Romans 1:1-7 "Loved, Called, and Set Apart by God"

1:17Or stay here. Yes, that's so true. As many do. If you came to college at Texas AM, you were at New Life, and you are still here, would you raise your hand this morning? How many people just stuck around this great city? Awesome. So Good to see so many hands. Thank you all for sticking around and being a part of our church and our community. Well, friends, let's talk about Romans. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter about 57 AD, about 25 years after Jesus rose from the dead. And at that time, Paul was staying in the city of Corinth, where he had planted a church and preached for about 18 months on a previous missionary journey. Now, Paul had never been to Rome. He had never met most of the Christians in the church there, or maybe any of them. And so he is hoping to visit and to minister to them on his way to Spain, where the gospel had not yet been preached, because Paul didn't want to build on another man's foundation. He wanted to preach where Christ had not yet been named. Now, the city of Rome was a very tough place to be a Christian. It was filled with every vice imaginable. Believers in the church, the young church at Rome, were routinely tempted to fall back into their old ways of living. And moreover, there were significant tensions, as there were in many churches in the first century, between Gentile Christians, those who were of a non-Jewish background, and Jewish Christians who had come to faith in Jesus. We learn in Acts chapter 18 that the Roman Emperor Claudius did what many leaders throughout history have done. He blamed the Jews for problems in the city, and in 49 AD he expelled all of the Jews out of Rome. So as the Jews made Made their way back over the next period of years, the eight years in between when that happened and when Paul wrote this letter, the Jewish Christians returned to their church and also to some significant prejudice that was there in part because of what Emperor Claudius had done. So, friends, Paul wrote this letter for two primary reasons. First, he wanted to introduce himself and his gospel message to the Christians and Christian leaders at the church in Rome. Remember, they had never met him. And so he wanted them to understand both his message and his credentials as an apostle of Jesus Christ so they would receive his ministry and help him on his way to Spain.

3:44And then, second, Paul wrote to show how the gospel unites both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians through their mutual faith in Christ. Now, Paul was in a very unique place to do this, of course, because he was born as a Roman citizen. But he was also Jewish. He was a devout Jewish leader before he came to faith in Christ. So he is in a perfect position to build a bridge between Jews and Gentiles in the church. We've called this series Unashamed, and it comes from one of the most well-known verses in the book and perhaps in the entire Bible. I really believe it captures Paul's purpose for writing. So take a look on the screen at Romans 1:16.

4:31For 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. My hope is that wherever you are in your faith, if you are just exploring Christianity, or if you are a brand new Christian, or if you've been a believer for years and years, I hope that by the end of this series, you will be able to say that. That you are not ashamed of the gospel because you believe that it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

5:14And today, the Apostle Paul has a simple and direct message for us from these first seven verses in this introduction. Whether you already believe or you come to believe in the future, and that simple and direct message is this: You are loved by God. You are called by God, and you are set apart by God. Loved by God, called by God, set apart by God. So let's jump into this great study here in verse 1. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle. Now, let me stop there. If you are familiar with New Testament letters, you may have noticed that the authors seem to write their introductions backward. When we write letters, we put the recipient's name first, Dear Kendra.

6:15And then, only after we've written the body of our letter, do we identify ourselves as the writer? Love Alan. That's how we write letters. But in the first century, people did not write letters that way. Writers started by identifying themselves first. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, and only at the end of the intro does he name and identify his recipients. Look at verse 7. To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. Now remember, Paul had never met these Christians in his life, and yet he knew something about them. He knew that they were loved by God.

7:02And my friends, I want you to know this morning that you are loved by God. Now, that may not sound revolutionary to you because you might assume that if God exists, then of course he loves you. That's like his job or something, to love you. But you need to understand, almost nobody in the first century. Assumed that the gods loved them. A lot of these people in the church at Rome are Gentiles, and they came from a pagan background where they worshipped the pantheon of Greco-Roman gods and goddesses. You could describe those deities in a lot of different ways: powerful, smart, cunning, petty, quick-tempered.

7:57But one word you would never associate with the gods and goddesses of the Greco-Roman pantheon is loving. Nobody thought, Zeus just loves me. Or Mars, the god of war. Nobody thought to themselves, you know, I just can't stop thinking about his great love and affection for me. Nobody thought those things. People were terrified of the gods. They did all that they could to appease them through sacrifice and self-harm and practices that we won't even mention this morning. But after 2,000 years of Christian history and maybe growing up in a country with a lot of Christian influence like America, you hear that God loves you and you kind of yawn like, yeah, I know.

8:49But if that's your reaction, I want to challenge your thinking. Because what we're going to learn in Romans is that God created us for his own glory, but we have sinned. Sinned against him. We have not worshipped him or obeyed him or served him. And on top of that, we have sinned against many other people, nearly everyone in our life in some way, who are made in God's image and likeness, even our family members and friends. We do not deserve God's love. We deserve to be punished.

9:24So some of us are not amazed by God's love. We assume that, of course, God loves us because we try to be decent people. And anyway, it's not like we're as bad as Hitler or something. But friends, God's standard is not, are you better than Hitler? His standard is not even, are you better than your family members or co-workers or classmates? No, God's standard is perfection. And we have not lived up to that perfect standard. We do not deserve love. We deserve punishment. And so some of us in the room assume that, of course, God loves us, but according to the Bible, that assumption is wrong.

10:15But here's the thing. I don't think that the vast majority of the people in this room today assume that God loves them. In my 20 years of pastoral ministry, I have Talked with lots of people, Christians and non-Christians, and the vast majority of people that I talk to inside and outside the church assume that God does not love them. In fact, that he could not love them. And it sounds something like this. God could never love me because of what I've done. Or, God could never love me because of what I haven't done.

11:00Think about the church in Rome. Lots of Gentiles, lots of Jews. The Gentiles grow up in this pagan city with every vice imaginable. I mean, prostitution was a part of worship services in most pagan temples. Many of these Gentiles are surely thinking, loved by God, God could never love me because of what I've done. And what about the Jews? These men and women and children are growing up under the Mosaic law. 613 unique laws, 365 things that you cannot do, one, for every day of the year, and 248 things that you must do in order to live righteously. Many of the Jews are surely thinking, loved by God.

11:52God could never love me because of all that I haven't done. Now think about yourself. American society is not that different from Roman society in the first century. There's every vice imaginable in our culture, and many of us have experimented with lots of them. We think God could never love me because of what I've done. Others grew up in church, churches that may not have really preached the grace of God, but rules. Rules that didn't necessarily come from God's Word, but rules nonetheless that you had to follow or God would be mad at you. And you're sitting here thinking, God could never love me because of all that I haven't done.

12:42My friends, here is the good news. You are loved by God no matter what you've done. And you are loved by God no matter what you haven't done. Look at what Paul is going to say later in the book of Romans. He says this, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

13:28Do you believe that? You are not a lovable person. I am not a lovable person. But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You are loved by God so much that he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus, to die for your sins. That is good news. You are loved by God. And friends, those who are loved by God are called by God. Called to be His servants, called to belong to Jesus Christ, and called to be saints. First, God calls us to be His servants. Back in verse 1, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle. Now, when we read that opening, it's kind of like the phrase, loved by God. It just doesn't hit us the way it would have hit people in the first century. This Greek word, translated servant, can and probably should be translated slave.

14:41It means one who is the property of another, one who belongs to someone else. Now, remember, Paul was born a Roman citizen. And that is very useful to him many times in his life. One time he gets released from jail, another time he escapes a flogging simply. Because he is a Roman citizen. Paul was most definitely not a slave. And in the Roman world, you didn't call yourself a slave unless you were a slave. Slaves had zero rights. They could be bought, sold, beaten, raped, or killed with no repercussions.

15:24Nobody would ever call themselves a slave unless they were one. And yet, when Paul writes this letter to the church in Rome, no less, he identifies himself as a slave, a servant of Jesus Christ. That is crazy. You see, Paul was a devout Jew, and not just a Jew, but the most committed Jewish leader that you can imagine. He thought Christianity was blasphemous, and he did everything in his power to stamp it out by imprisoning and killing the followers of Jesus who were claiming that Jesus was the Son of God. But on the road to Damascus, Jesus himself appeared to Paul in a vision and called Paul to leave his life as a prominent Jewish leader and become his slave, his servant, and his apostle. That word means messenger or sent one.

16:16And Paul obeyed. Why? Look at the end of verse 4, the very end of the verse. Paul became Jesus' servant and apostle because the one who called him is Jesus. Christ our Lord. Friends, do not miss this. Jesus was not merely a good teacher or a good man. Jesus claimed to be the Lord, a title in the Old Testament that was only ever used for God. And when God calls, you answer. God's calling is not the invitation of an acquaintance.

17:04God's calling is a summons by the Master. My friends, you are loved by God, and God has called you. He summoned you to be His servant, to live to serve Him and His purposes, His agenda, and His will. So ask yourself this morning, who am I living to serve? Am I living to serve myself, my boss, my co-workers, people online that I barely even know? Who am I living to serve? When Satan tempted Jesus to worship him in exchange for all of the kingdoms of the world, look at how Jesus responded to Satan. He says, Begone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and His Lord. Him only shall you serve.

18:03Friends, who are you living to serve? We've been called by God to be His servants. Second, God calls us to belong to Jesus Christ. Go down to verse 6 now. Paul has just said that God commissioned the apostles to bring the gospel to the nations. Look here, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Think about that phrase, called to belong. That was fantastic news in the first century, I have no doubt. But it's even more wonderful news today that we have been called to belong.

18:50Isn't it true that so few people in our culture feel like they belong anywhere? We're isolated from our families. Parents are divorced. Extended families are spread out all through our country and through the world. Everybody is holed up in their bedrooms looking at their screens. We're isolated from our neighbors. Many Americans have never even met the people who live next door to them. Even if they have, we don't eat with them or spend time with them. We don't really have any meaningful relationships with them.

19:31We're isolated from our coworkers and classmates. COVID made distance learning and remote work normal for most people. You can now earn a degree or work for a company and never ever meet in person your fellow classmates or coworkers. Even if you go to school on campus, even if you work in an office, everybody has their earbuds in. So we are the most isolated human beings in history, ironically, at a time where we should be the most connected. And we feel it. As Pastor Cody said to me just this last week, people are longing to belong.

20:17Here's the good news: you are loved by God and you are called by God to be his servant, but more than that, to belong to Jesus Christ. Look on the screen at 1 Corinthians 6. Paul says, You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Friends, that is exactly right. We do belong to God because he created us and he redeemed us. He bought us with the priceless blood of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. He bought us.

21:01Not just me, not just you. He bought us. So, friends, we, the church that he bought with his own blood, we belong to Jesus Christ. The church is called the body of Christ over and over in Scripture, and every one of us is a part of that body. So, listen to this: we don't just belong to Jesus individually, we belong to him together, and so we belong to each other. We are the family of God. That is why church membership is so important. Whether you join New Life or another healthy church in this community, you need to join a local church where you can live out your belonging to Jesus Christ and to the body of Christ, the church. Where you can use your spiritual gifts to serve, to bless the other members of the body of Christ, to pray for them, to care for them, to minister to them. Because you belong. You belong to Jesus Christ. And you belong here.

22:15And so, friends, you are called by God. God calls us to be his servants, and he calls us to belong to Jesus Christ. And third, God calls us to be servants. Saints. Look again at verse 7. Paul says to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. Called to be saints? You may or may not have a Catholic background, but my guess is that when you hear the word saint, you do not think of yourself.

23:02You think of people like Mother Teresa or Billy Graham or Jay and Darla Nisamire. People come to me like, Pastor Alan, I want to learn to be holy. I'm like, do you need a ride to the Nisameiers? We don't view ourselves as saints, do we? That word must describe people who are much holier than we are. But if you read the New Testament, ordinary Christians like you and me are called saints 233 times. 233 times. Paul even called the Corinthians saints, and their church was a reality show.

23:55The Greek word translated saints means holy ones. Through faith in In Jesus' perfect life, death, and resurrection, God declares us to be holy. We are not actually made holy, but we are declared by God to be holy. He views us as saints because of our faith in the person and work of Jesus. So, friends, in one sense, we are saints already. But as Paul says here in Romans 1, we are also called to be saints. That is, we are called to live up to our new identity as saints by living saintly, holy lives. Look what Peter says in 1 Peter 1.

24:39As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. Now, who is Peter writing to? Well, he's writing to the saints, to people who have been declared holy through faith in Christ. And what does he say to these saints? He says, you shall be holy, for I am holy.

25:12So, friends, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, God no longer views you as a sinner, but as a saint. That is your identity. It's who you are, even when you don't feel like it. And yes, it's who you are. You are, even when you don't act like it. It is who you are. In God's eyes, you are no longer a sinner, but a saint. But because we've been declared righteous and not actually been made righteous yet, this is why Paul says we are called to be saints, to live into that new identity in Christ, to be holy as God is holy. So, Christian, how do you view yourself as a sinner or as a saint?

26:05If you see yourself as a sinner, every time you sin, you are going to think to yourself, well, what can I do? This is just who I am. I'm a sinner. But if you view yourself as God views you, if you view yourself as a saint, then every time you sin, you will think to yourself, this is not who I am anymore. That's who I was, but that's not who I am now. So I need to put this behavior, this thinking, these words to death.

26:48God, help me to put that behavior, that thinking, those words to death. What a difference that will make in your life. What a difference. Do you see? Yourself as a sinner or as a saint. Brothers and sisters, you are loved by God. You are called by God to be his servants, to belong to Jesus Christ, and to be saints. And finally, we will see that we are set apart by God. Go back to verse 1 for the 75th time.

27:22Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Now, that word gospel means good news. And it's referring to the good news of Jesus, which Paul spells out in verses 2 through 4. Take a look at verse 2. The gospel of God was promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures. Starting in Genesis 3, right after Adam and Eve fell into sin, God promised that one of their descendants would crush the head of the serpent who had deceived them and led them into sin. Then all through the Old Testament, God continues making promises. He promises to bless Abraham and make a great nation of him and bless all the nations through him. He promised that the Savior would come, and the Savior would be born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem and be despised and rejected by his people, but that God would not abandon him to death.

28:27Verse 3. The gospel of God, the good news was what? Concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh. God promised King David that he would establish his kingdom, that one of his descendants would sit on the throne forever. He promised that the Spirit of the Lord would rest upon that descendant and that he would suffer for our transgressions. And sure enough, Jesus of Nazareth was a descendant of David, as Matthew and Luke both clearly show. He was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem, just as Isaiah and Micah promised that he would be. Verse 4 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. Friends, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God. And that was because of his teaching. He taught like nobody had ever taught before with real authority, saying things that nobody else had ever said. He was declared to be the Son of God because of his many miracles. He healed the lame and the blind and the sick, the mute and the deaf.

29:45He walked on water. He drove out demons. He even raised the dead. But, friends, more than any of those things, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power because of his own resurrection from the dead. Because he himself was raised. Death could not hold him because he was perfectly holy. The Spirit of holiness was upon him, and God the Father showed his approval of Jesus' perfectly holy life by raising him from the dead on the third day after he died and was buried. Brothers and sisters, that is the gospel of God. That is the good news. It is news, it is not advice.

30:30The gospel is not telling us what we must do. The gospel of God is telling us what he has done through his son Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection to reconcile us to himself. That is the news of the gospel. But you must understand that we have not been set apart simply to know that good news, but rather to proclaim it. Look at verse 5. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith.

31:08Now, you and I are not apostles, uniquely commissioned by God as eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus. But we are commissioned, aren't we? Look at Matthew 28. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them. Them to observe, meaning to obey or keep, all that I have commanded you. That is what we have been set apart to do, to proclaim the gospel, to tell the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, to baptize those who believe in his name, and then to teach them to obey everything that Jesus commanded. That is what Paul means by the phrase, to bring about the obedience of faith. The question is, why? Why is that what is being commanded of us? Look at the end of verse 5. He says, to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

32:18That's the end goal. We've been set apart to proclaim the gospel for the sake of God's name among all the nations. God's desire, seen all throughout the Bible, is that his name would be honored in every nation under heaven. That's why, as we just saw in our study of the Lord's Prayer, that Jesus taught us to pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are called to pray and to work, to proclaim the good news for the sake of God's name among all the nations.

32:56We love God, and we want his name to be honored everywhere. By everyone. And that is what we have been set apart to do. That is why we share the good news with everyone in our life. It's why we send church members to live overseas financially and prayerfully supporting them. It's why we give money to Hope Pregnancy Center and Aggie Land Pregnancy Center and the Baptist Student Ministry and the Bridge, and we serve in those ministries because we want God's name to be famous in our community and all over the world. That is what we're called to, friends. That is what we are set apart for, to proclaim the gospel for the sake of his name among all the nations.

33:41You know, when we read our Bibles, it is very tempting to breeze through these introductory passages, isn't it? Passages like what we found today in Romans 1. But I hope that this sermon today has reminded you of what Paul writes to Timothy: that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable. Haven't we profited from God's word this morning? Believe it or not, God loves you. He loves you no matter what you've done and no matter what you haven't done. And he showed that love by sending Jesus to die in your place for your sins while you were still a sinner. Believe it or not, God has called you or he is called you. Calling you. He's called you to be a servant, to belong to Jesus Christ, and to be a saint. And believe it or not, God has set you apart. He has set you apart to proclaim his gospel for the sake of his name among all the nations.

34:48And so, friends, if you're already following Jesus, we need to embrace and live in light of the truth that we are loved and called and set apart by God. And if you are here this morning and you are not yet following Jesus, then let today be the day that you receive God's love. Let today be the day that you answer his call to turn from your sin and to receive Christ by faith, believing in his life and death and resurrection. Let today be the day that you start a new life, set apart to proclaim the good news for the sake of his name among the nations. Make that choice today. Do not put it off. Let's pray.

35:58Father, when we think of you, About ourselves, all that we've done and that we haven't done. Sometimes it feels impossible to believe that you could love us. And so, we are thankful for your word, which is true. And it teaches us and reminds us when we cannot believe it ourselves that you do love us, that you loved us enough to send your son to die for us. Thank you. Thank you, God, for calling us, for calling us to belong to you, to be your servants, and to be saints. We pray for the help of the Holy Spirit in living out those callings. We cannot do it in our own strength, God.

36:55And we thank you for setting us apart to proclaim the gospel. Make us faithful, Lord. I pray for all of the college students here that you would make them faithful to share the good news of Jesus Christ on their campus. So many students are trying to figure out what they believe and what they're going to give their life to. I pray that you would put the gospel in their mouths to share the good news. They've heard so much bad news. I pray that they would hear the good news of Jesus through these college students, and that we would be able to celebrate many students coming to faith in Christ this fall.

37:32Father, we thank you for the privilege of worshiping you and worshiping you together as your family, the body of Christ. So in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.