Romans, a brief introduction
to this letter just to help us get the idea of why Paul wrote
it, the fact that Paul did write it, and when and for what reason. Of course, the genre, and when
I say genre, that means what style, what category would this
fall into? Is it a poem? Is it history? Is it apocalyptic literature? Is it a reveal thing? No, it
is a letter. This is a letter, and those of
us who like to read different types of dialogue on New Testament
criticism or textual criticism, you'll probably, if you're that
type of person, you'll probably see or have seen that many people
like to argue that this is more of a treatise or a debate or
a diatribe or something of that nature where it's strictly written
in the style of teaching some deep doctrine. But friends, if
I were going to give a dissertation, I would not address it to anyone,
nor would I greet them. And so the very nature of this
writing and its construction is a letter. So it's a letter.
And while many people can argue the contents seem to point to
a different type of genre, we are going to call it a letter
because that's exactly what it is. Paul was writing to these
Christians in Rome. and he wrote to them specifically
and he wrote to them intimately. Yes, there is some deep theological
things there. Yes, the argumentation of Romans
is a good comparison between the old and the new, et cetera,
but it is just the same, a letter. This was written toward the end
of Paul's third missionary journey, and Paul was in Greece at the
time, and this was written around A.D. 57. And as we see in the
context of this writing itself, this very letter, we see that
Paul, as he was in Greece, had a three-part plan to a new journey. And that plan was to leave Greece
and go to Jerusalem. And what was he going to do in
Jerusalem? He was going to pick up a collection. And the reason
he was going to pick up a collection is because he needed money in
order to go to an unreached people, and the unreached people were
in Spain. And so Paul, from Jerusalem to
pick up his check, to Spain to go start some new churches and
to preach the gospel, he was going to pop in to Rome and visit
with them for he was not the one who planted the church in
Rome. Speculation, or people speculate that possibly converted
Jews in that area as they flee Jerusalem, went into Rome and
took the gospel there and then it just sort of took root. There's
really no record of how the church was planted in Rome or by whom,
but we know it was there, and we know it was a vibrant church,
to say the least. The point that Paul does then
in his writing, what he tries to do has been debated as well,
because every New Testament letter has a reason. For example, in
Galatia, the reason Paul wrote to the people of Galatia, to
that region, hundreds and thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands
of people, He wrote there because the Judaizers had come in and
began to invade the gospel of grace with the gospel of works
and obedience to the law, specifically circumcision by hands. And if you know what circumcision
is, you know that's a terrible thing to have to have that happen
in order for you to have eternal life and to honor the Lord. Paul
was saying that anyone who would practice such things are anathemas. Some people would argue that
maybe Paul was wanting to make sure that the people of Rome,
when the Judaizers showed up, would already have a clear gospel. Because of what was going on
in Galatia, Paul was concerned. Another reason is that Paul also,
as he talks over in the 15th chapter, I believe, he actually
gives some sense that Paul needs their prayers for his journey
to Spain. He also needs their prayers for
his journey to Jerusalem so that they can have the money to do
what he needs to do in order to do the work of the ministry.
In some sense then, some people say that Paul wrote this letter
as sort of a preview. Here I am. I'm authentic. When
I get there, I want you to take up a collection for me. And it
wouldn't be far-fetched. That was probably something that
Paul would have done if he had made it to Rome. But as we know,
he never got there. Well, not freely. But he never
got there to plant or do anything, and he certainly never got to
Spain because he was arrested. He spent the rest of his days
and then ministering to the people of Rome under the watch care
of the, uh, the name just escaped me. The Caesar. Thank you. My mind just went blank. So Paul
then was concerned with his trip to Jerusalem. He was concerned
with the understanding that the Romans would have of the gospel. And he was also concerned with
the Judaizers and everything that they were going, trying
to do in the region of Galatia. So I then say, why do we have
to pick one of those? Why can't all of those be a reason
for his writing? And people would argue, well,
we've got to know why he was writing. What was the problem? We don't
see a problem, do we? We just see strong, right out
of the chute, bold proclamation of the gospel right there in
verse 5. We're seeing grace. and apostleship to bring about
the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the
nations. So we see the gospel right there in the introduction.
Another thing to know about this letter, of all the Pauline letters,
it is the longest introduction of all of his letters. It has
93 words. 93 words. The other ones average
out at about 30. This one has 93. So he's a little
verbose, if we will. But what do we know about the
New Testament epistles? And see, it should cause you
frustration when you hear stuff like that. Well, why did he write
it? Who did he write it to? And these are interesting. They're
interesting from the historical perspective. They're also interesting
to understand a little bit about what the tone, the timbre for
which he writes. For example, the occasion and
the purpose of writing to the Church of Corinth was sin. Unruliness,
wickedness, lawsuits, incest. I mean, you name it. There's
just like this long list of garbage that the Church of Corinth was
dealing with and Paul wrote that letter for that purpose because
Chloe blew the whistle on all that garbage. And he wrote it,
he corrected it. The second letter we see is much
more pastoral in the praiseworthy tone rather than the rebuke in
the parental tone that we see in the first letter to Corinth. But when it comes to Romans,
we don't really know what that problem is. So some people say,
well, we don't know why he wrote it then, we can't really understand
it. But friends, why does it matter? Why does it matter? God Almighty purposed Paul to
write the letter to the Church of Rome, ergo he wrote it. And
that's enough. Now that sounds like a very stale,
ignorant, historically fundamental answer. Well, God sent it, God
said it, and that settles it. That actually was alliteration
too. That comes too easy. But why is that bad? Because
we live in a day of intellectualism. Intellectualism is not bad either.
But it's not bad because we don't have the specifics, and even
if we did, we know that God caused Paul to write every letter that
he wrote. We know that God caused Peter
to write his letters. We know that God caused Matthew
and Mark and Luke and John to write their Gospels and the doctor
to write his history. We know that He caused it. Jesus
says that in John's Gospel, that the Holy Spirit would give them
all understanding. And so we sit here today knowing
that the Lord purposed Paul to write this letter with the depth
and the style of this theological foundation in order that there
would be a clear Gospel to the people of Rome. Now here's something
that we forget about when it comes to Rome. When it comes
to Rome during this time in the first century at 57 AD, Rome
was the center of the world. And when I say the center of
the world, I'm not talking about geographically, but I'm talking about in transit.
So as people came out and went into the world, Rome was the
center. Rome was the hub. Rome was the pivot. Everything.
The world spoke a language that was Roman, the Attic Greek, the
Koinai Greek. The world used money that was
Roman. The world had, I mean, it was
just a Hellenized world everywhere we looked. Rome was a hub and
nothing that existed in the world didn't go through, existed without
going through Rome. Think about that for a minute.
All roads lead to Rome. Now Paul knew that. He was a
Roman citizen as well as a Jew. He was a Jewish Roman citizen
that became a Christian. What a mess. I don't know how
he identified. Yeah, we do. Christ and Christ
alone. All these other things didn't
matter to him. But Paul knew, even without incident, that if
he could get the Roman church to know the true gospel, that
he would guarantee its dissemination out to the world. The irony behind
that is that people like to take Romans And I saw a really funny
meme the other day. It said, the Armenian highlighter.
And it showed a picture of the last page of Romans 9, the first
page of Romans 10, and all of Romans 9 was highlighted in black
sharpie. Just sort of blocked out. Anyway,
if you got the joke, good. If not, they don't like that
chapter, and so they just don't want to see it. So they highlighted
it in redaction rather than something you could read. People take Romans
and they break it into tiny little pieces and they create pretexts.
And then out of those little tiny pieces and those pretexts,
they create big theologies that contradict the whole of the writing.
But God purposed to give us this letter to the Romans so that
we would know the true gospel. We can get it from John. We can
get it from other parts of the epistles. But it is nowhere found
as thoroughly complete and clear as it is in this writing to the
Romans. So that is one of the reasons why I think it's imperative
for us to do a reading through Romans. I'm going to do this
in the same manner in which I did Revelation, where we will take
a section of it, we'll read it, we'll talk about it and commentate
it, not deep exposition. It would probably be five or
six years to exposit Romans all together correctly. But at the
same time, I think it's still worthwhile to do an in-depth
survey of the letter through teaching. So let's get started. Romans chapter 1, verses 1 through
7. I won't get through all of them
tonight, but we will attack most of it. a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
which He promised beforehand through His prophets in 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. Wow. As I read through
that, I'm thinking, okay, that'll break up into two weeks. It'll
be slower than the other, but it will not be that slow. The first thing we need to see
here, and I just want to teach us a little bit of how to read
scripture, is we see that it's a letter. I, Paul, as a slave
of Jesus Christ, write to you, grace to you, and peace from
you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a
typical introduction for Paul. It's a salutation. How you doing?
I'm Paul. Good to see you. He talks a little
bit down in verse eight. He begins to thank God for them.
Sounds just like the letter to the Ephesians, to the Thessalonians,
to the Philippians. But there's some things here
as we read, as you've been discerning through the Gospel of John over
the last five Sundays, that if we're not careful, we just sort
of skip on through. And as we learn them, and we
learn to read New Testament literature correctly, we won't have to stop
and pause on all this every single time, but yet it will be given
to us in our minds that we would remember it. first who wrote
it, and oftentimes like if we see in certain other epistles
where Paul is writing this letter with someone else like Timothy
or Epaphras or Barnabas or something, then he'll say servants or slaves
or we, he'll use in that plural sense. But I want you to look
at the idea of a servant of Jesus Christ. What does it mean to
be a servant? The word there is doulos. For
those of you who have had home births, you know what a doulot
is. The word is just transliterated from the Greek doulos, which
is slave. It's a slave. And a slave is
someone who is totally in bondage to the commands of their master.
They do exactly what they're told to do and they do it with
excellence. The difference between a slave
who is owned by a master in the world today or by a Lord in the
world today through a system of hierarchy of human beings,
being a slave of Christ is not a lording over, fear and trembling
type thing, but a grand display of affection and gratitude. For
me to be a slave would be one of the most horrible things I
can consider. To be a slave of Jesus I can consider nothing
greater. And so Paul here is saying he's a slave of Jesus
Christ. And this as a slave of Jesus Christ, he talks to the
Corinthians in the first letter in chapter three, I think he
says, he uses the term there, and you are Christ's and Christ
is God's. So the first thing I want you
to see about Paul's introduction to this letter is he is showing
as a Roman citizen that he belongs to Jesus Christ. He belongs to
Jesus, which is so antithetical. It rubs the back of the cat the
wrong direction. If you've never petted a cat
this way, from tail to head, it does not like it and it will
scratch you. It doesn't like that. And it
rubs the wrong way for a Roman citizen to consider that they
are slaves, number one. And number two, to hear someone
who is a Roman citizen, who is not a slave to Caesar. who is
not a slave to Rome, who is not first and foremost about the
country or the nation. And Lord, help us. We all have
some sense of nationalism in our blood, some sense of patriotism.
We're thankful that we live in a nation such as ours that no
matter what, we have certain civil liberties that are just
not trampled upon. But friends, Paul would say,
even though he had civil liberties, he only exercised them for the
sake of the gospel expansion. Now let's stop here and let's
not do what humans do, especially good southern folks who are in
Baptist churches. Well, I'm just going to be a
slave like Paul. You know what? God hasn't called us to be a
slave like Paul. We are slaves just the same.
We are to be enslaved to the service of the Lord and He does
that by His grace and empowers us by the Spirit and it is a
joy for us But if we look then and we continue to understand
more of what Paul would say in the letter to the Philippians,
he doesn't live, but Christ lives. To die is better for him, but
to stay and remain is what is far better for you. So to be
a slave for Jesus is to be a slave to the people of Christ. So part
of what we need to understand there is that Paul was not concerned
about his nationalistic ideals, or his political party, or his
brothers and sisters of Rome, or even his Judaism. As a matter
of fact, he said it was all worthless. To be a slave for Christ is to
say there's no king but Christ, and there's no kingdom but the
kingdom of Christ. The sad tragedy is that so many
people, and we could talk about this a lot if we decided to sit
around a coffee table and dialogue on it, so many people consider
America God's kingdom or Britain God's kingdom or any monarchy
that has ever held the crown in any fashion of paganism or
barbarianism or civility has always said, well, this is God's
kingdom and I'm God's divine ruler. It's only partly true. Paul wasn't worried about that.
His point of being a slave to Jesus is summarized in some sense. He says to the Corinthians, do
you not know that your body is the temple? So not only are you
Christ and Christ God, but your body is the temple of the Holy
Spirit who is within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own. You've
been what? Bought with a price. So we've
been purchased by Christ. So there, right there in that
very statement, there is a gospel expression that's not even detailed.
We're purchased by Christ. We have been bought by the blood
of Christ. We've been bought by the work of God in redemption. He's redeemed us, that means
He's bought us, and He's paid for our sin, and now He owns
us. But it's not a negative thing,
it's a glorious thing. But I said just a minute ago,
we're not called, as Paul was called, to be the same type of
slave because Paul's servanthood, or servitude to Christ, we see
in this next phrase. Called to be an apostle. Apostolos. Apostle is a transliterated word
of the Greek apostolos, which is called one. Called one, or
sent one, or messenger. So we could say Paul, a slave
of Jesus Christ, called to be a messenger sent by Jesus. That's
what we could say if we were going to translate that thought
for thought. Now I'll sit here for a moment and I've already
seen, we're probably only going to get down through the end of
verse two. So verses one and two tonight. What is an apostle? Well, an apostle is first called. So anybody can be an apostle
in that name, in that sense of the definition, correct? I could
say, hey, Mike, I'm calling you, I need you to go and go down
to Food Fresh, I need you to tell the other Mike down there
to order some yogurt. And Mike can go down there and
says, James sent me to tell you to order yogurt. Mike doesn't
want yogurt, doesn't care about yogurt, doesn't give a flip about
yogurt, but he's going on my behalf and he's, I'm ordering
yogurt through him. Well, you may like yogurt, but
you know, you get the point. So he's my apostle for the sake
of getting yogurt, or sending the message about yogurt. That's
a stupid example. But just the same, he's the sent
messenger. He's the sent messenger by me. But when it comes to the apostles
of God, they were those who were sent by Jesus. Now, you've heard
me use the expression, mama called and daddy sent. And that's where
most pastors today sit. Mama's all the way through childhood,
oh, there's my little preacher. And when the boy turns 18, now
go, get out of my house. So mama called him to the ministry
and daddy sent him on out to do it. But that's not even being
called. I was called by the Lord to the
gospel ministry, but I'm not an apostle. I mean, I may do
apostolic type things like teach or pray or proclaim. I may even plant churches, and
I'm not an apostle. Just like I may do doctor-type
things, like put a Band-Aid on or give some medicine to my children
or, I don't know, charge people $5,000 for going, ah, I wish
I could. But it doesn't make me a doctor,
even though we don't do doctor-type things. It doesn't make me a
lawyer just because I can write up an affidavit or a lawsuit. I can't file it. And I can say
I'm an apostle all day long, but Jesus has not appeared to
me. And the risen Jesus has not come to me and has not stood
before me and said, go, priest of the Gentiles. That's what
happened to Paul. And Paul defends his apostleship
a lot because he wasn't part of the 12 minus one plus Matthias. He wasn't part of the 12. And
so a lot of times, and the Judaizers made that very clear to the people
of the region of Galatia, you shouldn't listen to Paul at all
because we know what we're talking about. We're holding to the truth
of the oracles of God for millennia. And now Paul, he says he's an
apostle. He never even saw Jesus during his earthly ministry,
which is true. He didn't hang out with Jesus in his earthly
ministry. Did he? No, he hated him. And I guarantee
it was around the circle. I guarantee he was there when
the Pharisees showed up and he was standing there going, he
was probably still in training and he was probably still hanging
out in the back going, yeah, I can't wait till I have a little
bit of authority. And on the day of the stoning of Stephen,
he took it and they gave it to him and he started killing Christians. But never do we see in any narrative
of scripture where Saul of Tarsus had a conversation like Nicodemus
with Jesus. Never was there opportunity for
Paul to be sent by Christ. And all of a sudden Christ has
been raised from the dead and then ascended to heaven. And
now Paul is what? Murdering Christians and arresting
Christians and destroying the church passionately. The point is this. then how can
Paul be an apostle? Well, we know what the Scripture
teaches. We know that in Acts chapter
6, when they called the deacons, in Acts chapter 7, when they
arrested and killed Stephen, and in Acts chapter 8, where
what? Where Saul started persecuting
the church and people all over Jerusalem dispersed and ran for
their lives and hid. And then Acts chapter 9, what
happens? On the way to Damascus, Jesus Christ appears to Paul
and says, why do you persecute me? And then Jesus Christ appoints
Paul to be his messenger. So he is sent as an apostle.
Now, that means that an apostle, according to scripture, there's
several things that qualify someone to be a biblical apostle. Let's
look at them. Number one, there's one, two,
three, four, five things. Number one, they are called directly
by the risen Christ in the flesh. They're called by the risen Christ
in the flesh. Post-resurrection, they are called and commissioned
to be apostles. The Scripture teaches in John
15, Jesus says, You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed
you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should
abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may
give it to you. He says something very similar in the context that
Paul, or Paul talks about this calling, if you will. And of
course, Jesus was not speaking of Paul in time in John chapter
15, because it was years later when Paul was called. But now
all of a sudden we see Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says, last of
all, as one, what untimely born he appeared to me." And that's
the message that he gave. That's the message that he felt
the Lord calling him, not felt, commanded by the Lord to go and
take to Caesar. When he was innocent of all charges,
Paul appeals to Caesar and for two years he's kept in prison
and suffers greatly so that he could go to Rome so that he could
tell the Caesar as he told King Agrippa, as he told the procouncil,
as he told many, Jesus Christ appeared to me and called me
and sent me to tell you this. You are not Lord, He is Lord. You are not God, He is God. And you all have hanged Him on
a cross and killed Him, but God has raised Him from the dead
and only by His name will you be saved." Now imagine that.
That's what Jesus did. He called Paul in the flesh. Not only are they called by Jesus
Christ in the flesh, but a true biblical apostle is taught by
God directly through the Spirit. You get that? So, that everything they wrote
down was not given them by God in writing, then they copied
it. Put their little flair to it. but that they had immediate,
continual knowledge by the Holy Spirit of everything that God
would reveal and teach for the sake of salvation and for the
sake of the glory of the name of God through the obedience
of faith. Paul says it right here in the
beginning of Romans. So that our true apostles called by Jesus
in the flesh and then taught directly by the Holy Spirit.
You know what? The Spirit teaches us as well,
doesn't He? How does He do it? Hearing the
Word of God, the Spirit blows and gives illumination to the
apostles' teaching. That's it. Very simple. Paul would say to the people
of Corinth, I bring them up a lot at night, but they just keep
popping in my head. Paul would say to the people of Corinth, anyone
who does not agree with this is not a brother. If anyone rejects
what I say, they're condemned. If anyone, he tells the people
of Galatia, tells you anything that contradicts what I say,
they're condemned. You know what that means? They're
not saved. They're not a brother. They're not just an inerrant
person sitting on the sidelines going, well, I reckon I don't
know what I'm saying. No, they know that they're not
speaking the truth. Because when the apostles spoke
and preached, it's because the Spirit of God Himself would speak
through them. And so much that when we see
in the narratives of the New Testament, we see when the apostles
or the disciples were arrested and beaten, 40 lashes minus one. I don't know about you, one lash
would be enough. I'll take the one you didn't
give him, how's that sound? You know, that'd be my argument.
And they were commanded by the procounsel, they were commanded.
and do not preach in the name of Jesus any longer. So they
go out rejoicing that they were found worthy to be suffered and
be beaten and be arrested for the cause of the gospel of Christ.
And they go right out the front door of the courts and begin
to preach at the steps of the courts. And the Bible says that
people were amazed. You know why they were amazed?
You know why we're amazed these days when we hear oratory? You
know, I'm amazed when we turn on the YouTube channels and we
see great preachers and great expositors and great theologians.
Wow, that's a smart guy. That's a smart guy. Wonder where he went to school.
I wish I could be that brave. You know what the Bible teaches?
Is that people were amazed that these men had such wisdom for
they were dumb. That's what it says. They were
dumb. They were stupid people. They're
just dumb old fishermen, dumb old shepherds, dumb old carpenters. No learning. And we know John
wasn't very smart. We can read his Greek. It's simple. It might be all Greek to you,
but it's simple compared to Dr. Luke's. Keep that in mind. Yes, Paul
was very educated, but he said all that was for nothing. He traded it all in. It was refuse
to the priceless gain of knowing Christ. Now, that's for the apostles. What do the apostles teach the
pastors of the first century? What does Paul, the apostle who's
taught by the Spirit of God, who was also an educated man,
what does he teach Pastor Timothy? Study to show thyself approved. What's that mean? That means
no longer does the Holy Spirit just in my bathroom, while I'm
soaking in the hot tub, give me visions of an understanding
of Scripture. And I just get out of the tub,
dry off, and just start preaching something you ain't never read
before. When I'm sitting out on the ballpark
eating a hot dog, and I look in my mustard and I'm like, oh,
the Lord's taught me something, I need to go preach it. It doesn't
work that way. That's ridiculous. When we hear
people say that God has taught them something, and we open up
the words of those whom God taught directly by the Spirit, and it's
not there, oh boy, if it were 1500 years ago, we'd knock them
in the head with a rock till their head and their brain bled
out. That's a little macabre. There's children in the room.
Children, when people lied about what God said back in the Bible
days, they killed them. That's true. They kill. Now we get to lie
and think we get away with it, but we don't. The apostle is
taught directly by God, without error, in all matters of faith
and truth. All matters. There is no error
in the apostolic authority. There is no error in the apostolic
knowledge. There is no error in the apostolic
wisdom. And brothers and sisters, there is no contradiction in
the apostolic writings. None. What about James? He says, faith without works.
Paul says, faith alone. Well, let's just study the Bible
and learn, study to show that's self-approved and see what they
mean. Thirdly, an apostle, what were
the first two? Called by the risen Lord in the
flesh. Second one, taught directly by the Holy Spirit. Thirdly,
giving power of authentication through signed gifts. The apostles. Now, people get
upset with me on this one. I'm not going to be so bold to
say I'm a cessationist. But I am an immutability lover. You know what that means? God's
attributes. There are many. I believe that
God's immutability, that means He's the same yesterday, today,
and tomorrow. He responds, and He doesn't respond.
He acts and speaks and reveals in the same way for the same
purpose as He always has. Hebrews 1, God many times, many
ways spoke to us and our forefathers through the what? Prophets. In
these last days, He speaks through the Son. The apostles wrote down
what the Son said. The Holy Spirit gave them exact
imprints of all knowledge. They wrote it down. Now we know
exactly what Jesus said. Signed gifts were important. And oh how I wish they were true
today. If God is going to use signed gifts, He will use it
for the same purpose. and he will use it in the same
manner as he did in the first century. So, therefore, if there
were to be some teaching going on right now, and let's just
say that I had heard Timothy preach in Ephesus. Let's just
play a little bit. And I was sitting out on the
side of the street and I heard Timothy preaching and some of
the other elders there in Ephesus, and I went back to my local assembly
in, I don't know, Athens, a couple of weeks later, and I said, you
won't believe what I heard. I heard Timothy, and I just teach
them what Timothy said. And somebody else would go, you
can make that crap up. How do you know? How do we know? And all of a sudden, maybe someone
was speaking another tongue, and then someone else would interpret
it. Maybe that's how it happened. Why was that the case? For the
edification of the church, to secure revelation, to make sure
it was authentic. Number one. It could also be
that when I was out doing church planting,
let's just say I was a lackey there with Barnabas when he and
John Mark went their separate ways and broke away from Paul.
And when Paul was going back through his first visits and
checking on things, and John Mark needed to be with Barnabas,
so they had not a little argument about it, but so they separated.
Let's say I was just a lackey, I was just a helper, and all
of a sudden I see when we get to a specific region, there's
already an apostle there. And his name is, I don't know,
Billy. And Billy the apostle is planting
churches. And he's teaching things. And
he's sharing truth about Jesus. And people are following him.
And better yet, guess what they're doing? They're paying him. They're
supporting him. Well, you know, I'm about to
go to Spain. I'm about to go to Rome. Oh, I need more money than that.
We're going to build a big church there. And remember when I say
build church and plant church, they had no buildings. Ever. They never built buildings. Ever
built buildings. They meant homes and places like
this, market, but wherever they could meet. So I say build and
plant churches by the apostles. They weren't collecting money
for the sake of buying property. They were collecting money for
the sake of eating and giving to the poor and establishing
a body there who, a lot of times, after they came to faith, lost
everything. So there was a lot of money that
was needed to plant churches. It's a lot different today. It
gives us a sound system, some lights, stuff like that. Well,
let's just say Billy's there, and I'm like, uh-oh, what happens?
Well, Barnabas gets there and heals the man from blindness.
And they said, well, who are you, Barnabas, to come in here and
preach? And he said, I'll show you who I am. Get up and see. And then Billy's over there,
well, I got a message from the Lord, and he's speaking in whatever
his native tongue is, and then all of a sudden, Barnabas gets
up and speaks in their native tongue, and then they'll believe
him all of a sudden. Or maybe somebody died and they
raised him from the dead, like Eutychus. Isn't that his name?
Is that his name? Yeah, Eutychus, who fell out
the window and died. The preaching was too long. Fell asleep, fell
out the window, died. They raised him from the dead.
It was to authenticate the message. So yeah, if God uses signed gifts
today, it would be to authenticate the message. Where would He need
to authenticate the message? I guess where the written word
isn't. And I know some places where
it isn't. And those same places, there aren't missionaries. Because
they can't go there because they end up getting cannibalized.
Or arrested and beheaded. But in God's timing, His word
will be there. It will be there. We pray that
the laborers would come, right? The signs of a true apostle will
be performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders
and mighty works. 2 Corinthians 12, 12. Fourthly, a true apostle would have... Let me rephrase
how I say this. A true apostle's message would
be absolutely fruitful. What's happening to the apostles? God is planting churches. What
is the planting of a church? Converting lost people. Appointing
elders in every city to put in order what remains. So the apostles'
preaching was always effectual. Listen to me. There was never
a time when the apostles went and preached that God didn't
save somebody. We're not, we don't have that
authority right now. God doesn't do that everywhere
all the time. And that's why the easy-believe-ism and the
finny-ism, if you don't remember what that is, I can tell you
next week because we're running out of time, but the mindset
of what we do evangelically in our era and have for the last
hundred years, in our world has greatly reduced the reality of
conversion because we've called people not with the gospel but
to something else. And a true apostle is proven
to be authoritative because God transforms people from darkness
to light. God saves. And so in this early, because
I mean, if you plan a church, I mean, if Robin and I moved
down here and no Christians could ever show up, I mean, nobody
ever got saved. I mean, we would say, well, God
hasn't called us here, I guess, unless we're Noah or Jeremiah.
Is that what you've called us to? How much more so if we would
feel failure, if the message of the cross is the power of
God, if the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and the
apostles through their mouths directly, speaking through the
spirit, were preaching the truth, why were they not? What would
happen if they weren't converting people? They were always converting
people. Paul actually says that in 1 Corinthians 9. He says,
if to others I'm not an apostle, I am at least to you. For you,
listen to what he's saying. Who's he talking to? These misbehaving,
mischievous, infantile Christians. He says, you are the seal of
my apostleship. I came to preach to you and God
saved you. I am an apostle because you exist. Finally, it's not necessarily
a sign, but as a fact about apostolic authority, an apostle. Apostolic
authority is not subject to the local assembly. You hear that? What does that mean? That means
the local church is not going to tell the apostles what to
do. Never was there a time where the elders would tell the apostles
what was what. It was the other way around.
And there is never an end to the apostolic authority. Did
you notice that? The apostles' authority still
hold over the church today. So when someone else comes up
and says, I'm an apostle, and they really are, I have to submit
to them. And you know what? I've never
met an apostle. I've met a lot of people with
that on their name tag. I've met a lot of people with that
on their business card. I've met a lot of people who stood
up in front of me and say, hi, this is Apostle so-and-so, this
is Apostle so-and-so. And I'm going, man, you've seen
Jesus? You're taught by the Spirit? You have divine authority over
Scripture? You have divine authority, eternal authority over the church?
You have all of this? You can do the sign gifts? Every
time you preach, someone comes to faith? Wow! I better get out of your way.
If Paul showed up today, I'd get down from here. Because Paul
wouldn't have to exegete his little old letter. He'd just
tell us. And we'd get it. You know why? Because God would
be speaking directly to us. You know the beauty of it? God's
speaking directly to us, not when I commentate. My preaching
is not God speaking to you. When I read this letter, God's
speaking to you. I see some preachers have got
it backwards. God help me if I ever think my argumentation
and preparation is divine. Now, it's divinely assisted,
and Lord, help if God does not do something. You think I'm hard
to understand now. Imagine if the Lord were not
running along with me and going out before me, most importantly,
to give you an understanding of what I'm trying to talk about. Acts 26, listen to the words.
but rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to
you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness
to the things in which you have seen me and to those, excuse
me, in which you have seen me and to those in which I appear
to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles
to whom I'm sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn
from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those
who are sanctified by faith in me." This is the commission of
Jesus Christ to the apostle, Paul. What did he send him to
do? Be a mouth of divine authority. Divine authority. This next phrase
in this text right here. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.
See, that's the point. Now, aren't we all set apart
for the gospel of God? Yes. You know what? God has not called
us to be apostles and to be a servant in the way that the apostles
were. Because Paul became a nothing. Are we supposed to become nothing? Yeah, doesn't Paul argue to the
Corinthians? There we are again. 1 Corinthians
1, for God uses the nothings of the world to bring to nothing
the things that are. He brings the lowly things. He uses the
weak. For the weakness of God is greater
than the strength of man, and the wisdom of man, or excuse
me, the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man.
Now we know there's no such thing as weakness or foolishness, but
it's in contrast. What is it that the apostles
have been called to, to preach and convert souls? I'm gonna say something right
now as we get through this. In the next few weeks, we'll start
to see some things, but I want to challenge our thinking as
a New Testament church in the 21st century. I want to challenge
that the purpose of the church is to be apostolic in the world.
I don't believe that's true. I believe the apostles are to
be apostolic in the world. And I believe that the church
as it exists is for the sake of praising God for His glorious
grace, become intimate with each other, intimate with Christ through
the teaching of His Word, having oversight with every member and
being submissive to one another out of love and grow and mature
in love and be equipped to do the work of the ministry. And
then if we dare take Matthew 28, what does Jesus say to those
500 plus souls standing there? Does he say, go out and be apostles? Does he say, go convert people?
He told Paul to convert people. He told Paul to preach and convert
people from darkness to light, from blindness to sight. He didn't
call us to do that. He's called us to make disciples
by using the words of the apostles and through the preaching of
the word of God, the apostles' authority is still bringing conversions
today. And we know it's the work of
God, it's the Holy Spirit, but it's all the work of God. We've missed the
point when we try to manipulate people into believing or argue
with people into believing. I've got a conversation going
on right now that I really want an answer to with a couple of people
when they're talking about what's the proper means of apologetics.
And I'm blowing their minds because they won't answer me. Where is
it found in the Bible, 2 Peter? Isn't that right? To give a,
what, reason, a defense for the hope that we have? What's the
context there? It's not about defending the
truth of scripture. It's not about defending God. It's not
about defending the truth of Christianity. It's about telling
people why we have joy in the midst of isolation, death, persecution,
and what else? Dispersion. We defend the truth of Jesus
Christ when all hell breaks loose in our lives, and we rejoice. That's the apologetic. And then
we say with our mouths, Jesus Christ died to save sinners,
of which I am one. And he brought me to life. We
share. We share the gospel. We preach
the word of God. The apostles have been set apart
for the gospel of God. They have nothing more in life
to proclaim than to plant the seeds of the gospel. Nothing.
They had no possessions, they had no power, they had no prominence,
they had no wisdom of their own, but they were just voices of
God called to suffer and to die and to be poured out. What does
Paul say in his last letter to Timothy? He says, I've fought
the good fight and I've finished the race. Let's be careful that
we're not trying to be apostles. Let's be the sheep. Let's be
the church. Let's be good evangelists and
let's be good apologists the way the scripture has taught
us to do. But let's not misunderstand that God's apostles still hold
authority over us today. And that is why we see in Acts
chapter two, what does it say? They daily devoted themselves
to the what? To the apostles teaching. In Galatians one, Paul even says
it goes back so far. It's about when He who had set
me apart before I was born and who called me by His grace. And
the very last thing I'll say as we close is that Paul was
certain of this, not even because the Spirit of God taught him.
Now see, here's where we can get in trouble. Well, how do
we know that what they were being taught by the Spirit of God was
right? Isn't that a good question? What
if they all conspired and got together? Because thousands of
years of Holy Scripture was there to validate what the Spirit taught
them. And he says it right there, set apart for the gospel of God
which He promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy
Scriptures concerning His Son. And we're going to go through
all that next week. So even then, the apostles, though they were
taught and sent by Jesus directly, there are no apostles today except
those who have left their mark by the power of God in this holy
writ. And even in their day, they never
contradicted, but yet they revealed the mystery of the Holy Scriptures
left for centuries. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much
for this introduction to this letter, Lord. There's so much
here, Father, and I praise you for your grace and your kindness
toward me. Lord, that you would keep me on task, keep me focused
to the point of the text. Lord, that you would give us
all understanding, not just of what is being taught, but Lord,
how it applies to us. That we are your servants, we
are your children, but we are not apostles. so that we do not
hold ourselves to the standard of what you did to the apostles,
but Lord, we to hold ourselves to the standard of Christ who
is above them, knowing that we do not have such a place to stand
and boast about. But Father, by faith, we stand
and say we are your righteousness, because Christ is our righteousness.
He perfected all things that are required of us. He fulfilled
all the obedience that you demand of us. Father, we received that
because your Holy Spirit came to us and woke us and gifted
us faith because you created and purpose the apostles for
such a time as that. And that today, Lord, we stand
on your word, on the word of your apostles who stood on the
shoulders of your prophets. Lord, who saw you and heard your
voice. and became slaves unto death
and hatred and forsake all things in this world. Lord, help us
to be willing to lay everything down for the sake of your name
and for the gospel. Father, until you've called us
to that, let us hold loosely and use what you have gifted
us in our abilities, in our treasures, in our affections for the sake
of each other that we might grow into a holy people, reflective
of your work and your hand in our lives. For it is in Jesus'
name we pray these things. Amen.