings, or go to the judges, or go to the scribes and the rulers
and say, remember the word of the Lord. God spoke audibly to
the prophets, and they went and spoke audibly to the people,
and they wrote things down, which is the Holy Scriptures, and then
also in The day that we live now, we have the writing of the
apostles who were sent by God to teach. And then we have the
New Testament, which is now inclusive of the Holy Scriptures, which
God promised beforehand. In Hebrews chapter 1, it talks
about God speaking. And in 2 Peter, it talks about
the prophets. Remember what Peter says? Peter
says, you know, we've heard the voice that came from heaven.
This is my beloved Son. We saw Him with 500 other brothers
rise into the air and ascend into heaven. We saw that, but
don't take our word for it. He says we have a better word,
an abiding testimony. This is Peter. Now if I had a
film of something that I just saw, wouldn't that be evidence
enough for you? Or better yet, we all witnessed it. We can say,
okay, we saw it, we saw it. That's a good testimony. But
the apostles, though they saw and heard and understood and
saw the magnificence of His power and the glory of God face to
face in Jesus Christ, they did not say believe us, they say
believe God. So as Peter would say, we did
not devise clever myths to lead people. This is not man's interpretation. But the prophets, to which you
would do well to pay attention, have foretold the coming of Jesus. Now He's here. It's what Stephen
preached in Acts chapter 7, after he was arrested and wrongly accused
of blasphemy. So when we see this, it talks
about the scriptures and the prophets that God promised this
gospel. Even in the interpretation of
certain things, as Jesus would say in John chapter 5 of the
Pharisees, who were so-called the chosen of God, the Jews,
the Hebrew people, what did they say? Well, our Father. And Jesus says, if you had known
God, you would know me. He even says, your father is
the devil, because you don't know me, you don't know the Father
in heaven. He also goes to say that it's Moses who wrote of
me, and yet you say you know Moses. You don't know Moses.
The devil is your daddy. I mean, that's some ugly stuff.
Can you imagine being out to lunch with someone and having
a nice conversation about Scripture and just going to them and saying,
you know what, you're the son of Satan. I don't think they're going to pick up
the tab, I can promise you that. I mean, that's what Jesus said. And you
know, we don't need to go around saying that. I'm not saying that
that's okay to do. But it is okay to say, look at
what Jesus says about that circumstance in John chapter 5. Look at what
Jesus says. Look at what Paul says. That
way we're not being the jerks. Let Jesus be the jerk. Let Paul
be the jerk. I had a pastor tell me years ago, he says, and if
you have to offend somebody, offend them with the apostles.
Let them be upset with the apostles. Because they're not going to
get mad at Jesus even if you show that he said it. They'll
still be mad with you. Let them get mad at Paul. It's a good way of teaching. But to the point, Christ was
promised before the world and He was promised at the day of
the fall. And those who would proclaim are given the old message
and now we have the old message with new lives. This emphasis
that we see here. Look what he's emphasizing. God's
gospel. He promised beforehand through
the prophets in the Holy Scripture concerning his son who descended
from David. And we'll get to all that. But
what's the point? Why would Paul do this stuff?
Paul doesn't talk about David. Paul doesn't teach Judaism. I
mean, where else does he write this stuff? Nowhere. Where else
does Paul, besides chapter 15 of this letter, where else does
Paul deal with Jesus as the son of David ever? Never. As a matter
of fact, he always sort of pooh-poohs on the idea of Judaism. He always
just sorta, nah, we're not gonna go there. They're blind, we're
not gonna. But for some reason here, he
does it. And I have a reason, I have a thought on why. We'll
talk about it in a second. But the major emphasis that Paul
is placing here in this text is on the divine. If you'll notice,
if you read through, and if you have some software that can do
this, it's really cool. If not, you can go Blue Letter Bible,
and there's a lot of free, cool stuff on there you can do with
language, and Greek, and Hebrew, and stay away from the Hebrew,
but if you like that kind of stuff, go ahead. And you can look up
how many times The word God is used in a particular book. And
God is very much thrown throughout the letter to the Romans. It
is the point of the writing. Paul was writing about God. That's
his thing. He's not writing about any sin
that's going on. He's not writing about any doctrinal errors that
may be happening. He's not writing about any theological
practices that may be all out of whack. He's not dealing with
discipline. He's not encouraging this church
to continue in the path they're going under persecution. I mean,
my goodness, Rome had the sword. He's teaching about God. And
so if Jesus tells us that eternal life is to know God, I believe
the book of Romans is very important to the understanding of who God
is. And more specifically, the gospel of God, which is the point
of this letter to begin with, that the Roman Christians at
the church of Rome, no, I didn't even say it in that, that the
Christian church of antiquity that happened to be in Rome would have a true gospel of how
quickly they left it. how quickly they left it. But
this emphasis on the divine purpose is to instruct the readers of
God's eternal plan. Paul starts it out to say this
is the plan of God. It's all about God, and it's
all about what He wants you to understand. This is the plan
of God. This is not a sudden plan. This is not a proposal. God does not go, oh, now what?
Okay, this is good. Let's do this. God is not contemplating,
God is not thinking, and God is not learning. God is God,
which elevates Him to the highest position of all things and all
wisdom. He is the highest of all highs. He is the grandest
being that could be conceived. That's Anselm's argument for
the existence of God, by the way. The ontological argument
that we can think of a man or of a being that's absolutely,
impossibly holy and perfect, so there must be a God, otherwise
we couldn't think of it. Boy, would Marvel Comics blow
his mind. But even then, they're lesser beings. But the emphasis
here is not on a proposal, but the emphasis is on God's divine,
absolute, sovereign, and certain plan for redemption. It's God's
gospel. And it has always been God's
gospel. It has always been God's plan. And nothing has happened
outside of God's plan in all of the history of humanity. The
fall was part of God's plan. All of the issues that we see
just in the biblical narrative of history in the Old Testament
was part of God's plan. And every single people, imagine
the annals, the pages that it would take to just write a day
by day, hour by hour, no, it's just a day by day synopsis of
your life. Of what you did, the 10 things
that you did every day since you were born. Just 10. How many pages? This room would
not hold one of yours. Imagine the history of humanity. Imagine the living history right
now at this very second. What every person that's alive
in the world is experiencing right now is all in the sovereign
hand of God. I can't remember what I ate yesterday.
I couldn't find my keys an hour ago. What in the world must it
be like to have the mind of God? This is revealed by the promise
that is beforehand. He promised beforehand that God's
decrees are certain and His timing is perfect. You ever thought
about that? I mean, what are you talking
about? I'm talking about that Paul is
saying God, His gospel, was promised beforehand to the prophets and
the scriptures. that the Son that He's teaching through these
promises is an eternal plan that is sovereign. This promise is
absolute. I say it often this way, that
Jesus is not a possible Savior. He's a certain Savior. Jesus
came that He would save His people from destruction. That He would
save His people from their sin. That He would save His people
from the wrath of His righteousness. You see? Imagine the Roman people
of this day. thinking of such a divine being. Through the prophets of those
whom He spoke from the ancient of days, in the Scriptures through
which He now continues to speak, even that of His Son, the Logos,
who is revealed in the written Word, what does it tell us? What does this really tell us?
What's the point? If I had one point of this particular
verse, what would it be? It should be this, that we can
trust the Scripture. We can trust the Scripture. We
can trust the Scripture for eternal life. We can trust the Scripture
for encouragement. We can trust the Scripture, listen
to this, we can trust the Scripture for the power to overcome sin
and temptation. We can trust the Scripture to
throw us out of a depression. We can trust the Scripture to
teach us how to love our neighbor. We can trust the Scripture to
be sure and certain that our salvation is of the Lord. We
can trust the Word of God for everything that's needed in our
lives. What if we can't have food? The
Word of God says, Jesus Himself says, after 40 days of not eating,
man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes
from the mouth of God. So whether or not the Scriptures
will give you bread to eat, it will sustain you until your body
dies. and you'll have bread that lives
forever. People think that's stupid. You
know why? Because the mind of the natural
man is hostile to God. The mind of the world thinks
that's foolish because it is foolish. My children are starving,
let me teach them the Scripture. My children are being persecuted,
arrested, fed to lions, thrown into slavery. See, this is the
context of first century Christianity. Paul says it's a promise that
God made before the world began, and His Scripture teaches it
to you. And when they got this letter, they were filled and
encouraged and given hope. And more than that, the Holy
Spirit gave them such a gift. Because it is through the writing
of Paul that God, the Holy Spirit, works in the lives of His people.
You see that? Friends, it's not an academic
adventure. It's not a series of, let's learn
something new about Jesus and His Bible. This is a supernatural
experience with intimacy with the living God of heaven. When
we're in Scripture, We're intimate with Him. We're intimate with
Him. No experience of this world can overcome that. No experience
of this life, no miracle that Jesus ever did with His hands
and mouth, and no person that was ever raised from the dead
comes close to the miracle of life that comes through the Scripture
hitting your eyes and the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart.
None! Let's just go home now. That's enough. But there's more. So what? They have eternal life and the
Word of God can be trusted for it is God's eternal purpose.
It is the proof of His fulfilled decree and it is the assurance
of His people that they have eternal life in Jesus Christ.
And that's the next phrase that we see. through His prophets
and the Holy Scriptures concerning His Son who was descended from
David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son
of God in power to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection
from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. And he goes on and on and
on and phrase after phrase. Let's take this one one at a
time if we have time. Concerning His Son. Paul is emphasizing this for
two reasons. The word antithetical means against. So if I'm trying to be healthy
and I'm eating Krispy Kremes, Krispy Kremes are antithetical
to health. You got that? If I want to not
get bacterial infections and I live in the sewer, living in
the sewer is the antithesis of not getting bacterial infections.
There you go. Writing that God's purpose and
plan is divine and then saying Jesus is a man seems to be antithetical. Seems to be the antithesis here.
And what Paul's going to do is he's going to suppose some things
that if we're not careful, we listen to critics and we read
commentaries and we go, Goodness, there's a lot of things there
we can't grasp. I'm here to tell you that this is very simple
to get in its context. Let's just read it together.
When it says concerning His Son, these things should be in mind.
The Word of God, who was from the beginning, who is God, who
is also His Son, who was from the beginning. Now that's stealing
from two writings of John. We know that. But John took it
from Moses, okay? So it's not that Paul didn't
have it. John just went all the way back.
John ties all the Scriptures together very well in that regard. Paul is doing in the same manner. Sort of the same thing here,
saying the Son that we have seen, that we have heard, that we have
touched, concerning, what does John say, the eternal life that
is manifest now we proclaim to you. Jesus Christ, who is God's
Son, is the promise that God wrote in His Word that we can
certainly hold on to and know that it is fulfilled in Jesus
Christ. He is the Son of God. He is the Promised One. He is
through whom we have life. He is through whom we are justified.
He is where our hope is found. And He is where our faith is
originated. Paul would write to the Hebrew
people, He is the perfecter and the founder of our faith. Jesus
Christ, the giver of life, the light that comes to the world
and overcomes the darkness. He is the intimate one. He's
not just the prophet. See, God could say, concerning
my messenger, couldn't He? God could say, concerning my
prophet. The Bible could say, concerning my most beloved angel. But He didn't say that. He says,
concerning my Son. Concerning my Son. Because anybody
can hire somebody to go out and talk. Anybody can give good messages. And God has done that through
His written Word. But the prophets and the apostles
spoke of Jesus, the Son of God, so that God is intimately involved
in our redemption. Through the Son, Jesus Christ,
who is the author and the agent of it. all the way from the beginning
to the end. He is eternal life. He is the
redemption. He is the one who gives us faith. He snatches us out of the domain
of darkness. He satisfies the judgment of God and propitiates
on our behalf. He is the Redeemer and we are
the object of His love. Jesus Christ is the Son the intimate
one. He's not just a prophet speaking
for God. He's not just a lamb satisfying
the judgment of God. He's not just a good teacher
to teach us all the great things of God. He is one in the same
essence as God, because He is God. And the Father begot the
Son, and they are one God. Don't let that slip off you like
water on a duck. Don't let that go down the drain
of the sink in your soul and miss it. Jesus Christ is God. And God is intimately involved.
And God the Son is intimately involved. He is the One through
whom salvation is sure. He is the object of our hope,
the source of our redemption, and the author of our grace.
So now we see that this One who comes is the Son of God. Now, all of a sudden, this is
the antithesis I was talking about. This seems odd. He says,
Who was descended from David? Maybe it doesn't bother you.
But when I read it, I think, the Son of God that's descended
from David. But see, we've taken it so dissected
for so long. And this is odd for Paul. It's
nowhere else. Paul doesn't talk about it, as
I've already said. Paul doesn't really give much
detail about Jesus' lineage. The other Gospel writers do.
But their audience requires it. Why now? Well, many people like
to argue why or why not or even that maybe Paul didn't write
that. But friends, what Paul is talking
about is the promise concerning his son, and this is part of
the promise. You see, it all goes together like a really good
puzzle, but it's not a puzzle at all. It's just one solid block
of pure, whatever the most expensive and rare thing we can get, palladium.
I don't know what's nice and expensive these days, but it's
a solid thing. It's a sure thing. It's not even
convoluted or mysterious anymore. It's clear as a veil. It's easy
to see. We can see the picture. And even if we can't make out
what it might be, it's written down below that we may understand
it perfectly. Jesus Christ was descended from
David because that is part of the promise. This lasting lineage. This is not an old wives' tale. It's not an old myth. It's not
an old thing that the Jews just carried around. Oh, you know,
somebody that's descended from David. Because remember where
they got it with the trickle-down-the-lane mindset. When Jesus arrived on
the scene and they saw that He was from God, and they confessed
it to Him, as Nicodemus would say in John 3, we know that You
are from God. What they hoped in is that now
this descendant of David will take His throne and kick these
Romans out. But that's not what Paul's talking
about at all. He's showing the promise of God. As the prophet Isaiah would reveal,
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and
a branch from his root shall bear fruit. Jeremiah, Behold,
the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up
for David a righteous branch. In His days, Judah will be saved
and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which
He shall be called. The Lord is our righteousness.
The prophet Ezekiel says something very similar, or God does, through
Ezekiel. And I will set up over them one
shepherd, My servant David, and he shall feed them. He shall
feed them and be their shepherd, and I, the Lord, will be their
God, and My servant David shall be prince among them. I am the
Lord, I have spoken. And all of a sudden, here is
Paul exclaiming, who descended from David, This title and this
prophecy was important. But in reality, if you know much
about the New Testament, it was not essential to the message
of the Gospel, was it? It wasn't essential at all. Not
one time in the entire narrative of Scripture does Jesus take
that title for Himself. And in Mark's Gospel, it's said
of Him, and He does not reject it, but He does not call Himself
the Son of David. He calls Himself the Son of Man. And that takes us to the very
next phrase, that Paul uses here in this prologue. "...who descended
from David according to the flesh." Look at that. According to the
flesh. So now we have this dual picture
here of Jesus. He's the Son of God and He's
the Son of David. How does that work? Well, He's
the Son of David according to the flesh. You see this? Here's how it looks. According
to the flesh, this is to show us that He was born of human
flesh. He was a true man. He really
was born of a virgin. He really did come into the world.
He did appear to us. He did intersect creation and
become like us. He did. And according to the
flesh, he was a true man, full human, fully human at all times. In John 7, we hear, has not the
Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David
and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? This
familiar understanding of the Messiah is never used by Paul
again, nor is it ever used by Jesus. Jesus was descended of
David, but it was according to the flesh. Why? So that the prophecy
would be fulfilled. Jesus preferred the Son of Man.
He never called Himself the Son of David. And He never called
Himself the Son of God. But He never refused that the
prophecies were Him. But according to the flesh, He
was true. This familiar understanding here
of the flesh is why Paul needed to say it. He needed to help
them understand that He truly was human. But then the next
part here, what does He say? According to the flesh and was
declared to be the Son of God. Now let's talk about that in
brief. Here is the other portion of Jesus' nature. Right here
in this little sentence we see a theological teaching that Jesus
was God and was man at the same time. Oh, that's a stretch. No, it's not. It's right there.
What else are you supposed to assume from that? What else are
you supposed to see there? Jesus is the one come from God.
That means, in essence, He is of the same nature as God. And
then He's also the one that come from Jesse. So at the same time,
He is of the same nature as man. The proof of these things are
in the next point. What does He say? who was descended
from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son
of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness. I won't
bog us down in all the ins and outs of the possibilities of
what this text could do or what it could mean, but let's just
look at it. In context, Paul speaks to this
issue in 2 Corinthians where he says he was crucified in weakness. Remember that. Jesus was crucified
in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are
weak in Him, but in dealing with you, we will live with Him by
the power of God. So that we see that by the power
of God, Jesus became flesh. And by the power of God, Jesus
was declared the Son of God. Jesus is declared, not appointed. He's not a man that existed and
then all of a sudden, yeah, there He is, I appoint Him. He was
always the Son. He's always been the Son. Appointed
is not an accurate rendering of this text. God declared Him
in power. It's a demonstrative thing. It's
a declaration. It's a decree of God. This is
My Son. Jesus in the flesh lived in the
power of God. Not in His own power. Well, I'm
confused. Of course, because it is a grand
mystery. But Jesus' humanity was not mingled
in with His divinity. Understand that, church. Jesus
was not this superhero human. Jesus was a human just like you,
and just like me. In other words, his flesh was
real. His life was real. His heart
and his mind and everything. He had to learn to speak and
learn to walk and learn obedience. Learn what was right and wrong
from his mom and dad. But never did he sin. And never
was the temptation to sin something that he struggled with in the
context that he wanted to fulfill his flesh. He always, as a human
being, wanted to fulfill the righteous requirements of God
the Father. but at the same time He still was fully God. But the mystery of it is He never
allowed His divine power, His divine nature to interfere with
His human self. Ever. So that He could truly
stand on the cross and cry out as a human being, Father forgive
them for they know not what they do. While at the same time the
will and the mind of God is to bring recompense against those
who murdered His Son. It's crazy. And it hurts your
brain to contemplate, really. But according to the Spirit of
holiness, the Spirit of God, it's not talking about Jesus'
fleshly holiness. This is not a euphemism or a play on words to talk about Jesus'
good deeds and His obedience. This is referring to the Spirit
of God. God, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.
By the Spirit of God, Jesus and His humanity was His Son. Now think about that for a second.
He was the Son of God. This is probably the last thing
I'll be able to say tonight. He was the Son of God because
He was of the same essence as God and He was the Son of God
in a divine way because He decreed that He would come to earth and
He didn't erase Himself of being God when He came in the incarnation
through the virgin birth. At the same time, in His humanity,
He was also still the Son of God as a person, as a human being. How? By the power of the Spirit. Put it together for just a second.
When Paul says, It is not I who live, but Christ who lives within
me. I think that's a little bit of
a glimpse of what this means for us now, but most importantly
for us in eternity. Glorification will, in its very
essence, as we live in fleshly bodies that will never die and
will never be sick, we will all be empowered by the Holy Spirit
of God to live righteously, perfectly, wholly. Think about it. How do we know that Jesus really
was this? Because it says here, by His
resurrection from the dead. Now there's an implication here
about Jesus' resurrection from the dead a lot of us don't think
about. Jesus as a human being was resurrected. Think about it. He wasn't a spirit,
He ate. He was a body. Jesus was resurrected. How dare God resurrect a man
to live forever? Because He is the righteousness
of God. In the same way, the promise
of the resurrection that's given to us, Jesus was resurrected
showing that His cross was not for Him. You see that? His cross
served Him none in the context of paying for any of His sin.
And the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves it. Well, Lazarus was raped and he
died again. He's not here today. He died. Jesus Christ lives forever. And there's a hope in that. Because
in the same way that Jesus was raised in His flesh, we too shall
be raised in our flesh. And we need to close with this
understanding. We have hope that Jesus Christ
is God and His Son because He was raised to life. And He was
raised to life by His own choosing of His own holiness. You forgot that, didn't you?
Jesus says, I have the power to lay down my life, and I have
the power to take it up again. Who is Jesus to do such a thing? Look at this very next phrase.
Jesus Christ our Lord. And we'll stop there, and we'll
get into verse 5 to the end next week. Jesus Christ our Lord. Here's the full title of Jesus,
the Messiah, who is the Lord. Now, a lot of people will argue,
and a lot of unbelievers will argue, and a lot of higher critics
will argue, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Jesus should be respected, so
Lord. The Spanish word for that is
what? Señor. That's it. That's it. Señor. The same thing, huh? Capitalized. But it's the same word you use
when you're talking to a man in a formal way with respect.
The same thing is true in the days of Jesus. The word Lord
was given to many who were in power, specifically for Romans
to the Caesar, but that's not what Paul's talking about here.
He takes and borrows, if you will, from the Septuagint. The
Septuagint is the 70 elders who translated the Hebrew Old Testament
into the Greek. It was the Bible that Jesus used
and the Bible that the Apostles used during the time of Jesus'
ministry. The Old Testament was in Greek. It's called the Septuagint.
If you ever see LXX, that's what it means. Septuagint. The word
LORD is translated LORD with all caps in the Old Testament
when it is speaking of the name of God that we don't know. So the writers of Scripture use
the word Lord to take Yahweh, if you will, and turn it into
an English word, Lord. The same thing is true here with
Paul when he uses Lord, he is saying that Jesus is God. not
just the Master, not just a respected man, not just a high and exalted
one, but God. Keep that deep. Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, is not just one to be honored,
but is one to be worshipped, one to be praised, one to be
celebrated for His glorious grace toward us, for His Gospel that
was promised to us and secured because God is faithful and He
cannot deny Himself. The Word of God shows that it
is true. And all the debates of all the
ages can never effectually bring salvation to anyone. But yet,
the dumbest, most ignorant, that's me, person in the world in hearing
the Word of God by the power of the Spirit can be brought
to the newness of life. It's a wonderful thing. And beloved,
as we continue in this, as we get deep into the text of this
letter, God may bring some of you to faith. God may open your eyes. And you
may be born again already, but one thing's for sure, beloved,
you will open your eyes to see a beauty, a gospel beauty that
you may have never seen before through the Word of God. No matter
what challenge sets before us, no matter what horror is behind
this door, no matter what burden crushes our shoulders or what
trips us down the road, The Word of God is our light. The Word
of God is the way that God ministers to us. Read the Word of God. Read it to your family. Read
it to yourself. And read it to your enemies.
Let's pray. How glorious, Father. How glorious
is the truth of Your Gospel, which You promised before the
foundations of the world, that You effectually did. provided and secured in Jesus
Christ. Lord, whatever may be troubling
us or be bothering us this evening, whatever weakness we may think
we have in our faiths, Lord, help us to see in Your Word that
You are never weak and You will never fail in the redemption
of Your people. So we hold fast to You. because
You have given us Your Spirit that we might never be cast away. For the Spirit is our seal of
redemption. We will never leave, though we
may stray. We will never defect, though we may sit idle. Father,
we will never not be sealed, no matter how weak our faith.
We praise You for that, in Jesus' name, Amen.