Scripture referenced 8 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Romans 1:1-7 the main passage being expounded throughout the sermon
1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Good News of God,
2 which he promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
3 concerning his Son, who was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh,
4 who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
5 through whom we received grace and apostleship, for obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name’s sake;
6 among whom you are also called to belong to Jesus Christ;
7 to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Keep this verse
Acts 18:1-18
cited as covering the historical background of Aquila and Priscilla being expelled from Rome
1 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth.
2 He found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, who had recently come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. He came to them,
3 and because he practiced the same trade, he lived with them and worked, for by trade they were tent makers.
4 He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks.
5 But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.
6 When they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook out his clothing and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles!”
7 He departed there, and went into the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.
8 Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house. Many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized.
9 The Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, “Don’t be afraid, but speak and don’t be silent;
10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city.”
11 He lived there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat,
13 saying, “This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.”
14 But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If indeed it were a matter of wrong or of wicked crime, you Jews, it would be reasonable that I should bear with you;
15 but if they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. For I don’t want to be a judge of these matters.”
16 So he drove them from the judgment seat.
17 Then all the Greeks laid hold on Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. Gallio didn’t care about any of these things.
18 Paul, having stayed after this many more days, took his leave of the brothers, and sailed from there for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila. He shaved his head in Cenchreae, for he had a vow.
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Acts 22:23
quoted at length to show Paul claiming Roman citizenship to avoid being scourged
23 As they cried out, and threw off their cloaks, and threw dust into the air,
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Romans 3
referenced as containing the weaker and stronger brother arguments about the mixed Jewish and Gentile church
1 Then what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the profit of circumcision?
2 Much in every way! Because first of all, they were entrusted with the revelations of God.
3 For what if some were without faith? Will their lack of faith nullify the faithfulness of God?
4 May it never be! Yes, let God be found true, but every man a liar. As it is written, “That you might be justified in your words, and might prevail when you come into judgment.”
5 But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what will we say? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath? I speak like men do.
6 May it never be! For then how will God judge the world?
7 For if the truth of God through my lie abounded to his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
8 Why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil, that good may come?” Those who say so are justly condemned.
9 What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin.
10 As it is written, “There is no one righteous; no, not one.
11 There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned away. They have together become unprofitable. There is no one who does good, no, not so much as one.”
13 “Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have used deceit.” “The poison of vipers is under their lips”;
14 “whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood.
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways.
17 The way of peace, they haven’t known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.
20 Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
21 But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets;
22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction,
23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
24 being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;
25 whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice, through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance;
26 to demonstrate his righteousness at this present time; that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.
27 Where then is the boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.
28 We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Isn’t he the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,
30 since indeed there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith, and the uncircumcised through faith.
31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.
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Habakkuk
identified as the Old Testament source for the phrase 'the just shall live by faith' quoted in Romans 1:17
Keep this versePsalms
cited as a source for 'there is no one righteous, no not one' and 'all have sinned and fall short'
Keep this verseRomans 16:22
referenced as the verse identifying Tertius as the amanuensis who wrote down the letter
22 I, Tertius, who write the letter, greet you in the Lord.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This sermon opened the congregation's study of Romans by working through the first seven verses, the formal greeting Paul wrote before diving into his argument. The focus was on what that greeting reveals about the gospel, about Jesus, and about the role of everyone who has received grace.
What was said
Paul's letter to Rome was written around AD 56-57, near the end of his third missionary journey, while he was in Corinth. He sent it ahead with a woman named Phoebe because he had never been to Rome himself. The idea, as Pastor Ray put it, was to teach the congregation through the letter before arriving in person, rather than wait until he got there to correct things.
The church at Rome was a mixed group of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, and that mixture matters for reading the letter. When Emperor Claudius expelled Jewish Christian leaders from Rome around AD 49, the Gentile side of the church had five or so years on its own. When those leaders drifted back after AD 54, they came home to a church that had changed. That tension between the two groups runs underneath much of what Paul writes.
A typical first-century letter greeting was short: sender, recipient, greetings, done. Paul's greeting to Rome stretches so long it could almost stand as its own letter. That length is not padding. Every word he adds is a theological statement, and the whole expanded greeting keeps circling back to one subject: Jesus.
Paul loads that greeting with titles for Jesus, one after another. Christ Jesus, His Son, the seed of David according to the flesh, the Son of God with power, Jesus Christ our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. Pastor Ray pointed out that in the Greek, parallel structures draw a clear line between the humanity of Jesus and the divinity of Jesus. Both are stated plainly, and both mattered differently to Jewish and Gentile readers in that congregation.
The phrase "the gospel of God" that opens the greeting is God's own good news, not merely news about God. Paul's point is that this message was not something new he invented. God promised it beforehand through the prophets in the holy scriptures, and Paul intended to use those same scriptures throughout the letter to demonstrate that Jesus is the promised Messiah. The gospel belongs to God, and Paul is simply the messenger carrying it.
Grace and apostleship, Paul says, come together through Jesus Christ our Lord. Receiving grace is not the end of the story. It comes with a calling to carry the message to the nations. Pastor Ray connected this directly to the congregation: if you have received grace, you have also received that calling. You are among the called, not just Paul.
Paul closes the greeting with "grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," which is not a mere pleasantry. It is a pattern. Rather than opening combatively, Paul begins every letter by offering what God offers. The application drawn from the prescript was to understand your own role, carry God's good news rather than your own, and when you bring it to someone, begin the way Paul did, with grace and peace.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Paul had been shaping and refining his message for over twenty years before he wrote Romans, and he sent the letter ahead of himself rather than waiting until he arrived. How does that kind of long, deliberate preparation show up in your own faith, and where do you think it is missing?
- The pastor described the historical back-and-forth between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in Rome, and how the church looked different when the Jewish leaders returned after years away. Have you ever come back to a church or community and found it changed in ways that were hard to accept? What did that reveal about what you were holding on to?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 7,976 words
0:00
Speaker 1Alright, here we go. We still got several folks congregating out front. The connect hour is living and active today. Very strong. We're going to start off by singing that usually draws a few more people in.
0:12
So, hymn number 444. Hymn number four forty four. I love to tell the story. Bob and Scott, would you come forward and join me? Amen.
3:54
Gracious. We're going to sing Joyful, Joyful, We Adore the hymn number 90. Amen. Y'all gotten your workout. Y'all can have a seat and I wanna make a few announcements today.
6:44
Y'all know I have been shorting, shortening, and shortening, and shortening the announcements lately as much as I could. Not today. We've got lots of things to announce but we have visuals to go with them. So, here we go. The connect hour.
6:57
Y'all know it's still happening. It happens between services and I met a guy today. It's first time here at the church and he hung out and talked to a lot of people over coffee and whatnot down there. Great great guys. Good place to meet.
7:08
Connect hours between services. Monday night, at 06:00, we have Awana in this room. That's why we have this big old circle right here that looks like a helicopter might land. That is for the game circle for Awana. Kids matter to God.
7:21
We are working lots and lots of volunteers are working at getting scripture into their heads and into their hearts. So, that's really good. At the same time, Monday nights at 06:00, we have meal, music, and a message at the other end of the hall down the fellowship hall. Carl is the pastor for that. Our worship pastor for the first church service at nine is the pastor for that little church plan on training wheels and it's fun and it's good.
7:46
The music is great. The meal is usually really really good but it's always decent and the message is the Bible. It's straight up from the Bible. He's starting in Philippians three this week. So, he's working his way through Philippians and that's been great.
7:59
Men's fraternity meets on Wednesday mornings at 6AM. Y'all are welcome. I do not go to that. It is very very early for me because I'm I tend to be a night person. I do a lot of ministry late in the afternoon and evening hours but Wednesdays at 6AM is a men's group, gets together, that's great.
8:15
I try to get here for this though. 07:30 in the morning on Wednesday mornings is the prayer meeting. Every Wednesday morning at seven: 3zero am. That's a great group of people that come together and pray. There's also Wednesdays at 11:45.
8:29
Wednesdays are busy around here. Wednesdays at 11:45 is a ladies Bible study. This time, they're doing children of the day, a study of first and second Thessalonians with Beth Moore. That's a good study from 11:45 until 01:30, one hundred fifteen maybe. Now, Alan Galbreath has a minute to win it.
8:48
This is about a Wednesday evening program at 06:30 Wednesday evening. This and last and the next two.
8:56
Speaker 2Well, good morning one and all. Morning. This is a reminder that the Overcoming Genesis Phobia series, and thank you Nancy for improving on the title, is gonna be our second session will be this coming Wednesday, 06:30 in Fellowship Hall. The topics, and I'm gonna be leading it, the topics we're gonna be presenting are radioactive decay or radiometric dating of rocks, which yields millions of years, sometimes even a few billions of years, from the laboratory results. And we're going to take a real hard look at the assumptions underlining this radioactive approach.
9:48
I think that's all I need to say, but for those that weren't there last time, you can come. Each session is self contained. It doesn't necessarily you don't have to come to the first one to get the full benefit of the second one. So thank you, Ray.
10:04
Speaker 1Thank you. That overlaps with band practice. I wasn't there for the whole time, but the part I was there for was good. It's really good. Last week, I love the way that the information was presented.
10:11
Good job. On Thursday, so that's Wednesday night. Thursday mornings, precept studies. It traditionally has been for ladies but it's not necessarily just for ladies but the precept study takes the format of scripture interpreting scripture. Bring your colored pencils and be ready to do lots of underlining and making little notes.
10:31
09:00 sharp. Jane Credenburg, yes. Not this Thursday but the next Thursday, we'll be beginning a new study in Nehemiah. Okay, that's good to know. So, not this Thursday but next, you'll be starting Nehemiah and you'll have fifty two days to build a wall.
10:44
Middle schoolers, middle schoolers on Thursday evening at 06:30. You have Solid Rock Student Ministry and anything you need to say? Nope, Renzi's not in the room. So, the high school breakfast is on Friday mornings. It still cracks me up.
10:59
This is Friday mornings at 07:30 in the morning. The kids come in here at twenty something of em come in to eat breakfast and get a kind of a blessing before the weekend and encouragement and some encouraging word from scripture and whatever breakfast Renzy decides to prepare that week at 07:30 in the morning high school breakfast. The men's snowmobile retreat is coming up. That's Conway. If y'all don't know, that's Conway on that on that sled there.
11:25
February nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty first of this twenty sixteen, we're having men's snowmobile retreat up in Island Park, Idaho, Old Faithful Christian Ranch. It's a good time. Even if you don't snowmobile, guys and you want to go and just hang out in the lodge and drink hot cocoa and hang out, you're welcome to. You can call Kyle Knutson at that number. All this information is in your bulletin anyway, but Kyle is the one setting it up this year.
11:50
It's a $100 to go just for, know, staying up there and eating that sort of thing. But if you want to rent a snowmobile, that's on top of that or you can just borrow somebody else's. Okay. This is we have things for men. We have things for women.
12:06
We have things for kids. This is fun for the whole family, alright? It is a talent show. It's coming up. Renzi is the emcee for this talent show.
12:15
We've done this before in the past but it was before I got here. So, fun for the whole family, February 13, that's the day before Valentine's at 6PM. If you would like help or and like to help putting it together, then see Renzi. That's Renzi. That's one of his talents right there.
12:31
Jackalope Wrangler. If you are a mime or a dramatic, if you're a mom, stay home. No, if you're a mom, we'll let you, you know, do your thing. Tap dancing, singing by all means. Please, dramatic acting, plate spinning.
12:48
I feel like I do that figuratively but literally, we might send somebody spinning plates or juggling. It's a talent show. It's February 13. We'd love for everybody to come and be involved in it. So, that is Saturday, February 13 at six.
13:00
If you want to perform, see Renzy. Renzy, not Carl. Renzy, okay? See Renzy for the talent show. Anything to do with talent show.
13:11
See him and he is going to try to put together. We we would like for it to be something where everybody feels like they could attend and bring somebody because it's just going be a barrel of monkeys. A lot of fun. And since we're doing all these announcements, firstbjackson.org is our website. All of all of the sermons and a lot of the Bible studies are on there.
13:28
If you want to go there and just kind of see what's available and one more thing, if you know what Netflix is, right now, media is kind of like the Christian Netflix. If you're a regular attender here or you've been here once, it doesn't matter. If you would get me your Email address, I can hook you up with Right Now Media and you'll have thousands and thousands of Bible studies and all that sort of stuff. It's part of something that we signed on as the church when we didn't have nearly this many people here for a really low low rate and they said, if you grow, give this to everybody. Everybody that comes to the church has access to it.
14:04
Lots of Bible studies and good stuff. So, rightnow,.org. If you get in touch with me, I'll make sure that you get hooked up for free. One last thing, next Saturday night, so this is this coming Saturday before we get together next Sunday, Saturday night at 06:00 at Rivercross and they're going to do, they're going to screen this movie which is about the some folks who started Cowboy Church. I don't know anything else about it except that.
14:28
Okay, it's going be at Rivercross in 06:00 next week and for everything else and even that stuff I mentioned, check your bulletin and that's it. Would you stand up, greet one another warmly, high fives, hugs, handshakes, holy kisses if you want to. And we'll bring you back together with a song. That's too much fun. Wonderful words of life.
17:28
Yeah. Hymn number 406. Amen. Can have a seat and can I get the frontline team to come forward, please? I'm going to ask brother Bud Searles, if you would, lead us in the operatory prayer and Blake, would you turn on the red microphone?
19:56
Speaker 3Holy God, our seldom we are confronted with the opportunity to worship more than when we take that which you have given and entrust it back to you. Father, I think that the opportunity to worship through our giving is one of the greatest gifts that you've given us. So, father, I just pray that as we come to your altar this morning, that we truly worship you. Worship you with the bounty that you've given us. Worship you with our hearts dedicated not to this world but to the God who's in control of this world.
20:41
So, we thank you this morning lord for this rare and and beautiful opportunity to worship you. Worship through the giving of our hearts, our souls, and the the great gifts that you've given us. We pray these things in Christ's holy name. Amen.
23:25
Speaker 1Thank you, Floyd. Amen. So, last week, actually, in this service, it wasn't nearly as apparent as in the first service but last week, it was a holiday weekend and there was a lot of fresh powder on the mountain. It was pretty slack crowd. I'll just be straight up about it.
23:40
We started Romans but kinda, we kinda started Romans. Actually, I told him last week, it was almost a non sermon sermon which was about Paul mainly, the the letter writer in this case and we dug in this background where he's from and all that sort of stuff but we're really starting and we're kinda overlapping back again to Romans one one. We're gonna go Romans one one to one seven. I gave you an assignment last week. It was read Romans and I can't tell you how many people have come to me this week and said, I read it and I resisted the temptation to stop and go all over the place.
24:12
I just read it straight through and that's what I'm asking you to do. It'll give you context for what we do here. Here, what I'm going to do is pick it apart. You know, I'm going to go through hopefully everything with a fine tooth comb but if you've read it a few times, it'd be nice to read every week but if you've read it a few times, then, it'll give you the context for what we're doing. Right now, we're only getting the bookend like the very beginning of Romans in this sermon today.
24:37
Next week, I'll probably go verses eight through 17 is my plan right now. It might shrink a little bit but eight through 17 is next week's plan. For those of you who weren't here last week but also those who were, I'm gonna simplify the introductory matters. The author of this book to the Romans is the apostle Paul. Now, we've read second Corinthians, first Corinthians, first Thessalonians, second Thessalonians by Paul already and Galatians.
25:02
The author is the apostle Paul. Now, in that little parenthesis there, it says, with Tertius, the Amanuensis and the Manuensis is a scribe. It's a guy who is like his secretary that would write down and it's a little bit more than just dictating a letter and he wrote it down. Sometimes, the Amanuensis does say, oh, this would be really good in this section or this would be better there. So, there's a possibility that Tertius and Paul together kinda constructed this beautiful masterpiece, this opus, Magnus Opus like I said.
25:32
The apostle Paul with Tertius, his amanuensis and it tells us that in 01/01/1622. The date was winter nineteen fifty six, fifty seven. It sounds strange for me to be able to pinpoint that so specifically to some people, but it is. Exactly. 5657.
25:51
It was nineteen hundred years before this beauty rolled off the assembly line. Okay? It is 5657 and we know that. It's near the end of his third missionary journey. He's in Corinth when he's writing and he sends the letter with Phoebe, a lady.
26:10
The letter traveled from Corinth to Rome carried by Phoebe. There's Corinth, there's Rome. I've said before that Corinth has that little isthmus there where anything coming from Asia, it was safer and easier to go through. Corinth and carry your across land and then get back out in the shipping lanes, use this for cover, and come up and go to Rome other way actually but Corinth to Rome, that's the path this letter took with Phoebe. The audience was the church at Rome.
26:39
He says that in the first verse. Our first little part we're to talk about today. One seven actually is where he mentions that it's the church at Rome but it is a mixed group. It's a mixed group of Jewish, Christians, and Gentile Christians. So, it's not just one or just the other and once you see that and know that and you're reading along, you'll see this come up as, oh, that makes sense.
27:02
It's predominantly Gentile at the time, fifty six, fifty seven AD. It's predominantly a Gentile church. And we can see that in the weaker brother arguments and stronger brother arguments that he makes later on. But that mixed Jewish and Gentile makes a big difference. And this is why.
27:20
Historical background. I touched on it last week but I did a little bit more study of the actual first, you know, the documents from way back when. So, Acts eighteen one through 18 covers it if you want to look that up but Suetonius covers it in Divas Claudius, Casiodio covers it in a tract and in the fifth century, Pauluserosius quotes Josephus of something we don't have anymore and he quotes Suetonius. So, this is history. It's extra biblical stuff too but the Bible covers it too and we see Paul and Corinth meet Aquila and Priscilla and it said that they were Christians, Jewish flavored Christians that have been kicked out of Rome.
27:59
So, when I said right here that there were Jewish Christians, you know, at at that time, messianic Jew or a Jewish Christian had a different flavor and looked a lot different. Actually, do y'all know any messianic Jews, anybody? We have several that go to church here and there's there's a there are different flavors still. The Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian thing in 8049, the emperor, the Roman emperor was Claudius and he had gotten fed up with Christianity growing like crazy and it was primarily thought of at the time as a sect of Judaism. It's just one little part of Judaism and the Romans, the Romans written really didn't care what you believed as long as you paid your taxes and you would, you know, bow to Caesar, whatever but they really did not want for there to be trouble in the streets, rioting, and that sort of thing.
28:49
So, there had been enough of an upset in the synagogues from the Jewish Christians ministering to Jews and in the streets just Christianity is growing like crazy and people are resisting it. So, the emperor Claudius had a good idea. He thought he expelled all the Jewish Christian leaders from Rome. Now, they went away to places like Corinth and they went away to other places too. We see Aquila and Priscilla and Corinth.
29:12
That's why I mentioned them but after 8054, Claudius is no longer in power. The Jewish Christian leaders, hey, that's home. They started gravitating back to Rome and when they got back to church, it looked different than it looked five years before. You ever like going to college for a lot of people? You've been going to the same little church your whole life and then you go away to college, they change pastors, they change music, leaders, they change things, and when you come back, it's like, it's not even like church anymore.
29:40
My brother is like that. My brother goes, they shouldn't be letting those teenage boys take up the offering. You know what I'm saying? It's that kind of thing. Okay, it's a shameful.
29:48
Just plain shameful. We wouldn't have ever done that before. I hear, I hear a lot of these voices in my head. And my uncle Jerry watching his watch. I I I see that one too.
29:59
Anyway, Paul is writing in fifty six, fifty seven AD near the end of his third missionary journey. He's hoping to get to Rome. He tells us that multiple times in the next few weeks, he'll say it. But he's not been there before. So, we know what he's writing about but I want you to think about this.
30:17
Paul has been at this point, a Christian for almost twenty two years, twenty one, twenty two years, right in there and he has honed his message teaching, and preaching both in the synagogues and in the streets, in the Greek world. He's been doing this for a long time. He's been a Christian twenty something years. He's been on his missionary journeys for over ten years and so he has ministered in lots of places that says and he taught daily five, six hours a day in Ephesus or in Corinth or wherever he was. So, he has taught the message that is contained within Romans.
30:53
This prescript of Romans, all that we're going to cover today is just the prescript and we'll get into that. Now, I had a couple of clarifications from last week and I'm going to be like the newspaper. It's not a retraction. It is a clarification, okay? Roman citizenship because Paul, I said over and over, was born a Roman city.
31:10
He was a Roman citizen and he claims it several times in Acts when it's advantageous for him. Somebody said, but he'd never been to Rome. How did he get to be a Roman citizen? Well, Rome was not just a city obviously. It was an empire and not everybody that was born within the stretches of the Roman Empire was born a citizen.
31:28
A lot of the Jews were not. A lot of the Gauls were not. But in the first century, there were two ways that you could get Roman citizenship. Tarsus was a free city. It had been liberated, free city by the Romans.
31:42
They were not in rebellion. Their leadership was not in rebellion so they were considered to be a free city and Saul was born in that free city. So, just like if somebody's born in The United States Of America right now, they are an American citizen. It does not matter about mom and dad. If they're born here, they're a citizen, right?
31:59
Same way with Paschal. We're both Gringos. We had Paschal on the South side of the Mexican border. Paschal's a Mexican. Now, there are other ways in The US of obtaining citizenship and because we both are Americans, she automatically is.
32:13
But not so in this empire. Saul was born in a free city so he is a citizen. Many people went through a process, a citizenship process just like you can go through today. What does it cost? A lot of money.
32:28
A large sum of money and some people even serve in the military and they traded their service in the military for citizenship. That's the way it worked way back in the day and both of those things are evident in Acts 22 and even those is clarification, I wanna keep close to scripture and let you read it yourself. So, 2223, there is a beginning of a riot going on and as they were crying out and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust in the air, they had come a dust up, okay? The commander ordered him, that's Paul, to be brought into the barracks stating that he should be examined by scourging. That's the way you get information.
33:02
Beat them. Torture. That's the way that Rome did things when there was a riot, you solve it. They went in. He should be examined by scourging so that he might find out the reason why they were shouting against him in that way.
33:15
What's the riot? Must be his fault. Let's beat him until he tells us why. But when they stretched him out with the thongs, each side, they're stretching him out between leather straps. Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?
33:32
Good question. When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and told him saying, what are you, what are we about to do? For this man is a Roman and the commander came said to him, tell me, are you a Roman? And he said, yes. Then, the commander said, I acquired this citizenship with a large sum of money and Paul said, but I was actually born a citizen and you're about to beat me.
33:57
Therefore, those who are about to examine him, read that, torture him, scourge him, immediately let him go, and the commander also was afraid when he found out that he was a Roman. When he found out that he was a Roman, he was afraid because he had put him in the chains. It's a big deal. Really, really big deal to have Roman citizenship because you're protected and that's why I brought it up. So, Roman citizen by birth, not by paying the sum of money and it served him very very well in his missionary journeys.
34:26
Last week, we covered this, Paul, for most of the time. Told who Paul was. He considered himself all that I shared about him last week. He considered himself a slave of Christ and he says that. Now, he's talking to Jewish Christians, Gentile Christians in Rome.
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He says, a bond servant of Christ, Jesus Christ. It's a messianic term. The anointed one, the Jews would read that and go, he's claiming messiahship for Jesus. Yeah, that's right. Called as an apostle.
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Now, he knows his role. Paul understands very well what his role is. He is called to be a messenger. Someone who carries a message has been sent forth and he has been set apart specifically the message that he carried is for the gospel of God. Now, I said last week that the gospel of God could be taken one of two ways.
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It's either objective or subjective. We'll get into that in just a minute. So, this is now forward. One, one through seven again. Here we go.
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So, the prescript of a first century letter, the prescript today is like, dear Bob, okay? Dear Joe, that's the prescript usually. We don't usually say both who it is for and who it is to but in the first century, this is in Latin. This one, Artemis Ciceroni Advocatus Seculum Dicket actually, SD. It's usually abbreviated.
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That's in Latin. That means from Artemis to Cicero, the lawyer, greetings. And that's the way most if most of first century letter writing went. It was very, very short and to the point. In fact, they hardly ever took up more than one page.
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You can read lots and lots and lots of these online if you want to, but this is usually the greeting. So, if I had to do an illustrated prescript, Bob, the builder, to Dizzy, the cement mixer, greetings, okay? That's a preschool prescript right there. So, letters of time typically very very short. Some people say it's because paper was expensive but it was not nearly as expensive as it had been.
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It was actually inexpensive but letter writing was for people who could write. There weren't a whole lot of them, and they usually kept it pretty short to the point, kinda like a business summary. Front side, one page, be done with it. Bob the builder, to dizzy the cement mixer greetings. Can we fix it?
36:56
Yes, we can. Farewell, Bob. Okay? That's the way that usually would go. So, a typical prescript for a book like Romans or a letter like Romans could look like this.
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Paul and I could say, if he had a an office, you'd put that there but Paul, to the saints in Rome, greetings. That's the normal size prescript or salutation. Sender, recipient, and then the actual salutation, what you want to say, greetings. The prescript of Romans though looks like this. Ain't that something?
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And then it it is. Paul always lengthens the prescript in every book but even the shortest ones are way long. Roman's prescript is almost long enough to actually be a letter in that time period. So, what he's doing is giving him a theological tract or a theological treaties in the meat of this letter but this prescript holds it up like a bookend and last week's benediction kind of holds the other end up like a bookend. They look very similar.
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Bookends usually look alike. Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. He says, our and then we have received grace and apostleship. That's all the information about the sender of this letter. If we look at the red here, this is all about the recipients.
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All who are beloved of God in Rome, you also saints, you. That's the recipients of the letter. Now, look at this. That's everything else. So, in the prescript of Romans, we've got the sender and the recipient but we've got a whole lot of extra stuff in there.
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What is all the extra stuff? If you examine it and look at it, it's amazing stuff. The gospel of God. That's where I ended last week and I said, it could be either objective or subjective and for most of you, you don't care. Lori Grant cares.
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That's why I keep on doing this. Actually, a bunch of y'all care. I'm just messing with Lori. Subjective means that the gospel of God, subjectively would be God's good news but objectively, it'd be the good news about God and I said last week, it could be both. It could be one or the other doesn't really matter but according to context, there's no doubt about which one Paul means.
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Romans is thoroughly in favor of one translation over another. God's good news. This is God's gospel. Now, Paul is a servant of Christ and so he's sharing it. It's not something that he's come up with that's new or different.
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In fact, throughout this book, he's going to show it's not new and it's not different. It is the plan through the ages. God's good news, not the good news about God. Although it is good news about God. It's God's news.
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So, God's good news being the heading here from that first verse, the very end and everything else modifies that for a while now. God's good news which he promised. God promised this stuff. Beforehand, he knows the end from the beginning. Through his prophets.
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So, those guys, remember those guys? Y'all killed, your people killed long ago who were saying something about this beforehand. God promised this through his prophets concerning his son. It's all about Jesus. Who was born a descendant of David according to the flesh, who's declared the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.
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According to the spirit of holiness, bringing the Holy Spirit into this, Jesus Christ our lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among the Gentiles. For his name's sake, whose gospel is this? It's God's gospel. This paragraph after mentioning God's good news, everything is about God's good news through here. Among whom you also are called to Jesus Christ to all who are beloved of God in Rome.
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Called as saints, grace to you and peace. From God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no doubt about whose gospel this is. It's God's gospel and Paul is his messenger sharing it with the Romans. Whose whom he's never met before?
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I have a theory actually. Paul had been a lot of places and started churches and taught people for hours and hours a day and we know that and he had the content that he was teaching of course but he was there to supervise it and then he'd go somewhere else and then hear word of how things were going wrong in XYZ, you know, Corinth or wherever and so he'd have to send letters back to him to kind of straighten him out. Well, in Rome, he thought, you know what? I'm to do this opposite way. I'm going to send the letter ahead of me.
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Teach em the things that I already know and let's see how it does, how how it's growing before I get there and when I get there, I might be able to straighten things out in person if necessary but even then, he says, I'm looking forward to your faith building me up, okay? This is the content of the gospel. It's the content of everything that Paul teaches is contained in this letter to the Romans. One more thing, the holy scriptures. The holy scriptures.
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He's saying that there are holy writings, the prophets, the Torah, the Old Testament as we see it now. Those are the holy scriptures, the words that God had promised this Messiah in and he's going to use those holy scriptures throughout the book of Romans to prove his point to the people who care. The the Jews really care and have not seen it that way. He's going to use that to minister to Jews. It's also comforting to Gentiles to know that God has always been the same way that he is.
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This is not a new Johnny come lately religion. This is the eternal almighty God who's sharing himself by his scriptures. That's good. So, this is just a prescript. Who is this letter going to be about?
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Jesus. The whole thing is now, we will go into some bad news about humanity before we get to any good news about Jesus again in the next few chapters but the whole letter from book end to book end is about Jesus. This is very very apparent in Greek and I'll try to hurry through this but it's very apparent in Greek. It's not quite as apparent in English depending on which translation you use. I'm using for this whole study, the New American Standard Bible, if you want to know.
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The NASB, the reason is because it maintains Greek word order and they try to be consistent when the Greek is consistent using something. They try to be consistent that. Your other translations are fantastic for the whole study of second Corinthians I used the ESV which is a great translation. If you want to use whatever you want to. I'm going to use NASB for the whole time this time.
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So, the two right there and the two are both participles, genitive participles. The are both prepositional phrases, and they start the same way. And this and that is very interesting because like having come into being as and having been appointed as shows that these are parallel statements. According to the flesh and according to the spirit are obviously parallel statements. We can see those most translations pick those things up.
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You can see that. This one is not as readily apparent but out of and in. So, out of the seed of David, according to the flesh and son of God in power. So, he's using some rhetorical devices to help you remember this stuff. It's pretty cool.
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It draws a parallel very easily. The humanity of Jesus and the divinity of Jesus and that's very important. People say, well, I don't really see that in the scriptures. It's all over the place but that's one of the places. The two and the two, the kata kata.
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I think I've covered this and that and that. It's just a prescript. Who's it going be about? Jesus. We can tell that it's about Jesus because Paul pulls no punches.
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He has lots and lots of names for Jesus and he repeats some others. So, you know that's important but for the name of Jesus, he says, Christ Jesus, introducing him as Messiah. That's important. The anointed and holy one like none other. His son, that might be a new concept for some people because they have been doing the Shema for their whole life.
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God is one and for them to consider God having a son that is divine might be a difficult task but it is true. He mentions it over and over. His, that is God's son. The seed of David according to the flesh. That's a messianic title also.
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Everyone of those Jewish guys knew that the Christ, whoever he was, was going to be in the line of David from the seed of David. Also, son of God with power. That's another one. The son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, by the spirit of holiness. Jesus Christ, now, our lord, he's including everyone who calls upon Jesus into this family.
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Jesus Christ, our lord, and then the Lord Jesus Christ with the definite article. There's only one lord, Jesus Christ is the one. Can you see? He just is all over the place. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, the sweetest name I know, okay?
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Now, with all of those titles given just in these first seven verses, It points to the humanity and the divinity of Christ who was begotten from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed son of God and power according to the spirit of holiness from the resurrection of the dead. This is human and that's what they were looking for and this is divine. They weren't all looking for that. They didn't all know how that was going to be. It might have been easier actually for a Greek or a Gentile to pick up that God could have a son because all of their gods had sons but the Jews were not that way.
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It would have been something that was a little hard to swallow but nevertheless, it's true. Alright. So, we've only gotten up through verse four so far. Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, God's good news, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures. Paul is going to use those holy scriptures throughout Romans to point to Jesus as the Christ.
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The gospel of God This is the first statement of it in this book, okay? The good news is about Jesus and so he ends on Jesus Christ our lord. I'm going to start there for our next. Everything in Romans is linked together like a daisy chain. It's like, there's one concept and it's linked to the front side of what came immediately before it but it's also linked to the backside of it.
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So, you'll see me a lot of times covering a phrase because that phrase ends with Jesus Christ our lord and then he picks up and he runs. Now, listen to this. Jesus Christ our lord. Through whom? You know what I mean?
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You can finish this sentence like it's a sentence and go, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our lord. Through whom, so this is related to that. We have received grace and apostleship. Jesus Christ, our lord. He is the way.
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He is the funnel. From God above, the way that God gets his grace to us is through Jesus Christ our lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship. Wow. It's the whole message right there. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship.
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Now, Paul sets himself immediately as a slave of Christ apostle called because he already knows Jesus, right? And he knew. He understood his role. He understood what Jesus wanted him to do. Jesus told him as soon as he met him what he wanted him to do.
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Jesus Christ, our lord, through whom we've received grace and apostleship. Grace is unmerited favor. Paul will go on to tell us the bad news. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous, no, not one.
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That comes from Psalms also by the way and Proverbs. We all fall short. No, we really do. All fall short. Even the preacher, everybody fall short.
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Everybody falls short. That's the bad news. We'll cover bad news for the next couple of chapters. Starting in about seventeen, eighteen, about 18 and going on to the end of chapter three. Grace is the unmerited favor and it's through Jesus, the way, the truth, and life.
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He's the only way that we can receive unmerited favor from God. The way. Unmerited favor and then apostleship. That is given the position of messenger or ambassador. Paul, since he was called and had received grace, he had to tell people about it.
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But why? Why is it that he had to tell people? Well, Paul says, it's to bring about the obedience of faith. In fact, in verse 17, I just mentioned, he says, the just shall live by faith. That comes from Habakkuk, Old Testament scripture.
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All the Jews would have known it. A lot of other guys probably would have heard it by this point. To bring about the obedience of faith, not the obedience of the law, okay? The obedience of faith, the just will live by faith. Among all the Gentiles, for his name's sake.
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Now, when you say for somebody's name's sake, that encapsulates everything about that person. So, for Jesus's sake, for God's sake, that's why we do what we do. Any Presbyterians in here? What's the chief end of man? Go for it, Ben.
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Glory God and enjoy him. Glory God and enjoy him forever. Amen. He deserves it. He deserves it.
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For his name's sake, he deserves glory and he calls out to others by human messengers of which Paul was one. I'm another. You are too. If you receive grace through whom we receive grace. When you get the grace, you get the apostleship.
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Comes with it. Carry the message. Whatever way God shows you how to do. For his name's sake, to glorify God and enjoy him forever and actually, Gentiles right there, we think of Gentile being anything that's not Jewish. That's true but it really means the nations.
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So, when Christ said, go you therefore into all the Gentiles, into all the ethnic, all of the nations, all of the families of the earth. To bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles or all the nations for his name's sake and then he goes back and says, among whom, by the way, you also are called. This is why I can say, not just Paul, not just me, but you too, if you receive the grace of God, you also are the called of Jesus. Among whom? Among the nations.
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All of them. All the families of the earth. You also are the called. Paul is called and you are called. If you have received the grace of Christ Jesus.
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To whom? Now, this is where we get to the recipients of the letter. We've been talking for how long? Forty minutes? Thirty minutes?
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Twenty five minutes, really. I'm just kidding. To all who are beloved of God in Rome. This is the recipient section. To all who are beloved of God in Rome.
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That's pretty open ended, isn't it? Even though Romans is cited a lot of times as the elect, the elect, the elect, the elect. This is open ended. It says, to all who are beloved of God in Rome. God loves people.
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Anyone who will accept his message is called as a saint, okay? To all who are beloved of God in Rome, who are called as saints, those are the people that this gospel will reach. Those are the ones who will accept this call. And then he gives the greetings. That's what the Romans would say one to another.
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Greetings. Grace to you and peace. Typically, it was just greetings but Paul extends greetings which could be roughly translated as grace but not really. It's kind of a gracious greeting. Grace to you and he changes the word to mean really unmerited favor.
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I am sending to you a message that includes unmerited favor and peace which Peter would say, passes all understanding. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He's already claimed that he's a slave of Christ Jesus and he's writing in that capacity. He's writing as the apostle Paul, the one who has sent, the one who has the message. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Now, the Lord Jesus Christ is about as strong as you can claim the messianic title for Christ. The Lord, the one whom everyone should bend their knee to and God our father and that and there equates the two of em. The trinity is in scripture people. It's all over the place. This he's saying, Jesus is divine.
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He is on the same level with God. Jesus Christ, our lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith, the just will live by faith. Among all the nations, for his name's sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus, to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called us saints, grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans is incredible. If you didn't read it this week or if you just read the first seven verses, take what you have in your backpack now, read the next 15 pages, and see if you'll see Romans is about God's good news.
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You gotta go through a little bit of bad news before you get there but it's not near as much bad news as Ezekiel, okay? It's only gonna last 15 pages. It's mostly good news, okay? And it's good news is about Jesus and he makes that point upfront over and over and over and at the end over and over and so that's where we're going to go. So, bookends.
54:55
So far, we've made it up to there. Okay. Just past the first bookend. Let me let me just try to encapsulate four statements about Paul first. Paul mattered because he understood his role.
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That's the reason we still remember him. He took the time to be obedient to Christ. You will be my witness to the Gentiles. Okay, that's what I'm doing. I understand that role and he wrote to others out of obedience to Christ.
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Since it really is all about Jesus, he carried and transmitted God's goods news everywhere that he went and because he had received grace and apostleship, he always began with grace and peace. He started off with grace and peace. Now, I said in the first service, unexpectedly, I said, please always start with grace and peace. There may come a time where you have to argue or draw hard lines or beat someone up with your words. I hope not.
55:51
Always start with grace and peace. It's much easier. If you start any other way, you're irritating, okay? Does that make sense? Now, irritation may be good in some some places sometimes but if you can start, Paul always started with grace and peace.
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It's different rather than being combative immediately. Look for some similarities. Look for some common ground and then, lovingly offer grace and peace. That's what God offers So, the prescription from the prescript of Romans, I'm taking just from those four points about Paul and applying them to our own lives. I would say, seek to understand your role.
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Not everyone of us is wired the same way. From the judging from the reaction y'all just had about being irritating, we are not wired the same way. I thought that was funny. Seek to understand your role. All for grace and peace but be obedient to Christ.
56:50
Whatever it is he tells you, if you are an apologist, if you are a polemicist and you have to start off being abrasive, that's fine. As long as you're being obedient to Christ and doing that. I don't see it very often in scripture. Lots in the prophets though. Lots in the prophets, you do see that.
57:05
Since it's really all about Jesus, carry and transmit God's good news and let it be God's good news, not your news, okay? If you've received grace and therefore, apostleship. If you receive grace, you've also received a calling to be an ambassador, a messenger. Always begin with grace and peace. I see it in Paul and I see him end in there too.
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Although he gets combative in between. Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Who will deliver you? Who will deliver me? Says in Romans.
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We all know what it's like to have to argue through something but start with grace and peace. I think that's it. Is there anybody has anything to add to that? I'm exhausted. Because he lives, I can face the rest of the song.
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Would you stand up and we'll sing because he lives and actually, the guys are going to get a break on the second verse. Ladies, sing out. There's not a lady on stage but ladies, sing out on the second verse of this song. Thank you, Florian. Bob and Scott, would you come forward?
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Casey, you want
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Speaker 2to come up?
1:01:11
Speaker 1Amen. Amen.
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