Now you will remember that our teaching theme for 2023-24, our ministry theme this year is, “Lamp to our Feet: Knowing and Loving the Word of God.” And in the remaining weeks of this month, as part of our focus on getting to know the Bible better, we are going to take an intensive look at the teaching of the epistle of Paul to the Romans. And so morning and evening on Sundays, and again on Wednesday nights, I’ll be preaching right through the book of Romans in twelve messages. Obviously going at that pace means that we’re really only able to provide an overview of the teaching of the letter. We’ll be moving through large sections of the material at once. And my objective in taking that approach is that if you will commit to morning and evening and Wednesday nights with me throughout the course of this month in Romans together, that you would feel, when February rolls around, that you have a better grasp of the message of the book as a whole and you’ll come to love both Romans and the Christ that it proclaims so very clearly with new vigor and zeal and joy to the glory of God. That’s my prayer and my objective and I’d love for you to join me in that prayer in this month.
Martin Luther, the great German reformer, felt that Romans was so important that he called it, “the chief part of the New Testament.” The chief part of the New Testament. And he added that, “it is worthy” – listen to this – “not only that every Christian should know it word for word by heart, but also that he should occupy himself with it every day as the daily bread of the soul.” Isn’t that striking? Luther thought that we ought to all know it word by word, by heart, and read it every day as the daily bread of our soul. Clearly, Luther believed Romans was key to the spiritual health of every Christian.
And yet in contrast to that attitude, while many of us know parts of Romans quite well, the eighth chapter in particular comes especially to mind, in these days of widespread Biblical illiteracy, I feel that not many of us know the whole book nearly as well as we should, with the sad result that we are missing out on a great deal that God intends for us for our spiritual good. And so beginning this morning with the first seventeen verses of chapter 1, we start this rather rollercoaster ride through Paul’s letter. These seventeen verses introduce us to many of the major themes that we’re going to see Paul return to again and again throughout the book. And so if you haven’t done so already, take your Bibles in hand and turn there with me please. Romans chapter 1, verses 1 through 17, on page 939 if you’re using one of our church Bibles.
Now as we consider the passage, I want you to look at it under three headings, really three questions that Paul’s introduction answers. First in verses 1 through 7, there’s the “who” question. From whom, for whom, and for whom? Sorry – From whom, about whom, and for whom is the letter to the Romans written? And answering the “who” question – From whom, about whom, and for whom is Romans written? – actually summarizes the Gospel’s message. So the “who” question summarizing the Gospel’s message. Then verses 8 through 15, the “how” question. How does this Gospel shape Paul’s own ministry and mission and how should it shape ours? And so Paul summarizes first the Gospel’s message and then in 8 through 15, the Gospel’s mission. And then thirdly, 16 and 17, the “why” question. Paul tells us what it is about the Gospel that motivates him and drives him to be so bold in his missionary endeavors. Here’s why it is worth telling the whole world, and here we learn about the Gospel manifesto; a manifesto that Paul will spend the bulk of the rest of the letter explaining and unfolding to us.
So there’s the outline. Have you got it? Verses 1 through 7 – the “who” question. The Gospel’s message. Then 8 through 15 – the “how” question. The Gospel’s mission. And 16 and 17 – the “why” question. The Gospel manifesto. Before we unpack each of those themes, as always, let’s pause and pray and then we’ll read the passage together. Let us pray.
Lord our God, Your Word is open before us as indeed is are our hearts, our minds, our intentions, our motives. You know us altogether. Before a word is on our lips, O Lord, You know it completely. There is nowhere where we may flee from Your presence or hide from Your Spirit. Your hand holds us fast, and even the darkness is as light to You. So, O God, would You search our hearts and know us? Would You speak Your truth? Send forth Your light and Your truth and let them be guides to us, and do it all for the glory and renown of the name of Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.
Romans chapter 1 at the first verse. This is the Word of God:
“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 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.
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you – that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy, inerrant Word.
Who?
Now let’s look together at verses 1 through 7 first of all as we ask the “who” question and see how Paul summarizes the Gospel message. I’m sure you all received plenty of Christmas cards and update letters and round robins from friends and family this year, no doubt, and they all tend to follow the same format and style. Don’t they? A smiley picture of a beautiful family in silly Christmas sweaters with a greeting of some kind printed on the card. And we know exactly where to look to find the information we need to remind ourselves of who these insufferably handsome people are and then to feel guilty that you forgot to send them a card in return. We know exactly what to do with this information.
My point is, we know the conventions. Right? We know exactly what’s going on when we get this kind of mail. And Paul, likewise, typically follows a standard convention. His letters follow a convention. He uses a basic pattern common to ancient Greek letter writing style. There is the identification of the author and then the recipient, then a brief greeting and usually a prayer. And if you’ve read through the New Testament letters, you will quickly become familiar with that pattern, just as familiar you no doubt are with those round robin letters that clutter your mailbox at Christmas.
And so if you look at verse 1, you’ll see Paul beginning to follow that pattern and structure. He identifies himself as the author. “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God.” But it seems as though hitting on that last phrase, “the Gospel of God,” Paul has double-clicked on a folder on his mental desktop and a whole lot of material suddenly opens up that he now feels compelled to share. He sort of breaks the conventional format here a little bit because he wants us to see that his Gospel, which is the great burden of both his ministry as an apostle and the letter to the Romans as a whole, this Gospel isn’t ultimately sourced in Paul at all. Paul is not its true and final author. It is, he says, “the Gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.” This message of good news isn’t Paul’s invention. It is the message that the whole Bible has been proclaiming since Genesis 3:15 onward, which means that it is really God’s Gospel. And that makes all the difference, doesn’t it? If it were merely Paul’s Gospel, then we needn’t believe a word of it. But if it is God’s Gospel, then we can’t afford to ignore any of it.
Well okay, if that is who the Gospel is from, who is the Gospel about? Would it surprise you to learn the Gospel is not about you and it’s not about me. I have a friend who, after a while talking together, likes to say, “Well, enough about me; let’s talk about you. Why don’t you tell me what you like about me!” And he’s poking fun at our basic narcissism isn’t he because that’s what we are like, isn’t it? We like to put ourselves at the center of the story. Martin Luther said that sin is “incurvatus in se” – it’s turned in upon itself; it makes us turn in upon ourselves. Sin is self-obsessed, self-absorbed, self-focused. Sin puts self at the heart and center of everything. But what makes the Christian message such good news is actually the humble, painful discovery that we are not in fact the center of the Gospel story at all. One of our greatest needs is to get out of our own heads, to find something other than self to fill our gaze and capture our hearts. And so, Paul says the Gospel of God, verse 3, concerns His Son. The Gospel isn’t about you; it isn’t about me. It is about Jesus.
And notice carefully what Paul says about Jesus. He was “descended from David, according to the flesh, and was declared Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul is talking about what theologians sometimes call Christ’s two states. During the days of His earthly ministry, He was Son of God according to the flesh. He was the descendant of David through Mary, legally adopted into the family line of Joseph. That is Christ’s state of humiliation. They’re talking about His self-humbling; in weakness, bearing our sin, suffering in our place, dying, lying in the grave. Jesus is God’s Son, descended from David according to the flesh. This is His state of earthly humiliation. But then by His resurrection, He passes into a new state, a state of exaltation. He was, Paul says, in His resurrection, because of the work of the Spirit of holiness, “declared Son of God in power.” He was Son of God in weakness as our suffering, sin-bearing substitute; the child of Mary, the man of Calvary. But when the bonds of death were broken and the stone was rolled away and He stepped alive from His tomb on the third day, He was publicly marked out and acclaimed by God the Father through the Spirit of holiness, in His resurrection, to be Son of God now in power.
Think about the transfiguration. Peter, James and John were given a privileged glimpse of Christ’s post-resurrection glory there on the mount of transfiguration, as it were, ahead of time, that they might see what lies on the other side of Christ’s victorious sufferings. Jesus’ face, Matthew says, “shone like the sun, and His clothes became white like light.” It was a preview of the triumphal reign into which Jesus would be ushered by the Spirit of holiness when the stone rolled away and He rose in triumph. And the sight, the sight of it stunned the disciples, didn’t it? It gripped them. This is the focus of the Gospel, Paul says. Jesus, Son of God, in these two states – in His state of humiliation according to the flesh, His lowly birth, His obedient life, His sufferings, His death, His burial – and His state of exaltation, declared Son of God in power by the Spirit of holiness, His resurrection, His ascension, His heavenly reign, His ever-living to intercede for us, His coming soon to judge the living and the dead. Paul is writing in Romans, in other words, to fill our eyes with Jesus. To fill our eyes with Jesus.
We want the “so what?” We want the practical pay off, don’t we? Enough with all the theology and exposition. Just cut to the chase, preacher, and tell me what’s in it for me. Well Paul, I think is saying here, “Not so fast. There is a great deal in it for you, of course, and we will get to all of that, but the best thing about the Gospel, the best thing, the thing that makes the good news so very, very good is that it’s not all about you at all. Not at its center. It’s about Jesus, God’s Son, humbled and exalted. Fill your gaze with Him.” That, ultimately, is what’s in it for you. Jesus is in it for you. The Gospel is from God. It’s about Jesus. And it’s for whom?
Look at verses 5 through 7. “We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all nations.” Including you. You are called to belong to Jesus Christ. “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.” Before we answer the question “for whom the Gospel is proclaimed” will you just linger with me for a moment over that striking phrase, “the obedience of faith.” Do you see it there in verse 5? “The obedience of faith.” Jesus’ coming, His humiliation and His exaltation, His self-giving and His holy reign, His death and His resurrection, they demand faith from us. Faith is a requirement of the Gospel. God commands us all to believe the Gospel. To obey that command is to have faith in Jesus. The obedience of faith, that is, the obedience that is faith; the Gospel requires faith.
Now I wonder if you’ve ever really felt the force of that before. Maybe you thought of God’s invitation to trust in Jesus as a sort of optional, kind of discretionary thing, and so there’s nothing particularly urgent about it. After all, you can take or leave a mere invitation, can’t you? And so maybe you would say you believe in Jesus as a matter of mental conviction and intellectual assent, but you’ve delayed responding personally to Him from your heart for yourself directly, earnestly. You’ve kept Him at arm’s length, truth be told, in the mistaken conviction that to delay surrendering to Christ in faith until you felt you were “ready” was hardly anything objectionable in that, surely. It’s morally neutral, offending no one. But nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth. You see, God commands you to believe in His Son. Did you know that? It is an imperative, an obligation. You must believe. And your continued delay in responding to His call is itself an act of disobedience. You must render to Him the obedience of faith without delay.
And that command to believe, notice carefully, goes to who? What does Paul say in verses 5 and 6? It goes to “all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all those in Rome.” This Jesus, humbled and exalted, the Son of God in weakness, the Son of God in power, this Jesus is for all the nations. He is for the world, including you, Paul says. There is no thought here, is there, about qualifying for Jesus, about being good enough for Jesus, about living up to expectations or fitting in or cleaning up your act before you can come to Jesus. No, Paul says God has designated His Son, Jesus, for the whole world that anyone who wishes, anyone who wishes, may have Him as Savior, without any delay, without any preparation, without any hesitation. You can take Him right away, today, here and now, and have Him as Savior and Lord. If you’d only offer to God the obedience of faith, come and put your trust in Him. That’s Paul’s answer to the “who” question. You see how it summarizes the Gospel? It is from God, it is about Jesus, and it is for you. It is for you.
How?
Then secondly, how about the “how” question. This time Paul models for us the Gospel’s mission. And already I hope you can see clearly enough there is a strong missionary principle, an evangelistic impulse, built right into the DNA of the Gospel itself. Do you see that in verse 5? Paul said he “received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.” This amazing Gospel of God, about Jesus His Son, isn’t meant to be kept to ourselves. It’s meant to be shared with the world. It is for all the nations. And in verses 8 through 15 we get to see that missionary impulse playing out in Paul’s own ministry. Do you see it?
Notice first of all his eagerness. Look at his language. “Without ceasing,” he says, and “always,” verses 9 and 10, he prays for an opportunity to come and visit them. He longs to see them, verse 11, so that they might be mutually encouraged by the sharing of spiritual gifts. He is under divine obligation, a spiritual duty before God, to minister to Greeks and to barbarians, to the “wise and the foolish,” verse 14, and so he says he is “eager to preach the gospel in Rome as well.” That’s potent language, isn’t it? Without ceasing. Longing. Bound under obligation. Eager to preach. This is a man driven by passionate desire for Gospel expansion. He’s not disinterested and detached. He’s not checking to see if they’re interested before he commits. No, he is compelled by the Gospel. He longs. He can’t stop praying. He is eager to preach. He can’t help it. He’s got to reach them! The Gospel about Jesus has so gotten under his skin, captured his heart, he can’t help himself.
And don’t you find that quite challenging as you think about Paul’s example? I certainly do. As you go on in the Christian life, haven’t you found some of the wonder fading a little? Some of the electricity of the Gospel blunted? And we ask ourselves with Cowper, “Where is that blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul refreshing view of Jesus and His Word?” We remember those days, those heady days of intoxication and wonder at the Gospel. But now we’re grown, you see, we’ve matured and the wonder of it is blunted a little. It’s dulled. And Paul says here, at least his example challenges here to rethink all of that. Christian maturity ought to have the opposite effect. The more you know of Jesus, the less able you are to keep Him to yourself and the more eager you are to serve Him in the church and in the world. Spiritual apathy and zeal that has burned low and urgency that is all gone – that’s not a sign of growing up, that’s not a sign of spiritual maturity; that’s a sign of backsliding. Paul’s eagerness is certainly very challenging here, isn’t it?
But notice also his methods. He prays, verses 9 and 10. He uses his gifts for mutual encouragement, verses 11 and 12. And he wants to preach the Gospel to them in verse 15. Prayer, service and preaching – that is his game plan. It’s not fancy, is it? It’s not clever. Pray down heaven. Serve the people. Preach your heart out. We’re sometimes tempted to look for more, aren’t we? We want silver bullets. We want gimmicks and tricks. Let’s figure out what will pack people in and once we’ve got them here, let’s sneak up behind them and whack them with the Gospel while they’re not looking. But that’s not the apostolic method at all. There are no false pretenses with Paul. He prays down heaven, he serves the people from his heart, and he preaches the good news to them with holy boldness. That is how God has ordained that His Gospel should spread and that is what we must hold to in His service.
And by the way, notice once again to whom Paul is eager to preach the Gospel in verse 15. Do you see what he says? He wants to preach the Gospel “to you also who are in Rome.” “To you,” that is, to the members of the church to whom he is addressing this letter. “To you I am eager to preach the Gospel.” So, the Gospel isn’t just about how you become a Christian, is it? It’s not just about how to get into the kingdom and then once you’re in, you can safely move on from the Gospel to something else, to the deep truths. No, no, you become a Christian and you grow in maturity as a Christian in the same way, by the same means – by the preaching of the Gospel. Paul wants to come to them and tell them more about the divine Son, descended from David, according to the flesh, declared Son of God in power by the Spirit of holiness through the resurrection from the dead. He wants to turn the diamond of the person and work of Christ until their love for Him burns hotter and hotter and their faith is fixed immovably upon Him alone. He wants Jesus to be the center and circumference of their Christian lives.
And so, as we begin this study of Romans together in this month, please do not come to it excited about mining previously unexplored veins of doctrinal truth. Don’t come looking for novelty. I pray, God, you will not find it here. Come to Romans looking for more of Jesus, clearer views of Jesus, a firmer grip on Jesus. “I love to tell the story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.” Does that describe you? You know the Gospel well – are you still hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest? That was Paul’s perspective. He was coming to preach the Gospel to Christians because you never outgrow the good news.
Why?
So, in answer to the “who” question, Paul summarizes the Gospel’s message. In answer to the “how” question, he summarizes the Gospel’s mission. And then finally, look at verses 16 and 17. Paul answers the “why” question and tells us about the Gospel manifesto. He longs to come to them. He is eager to preach the Gospel to them. Why? Why is he so driven, so bold, so eager and urgent to preach Christ throughout the world like this? Well look at verses 16 and 17. Notice carefully the explanatory conjunctions that are translated in our English version by the word “for.” You see them in verses 16 and 17? There are three of them. “I am eager to preach the Gospel to you for I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” Three “fors.” Why are you eager to preach the Gospel in Rome, Paul?
Well, I am eager, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” Well, okay, but why are you not ashamed? I mean, after all, most people in our day at least, certainly in Paul’s day too, they rejected the Gospel. They reject the Gospel still as an absurdity, don’t they? On college campuses, in media platforms, on our television screens. The Gospel is denounced as oppressive and abusive and controlling and exclusionary. Jesus is dismissed or at best, relativized. But real sold out, hard core, Gospel people, in the eyes of our society people like that really ought to be ashamed of the Gospel. What an ugly thing the Christian Gospel is – that’s how our culture thinks. You should be ashamed if you believe that nonsense.
But why aren’t you, Paul? “I am not ashamed,” he says, “for” – here’s the second “for” – “it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.” Here is God’s power in this apparently absurd message about Jesus, crucified and risen. The same power that now marks Jesus Christ Himself in His state of exaltation – He is, remember, the Son of God in power – that power that characterizes His glorious person now marks also the message concerning Him. It is His power employed here to one purpose. It’s the power that raised Jesus from the dead, adorns Him in His glory at the Father’s right hand, and is now wielded in the hand of the same Spirit who raised Christ. It is wielded with one purpose – to save sinners like me and like you. That means nothing can stop it. Nothing can stop it – not the supposed intellectual superiority of the cultural elites, not the posturing full outrage of the social justice warrior, not the tidal wave of immorality drowning the culture all around us, not the fear mongering of our politicians. Nothing can stop it. “It is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.” That’s why Paul isn’t ashamed; that’s why he’s eager to preach.
And the grounds for this extraordinary claim about the Gospel being God’s power, you’ll find them in verse 17. Here’s the third “for.” Do you see it in verse 17? The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. How come? “For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” The Gospel has unstoppable power to save because, for, God gives His righteousness to everyone who believes in Jesus through it. So, here’s the power of God that nothing can stop and it’s a wonder. It’s a wonder. There is no sin so dire, no sinner anywhere so vile that the mighty power of God in the Gospel can’t save them because the righteousness this Gospel provides is the very righteousness of God Himself in Jesus Christ and that is perfectly sufficient for all our needs.
If it were merely a human righteousness, a righteousness of our own, it would never do. Would it? It would be like a shrunken, threadbare, old blanket that no matter how you pulled it you could never stretch it enough to hide our shame and cover our guilt and our sin from view. But that’s not the blanket that covers us. It’s not the robe that hides the filth of our sin. No, it’s the righteousness of God in Christ. And that righteousness is wide enough and deep enough and long enough for you, whoever you are, whatever you have done, however low you sink, however lost you might be. You can come and hide away under the righteousness of Christ. There is room there for you. The Gospel is God’s power to save everyone who believes. The righteous shall live by faith. That’s all that’s required. And if that’s all that you have, just faith, you have all the security you need. Christ is yours and the righteousness of God now hides your sin forever.
Who is the Gospel for – or the “who” question? The Gospel is God’s Gospel about His Son for you. How? Pray down heaven, serve the people, preach the Word. That is the Gospel’s mission. And why? Well, who can keep a Gospel like this to himself? It is God’s power. Think of it – God’s power in this message bestowing God’s own righteousness on guilty, wretched sinners like me and like you so anyone and everyone who believes in Jesus might be saved and safe forever. What a Gospel we have. Let’s pray together.
Our God and Father, how we adore You for the glories of the Gospel – that it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. Help us now by Your Spirit to believe it. Grant us the gift of saving faith that receiving and resting upon Christ alone we might hide away under the all-sufficient robes of His righteousness and there, accepted in the beloved, make us like the apostle Paul himself – eager to tell all the world, “We have good news for you!” Would You come and meet with us now? Give us thankful hearts as we cling to Christ and come to His Table, in Jesus’ name, amen.