Now, as I said, we're not going
to go verse by verse today. I'm going to start that next
week, beginning with the first probably seven verses. But today
I want to talk about Paul, the Apostle Paul. Well, somebody
said, well, aren't you supposed to talk about Christ? Well, yes,
I'm going to do that too. You can't talk about Paul without
talking about him being a servant of Jesus Christ. But one of the
things I got to thinking about is I in going through this book
or starting it, is that the more you know about Paul as recorded
in the scripture, the more it helps you to understand the truth
that the Holy Spirit used him to write down, record in this
book. And the first thing we need to
understand is that as Paul was the human writer of this epistle,
You know, Paul the Apostle, also known as Saul of Tarsus, he dictated
this letter to a man named Tertius. It was probably around 50 to
60 years after the first coming of Christ into this world. And
Paul's purpose is always, and that's our purpose, to glorify
God, to bring the gospel to lost people, and to edify the people
of God. But the thing that we need to
understand about this is that Paul is the human writer, and
we can talk about his experiences, we can talk about his personality.
This is the word of God. I remember back in seminary,
when I was going to seminary, we'd go to New Testament classes,
and the professors would talk about Pauline theology. In other words, that's the theology
of the Apostle Paul. They talk about Johannine theology. That was the theology of the
Apostle John. Petrine, that's Peter, you know.
And they would talk about it as if these men were in disagreement.
But they're not. There's no such thing as Pauline
theology or Johannine theology. It's all God. It's all Christ. It's all the gospel. Paul opens
this letter up. He says the servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God. Now I'm going to talk about that
next week, the gospel of God. Remember Paul said in Galatians
chapter 1, he said the gospel that I preach to is not of man. It's of God. It's a revelation
of God. The gospel is the revelation
of the righteousness of God. And in the book of Romans, Paul
makes it clear that that's the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, which he worked out as the surety and substitute of
his people in his obedience unto death, which is imputed to his
people. And I've got marked on the back
here in a box, the back page, here's the theme of the book
of Romans, salvation and all of its blessings. By the sovereign
power and grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
God with us, and based on his righteousness imputed without
the works of men. Now that's the theme of the book
of Romans, isn't it? And that involves everything, that salvation
is. But here, here's a man that for
whatever reasons other than that we know is for his glory, the
Lord used this man to write probably 14 books, 14 epistles. in the New Testament. Some scholars
will say 13 because they will claim that Paul was not the human
writer of Hebrews. I believe he was, but I don't
make a big deal of that because it doesn't matter. It's the Word
of God. And that's the way we need to see the whole Bible from
Genesis to Revelation. If you've got a red-letter Bible,
don't throw it away. But that's one thing I don't
like about red-letter Bibles. You know, I've had people over
the years tell me, say, well, that's the words of Paul. I want
to read, just hear what Christ said. Well, Paul was an ambassador
for Christ. And that's what every true preacher
of God is. And especially when you talk
about the revealed word, the written word, this word is God
breathed. This is the verbally inspired
and errant word of God. Now my preaching is not, but
I preach the word of God. I preach the truth as it adheres
to this word. So when Paul was penning these
words, even the histories, he's penning the word of God. So don't
get the idea, well, the words of red carry any more weight
than the words in black because it's all Christ's word. And if
you don't know that, you're gonna mess up in not trying to understand
the Bible. Well, another thing you need
to understand is that Paul didn't teach anything different than
what the Lord himself taught. So everything that Paul was given
to record in the word of God concerning the gospel, how God
is just to justify the ungodly, is perfectly consistent with
the words in red. Okay? So understand that. Now, Paul identifies himself
as a servant of Jesus Christ. And this is another thing I'll
bring up next week. That word servant there is a
bondservant. A bondslave of Jesus Christ.
In other words, Paul wanted to make it clear that he was not
serving the Lord because he was forced to do so against his will,
or because he owed a legal debt that had to be paid. Back over
in Exodus 25, I'll show you this next week, where they had under
the law of Moses, the law of bond slavery, where a person,
a man would get in debt, and in order to pay off the debt,
he had to be a slave, a servant to the debtor. And then he had
to serve so many years, and then the debt was paid, and then he
had the option whether to leave or to stay with his master. And
the bond servant was one who loved his master so much that
he chose to stay. Remember, they bore his ear with
an awl. And some cultures, they say,
they put a ring in it, and you could tell the difference between
somebody who was a forced slave legally and somebody who was
a bond slave by that ring in their ear. Well, every child
of God is a bond servant of Christ. Our debt has been paid, but not
by us. The debt was paid by Christ on
the cross of Calvary as our surety and substitute. He paid it all.
He paid my sin debt. in full and he brought forth
righteousness whereby I'm justified before God so we serve God not
because we're legal forced slaves trying to pay a debt and we serve
God not because we're mercenaries trying to earn our way into his
favor and blessings but we serve God out of grace love and gratitude
and that's the issue of a bond servant. Now that's how Paul
identifies himself and I think it's very appropriate that we
take notice that Paul, he wasn't like a lot of preachers today.
He didn't take these highfalutin titles to himself. you say, and
I've got in here, it's like Eli, you remember in the book of Job,
the young man Elihu, or Elihu, however you want to pronounce
it, he came at the end and he told him, in Job 32, 21 through
22, he says, let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person,
neither let me give flattering titles unto man, for I know not
to give flattering titles, in so doing, my maker would soon
take me away. So, Paul didn't say, I'm the
right Reverend Dr. Paul. He didn't say, I'm the
apostle Paul. You know, the only time that
Paul defended his apostleship is when he was under attack from
false preachers and he was forced to do so. And you remember what
he said to him in Corinth? He said, bear with me in my folly. You know, they were accusing
him of being a false apostle. And then he went back and he
said, and in Galatia too. So he didn't want to defend himself
that way. He just wanted to preach the
word of God. and so that's that's what we do and i always think
about this you know if you want to talk about titles and stuff
and credentials think about john the baptist that fella had some
credentials didn't he the last of the old testament prophets
he himself was prophesied in the book of malachi to be the
the one who would prepare the way for the messiah to come and
he was that one he baptized the lord jesus christ Christ himself
said there was none greater born of woman. And he was, he was
Christ, humanly speaking, he was his cousin. He himself had
a miraculous, think about the credentials. Boy, you'd get a
crowd, couldn't you? But John didn't take any of those
titles, he didn't mention any of those credentials. In fact,
his whole presentation of himself as far as a person was in the
negative. I'm not the way. I'm not the light, I'm not the
Messiah. He said, I'm not fit to tie his
shoelaces. I must decrease, Christ must
increase. And I love that passage, I think
it's in John chapter three where it talks about the disciples
of John heard John preach, but they followed Jesus. And that's
the way Paul was too. Well, now you know about Paul. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.
There is a miracle of the grace of God. Turn to Acts chapter,
let's see, Acts chapter 7. Let's turn to Acts chapter 7
to start off with. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.
He wasn't always a servant of Jesus Christ. He was once an enemy of Jesus
Christ. Stephen, The evangelist. Sit down sometime and read Stephen's
whole message. You know what he does in that
message? He recounts the whole history of Israel to show them
that there was one reason for the existence of the nation Israel. And that was the coming of the
Messiah into the world. The coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The one they rejected. And when they rejected it, Stephen
told them the truth. He says, you stiff necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears. You do resist the Holy Ghost
as your fathers did before you. And they got mad and they took
up stones and they stoned him. And you know what it says here
in verse 58 of Acts chapter seven. They cast Stephen out of the
city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their clothes
at a young man's feet whose name was Saul. Saul was in agreement
with them. Verse one of chapter eight, look
at it. And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time,
there was a great persecution against the church. Saul was
part of it. Verse three of chapter eight,
Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and
hailing men and women, committed them to prison. That means he
drug people out of their homes and took them to prison. Why?
Because they believed in and preached Christ, the gospel. Look over at chapter nine, verse
one. And Saul, breathing out threatenings
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high
priest and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues,
that if he found any of this way, what way? Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father
but by him. If he found any in this way, whether they were men
or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And so
he went on his way to Damascus. As my old pastor used to say,
Paul on his way to Damascus, and you know the story, Christ
appeared to him. The resurrected Christ, the ascended
Christ appeared to Paul in a special revelation. Because that's what
defines an apostle. They got their message directly
from the Lord. And Christ appeared to him and
put him in the dust and he saw that great light. Remember Christ
said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And so Saul was put
down and he was converted. Now they sent him to a man. Who was the man they sent him
to? What was his name? I forgot. It slipped my mind.
Ananias. Sent him to Ananias. And there he was instructed in
the letter. You know that Paul was converted
to Christianity. It's an amazing thing. Now, What
brought about this great change? Well, first of all, let me say
this. Paul was an avowed enemy of Christ. Now, let me give you
something that the scripture teaches that people do not want
to hear. Before we hear and believe the
true gospel, and are brought by the power
of Christ through the Spirit to faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works. We're all enemies of Christ. Now turn to Colossians chapter
one. Now you might say, well now look, if I'd have been there
with Stephen, I wouldn't have thrown a stone at him, thrown
a rock at him. Well first of all, you don't
know if you would have or not. You don't know how you'd have
been brought up in that culture. You don't know how you would
have thought. Have you ever seen or have you ever heard of somebody
who committed a great crime, just a heinous crime, maybe against
children, and you want to just kill them, that kind of thing?
Well, that's the way the Jews thought about these Christians.
They thought they were just heretics who were just misrepresenting
God. That's why Saul, Paul, somebody said, well, he was Saul and then
God changed his name. There's nothing in the Bible
that says that. He's Saul, he's Paul. One's a Greek name, you
know, one's from the Hebrew. But here's the thing. We're all
enemies of Christ before we hear and believe the gospel, even
in our religion. Now look here, he says in Colossians
chapter one in verse 19. It says, for it pleased the Father
that in Christ should all fullness dwell. And having made peace
through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things
unto himself by him, I say whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind, Now, you may not have done anything physically
to express this, but in your mind, and how in your mind, by
wicked works yet now hath he reconciled. Now, what are those
wicked works? They are works of sinners aimed
at establishing their own righteousness before God. When you see those wicked works,
don't think of just the immoral, The perverted, those are wicked
works. But they're not doing that trying
to please God or trying to get into heaven. Now I know there's
some perversions in history where people have done some horrendous
things thinking they were doing the will of God. In fact, Mark's
gonna read a passage of scripture in line with the message today.
It talks about they'll throw you out of their synagogues and
they'll kill you thinking they're doing God's service. Well that's
what was happening to these Christians that Saul was going after. He
was arrested, they were being tried, and they were being killed.
But the wicked works that he's talking about is the same as
the evil deeds in John 3. You see, we by nature hate the
gospel for the same reason that Saul of Tarsus hated it. Because
when the gospel shows us that there's only one way of salvation
based upon the imputed righteousness of Christ, it exposes our efforts,
our morality, the things we by nature think recommend us unto
God as being wicked and evil. And that's why Saul hated it.
And that's why we hate it until we come to hear the truth of
Christ. Well, again, what brought about
this miraculous change? Well, in Paul, what brought him
from hating Christ to preaching Christ? What brought him to being
an enemy of Christ, to being a servant of Jesus Christ? Well,
I will tell you something, it wasn't, how could it be accomplished? It wasn't his goodness, because
he didn't have any, and he said that himself. He wrote in Romans
3, 10 and 11 and 12, there's none good, no not one. So it
wasn't his goodness. It wasn't his works and efforts
to keep the law. He said, by deeds of law shall
no flesh be justified in God's sight. There's no way that we
can be declared by God not guilty and righteous in his sight by
our works. It wasn't by his free will, as
people say, because he said, there's none that understand.
There's none that seeketh after God. And as I quoted my old pastor,
he wasn't on his way to a prayer meeting on Damascus Road. He
wasn't seeking the Lord. He was, you could say, well,
he was seeking him to kill him. So you understand that now he
was brought to seek the Lord when God, when Christ put him
in the dust, it's the power of the Holy spirit. It's the power
of Christ whose righteousness imputed is not only the ground
of our justification, but the source and power of our sanctification
by the spirit, our regeneration, our conversion. And he was brought
to that. Now, when Paul later on wrote
a letter to Timothy, remember he wrote two letters to a young
evangelist named Timothy who was Paul's, Paul was Timothy's
mentor. He told Timothy in 1 Timothy
1.16 that he, that the Lord had set him forth as a pattern of
salvation. In other words, a prime example
of how God saves sinners. Now, we have to understand that
God saves all of us one way, not many ways. It's all the same
way. Now, that's not to say that we
don't come from different areas of the country, we don't go through
different experiences, we have different cultures, different
personalities. It may be one preacher or another
preacher or a group of preachers, we may be reading a preacher.
But God always brings his people, his sheep, his elect under the
preaching of the gospel. And it's under the preaching
of the true gospel wherein Christ is revealed in who he is and
what he accomplished that the Holy Spirit works his power,
the power of God unto salvation. And Paul's a pattern of that,
he says. Go over to Philippians chapter
three and let me introduce you to Paul through his spiritual
autobiography. This is what the Holy Spirit,
Philippians chapter three. Now remember what the theme of
the book of Romans is. Salvation and it's for sinners,
not the deserving, not the righteous, but for sinners and all of its
blessings. by the sovereign power and grace
of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God with us, that's
who he is, and based on his righteousness imputed without the works of
men. His righteousness is the obedience unto death on the cross,
his death, burial, and resurrection. And that's what Paul made clear
in all of his epistles that he went on to show how this is God's
grace, God's grace. Well, listen to what happens.
You look at verse three of Philippians three. This is Paul's spiritual
autobiography as the Holy Spirit inspired him to write it. For
we are the circumcision. Now, what's he talking about?
He's talking about circumcision of the heart. Now, what is circumcision
of the heart? That's the new birth. That's
regeneration and conversion. Well, how do you know that Paul's
talking about that? Well, he's fighting against the Jewish unbelievers
who were promoting physical circumcision as a way of pleasing God. And
he says, now they call themselves the circumcision, but they're
really the concision. In other words, if you'd be circumcised
for that purpose, physically, he said Christ will profit you
nothing. But I'll just, I won't, we won't turn there, but in Romans
two and verse 28, you remember what he said? For he is not a
Jew, which is one outwardly, and circumcision is not that
which is of the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly,
and circumcision is that of the heart and the spirit. What is circumcision of the heart?
Well, circumcision physically was the cutting away of the filth
of the flesh. Circumcision of the heart is
spiritually cutting away the filth of the flesh. Now, what
does that mean? Well, look at it. For we're the circumcision
which worship God in the spirit or as we are guided by the spirit
and from the heart, the new heart, and we rejoice in Christ Jesus.
That word rejoice there is a different word than the word rejoice up
in verse one. The word up in verse one, finally
my brethren rejoice in the Lord, that means to have joy. But the
word rejoice in verse three, rejoice in Christ Jesus, means
to have confidence in. It means to glory in. It's the
same word Paul used in Galatians 6, 14 when he said, God forbid
that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So he says, we're the circumcision, we worship God according to the
spirit, in the truth, and means we have confidence, we glory,
we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
We don't have any confidence in ourselves. We don't have any
confidence in what we do or don't do, it's all in Christ. All right,
go on, verse four. Though I might also have confidence
in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof
he might trust in the flesh, I more." In other words, Paul
is saying, if anybody could have become righteous by their works,
or please God, or been recommended to God by the works, I more.
And here's what he said, now look at verse five. Circumcised
the eighth day, that's according to the law, of the stock of Israel. of the tribe of Benjamin, an
honored tribe. And Hebrew of Hebrews, that is
not a mixed breed here, he's a child of Abraham, as touching
the law of Pharisee, went above and beyond the call concerning
zeal, persecuting the church. This is how zealous he was for
his God. Touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless. Now that's Paul's biography as
an unconverted, unbelieving, Christ-hating religionist. But something happened. Now at
what point on the Damascus Road or afterward did this happen?
I don't know and I don't care. And if you're going to argue
about that, get away from me. Okay? I know Paul heard the gospel. I tell you what, he heard Stephen
preach it, didn't he? But I believe he heard Peter
and James and John preach it too in Jerusalem. That's why
he hated it so much. I know he knew what these men
were saying. He didn't believe it, and he
didn't love it, and he didn't want it, and he hated it. But
at some point in time, God took the words of the truth and applied
them to his heart in regeneration and conversion. But here's what
happened. Look at it, verse seven. But
what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Can you count everything lost
for Christ? Everything that you thought,
think, recommended you unto God other than Christ crucified and
risen from the dead, other than his blood, other than his righteousness. Because if you count it all lost,
that's what circumcision of the heart is. That's repentance. That's belief in Christ and repentance.
And look on, he says, verse 8, he says, yea, doubtless I count
all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord. The knowledge. Now who teaches
us that knowledge? Well, the Holy Spirit does through
the preaching of the gospel. the person and work of Christ
for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and do count them
but done." My experience with myself as a lost person before
I was converted and with other religious people is they can't
let go of the past. They can't. Why not? Because they haven't seen the
excellency of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. That's it. He said, I count it
but dung that I may win Christ. Look at it. That I may win Christ
and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which
is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith. In other words,
I used to think that all my efforts were something, meant something
with God. He said, now I put them on the
dung heap. Every time I read that, count it all but dung,
you know what that is. A lot of translations will try
to kind of flower it over and they'll say the rubbish heap. It's what Paul meant it to be.
And I think about Hannah's prayer, God lifting the beggar off the
dung heap. Can't remember which preacher
it was he used to say at the conference, but he said, my address
before God converted me was Dunheap Drive. That's what it was. Well, let's look on. Verse 10,
that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. What is
the power of his resurrection? Listen, it's the power for him
to give life because righteousness has been established and it's
through the gospel. who is the power of God unto
salvation in the hands of the Holy Spirit. That's a literal,
you know, when Paul was converted, it was a literal resurrection
from the dead spiritually, and that's the way it was with all
of us who were converted. And he says, in the fellowship
of his sufferings, that's what Paul's starting to go through.
If you read those passages in Acts chapter eight and nine about
Paul and his conversion, it talks about how some of his former
friends put a contract out on him. They wanted him dead. Being made conformable unto his
death, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of
the dead. That's the second coming of Christ. Verse 12, not as though
I had already attained, either were already perfect. Now he's
talking about in himself. I'm perfect in Christ, but I'm
not yet perfect in myself, but I follow after. If that I may
apprehend that for which I'm also apprehended of Jesus Christ.
Brethren, I count myself not to have apprehended. In other
words, I haven't been glorified with Christ in my own person
yet. I'm still getting old and still
getting sick and still headed for physical death. But he said,
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,
see it? And reaching forth unto those
things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That's his spiritual
autobiography. And that's what he's all about
now. Not dwelling on the past, but looking to Christ, the author
and finisher of his faith. And that's the spiritual autobiography
of the Apostle Paul. And that'll really help you understand
his teachings in the Book of Romans. All right.