His Perfect Love

**METADATA:**

- **Show Name:** His Perfect Love

- **Episode Title:** Romans 1:2-3 Part 1

- **Date:** 2026-06-17

- **Host(s):** Matt VanderVen

Matt VanderVen: When God looks at you, what does he see? The righteousness of Christ or your sin? When you look at the Scripture and as we study the book of Romans, you won't be able to miss it: that we take on the righteousness of Christ and that's how he sees you and I when you're a born-again believer in Christ. But without his righteousness, he sees us dead in our sin and our trespasses. And if we're dead in our sin and trespasses, what happens? He says in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death."

Guest (Male): There is a direction in life that leads to true freedom and away from bondage. Well, today's His Perfect Love will help us with that discovery. Glad you've joined us as we continue in the New Testament book of Romans. As we delve into chapter one, we're confronted with what direction we're going in life. While Romans is often referred to as the Gospel of Grace, it's also called the Letter of Liberty. You see, it shows what gets in the way of our freedom and what frees us. Here's Pastor Matt VanderVen with more.

Matt VanderVen: All right, please open your Bibles and I will do the same thing to Romans chapter one. We began and we introduced the book last week. If you hear me speak in the plural, it's because I know the Lord's doing the leading and I'm just getting out of the way. So forgive me when I say "we." I always think Jesus is the one speaking, the Holy Spirit.

Well, as we begin to look at this wonderful book with our remaining time here, we also have communion today. I'm going to read verses one and two again here and we'll pick up in verse two where we had left off. "Paul." Yeah, you're laughing because we spent an hour going through verse one and the introduction and context of the book.

As a quick recap, remember Paul wrote this as his travels on his second missionary, third missionary journey bound his way back to Jerusalem. He was in Corinth. So he was sitting in Corinth going back. How do we know that? Because we can read in the book of Acts that was in his heart to go back and share all the different gifts from the churches he was bringing to the church in Jerusalem that way and he was making his way back.

But ultimately, where did he want to make it to? Well, Spain originally. And then he knew on his way to Spain that he'd be making a stop over in Rome. He'd actually never visited this church in Rome. So this is a message on his heart. But what's so interesting about it is you think about there's only two epistles or letters in the whole Bible where we see this: Colossians and Romans.

And also, as he's making his way back, he's in Corinth. Remember, what was the capital of Corinth? It was sexual immorality. It was Vegas, man. I mean, basically, he's being propositioned because you had over two to three thousand temple prostitutes because you had the goddess that was being worshipped there.

So he's seeing this every day. He's interacting with all this. This is the context of what he's seeing, what he's understanding. And God, who inspired this letter, God who inspired this work, isn't he a man though? Doesn't he still have feelings and emotions and everything that's going on? As he's writing this to this church in Rome, which he had not visited, and we know it got there through Phoebe from Cenchrea.

He turned around and put it on her heart to take this letter back to Rome to the flock there, to the home churches in that area. But Paul's heart was to try to make sure he girded this church in a way, giving an underpinning, that they wouldn't turn around and make the same mistakes that the church in Corinth was making.

Do you remember that they were getting drunk at the communion table? They were turning around and the son was sleeping with the father's wife. They had incredible sin. Go back and read Corinthians, first Corinthians. You can read all the sin that Paul was addressing to that church in Corinth.

And I am sure that as Paul knew, all roads lead to Rome. He knew that this was a big area that it was going to move and continue to spread. And if Rome had become populated with the world-centric view of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he knew that it was going to be a detriment. So in Paul's heart, he's like, "No, I want you—I want you to have the foundation. Because you had Gentiles and Jewish Christians, I want you to have the foundation of the Word of God. I don't want you to be like Corinth. I don't want you to struggle with what Corinth was going through."

So that sets the context for everything we kind of talked about. And then it says, "Paul, a doulos, a bondservant of Jesus Christ." Right? That's a title. His last name's not Christ; that's not his surname. "Called to be an apostle," right? "Separated"—that's a sent one. We talked about this—"to the gospel" or "to the gospel." The gospel of what? The good news of what? Of Jesus Christ, of God, right?

"Which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scripture." Pastor, what are you talking about? What do you mean he promised? Well, we have an Old Testament and a New Testament. We have a new covenant; we have an old covenant. We saw Christ fulfill that. But is this the first time we're reading about it?

Remember I was talking about earlier, prophecy, and 27% of the Bible being that. There is 66 love letters that God has given us in this Word. And when you go back to the Old Testament, you can't help but read every chapter. As we're in Leviticus now, and it's pointing to Jesus Christ, the shadowing of one that would come, that is going to be able to fulfill that old covenant, that law that was only to be a tutor until when? Until Christ himself came. Right? Galatians.

So in verse two, we see that this gospel that he's talking about, the Gospel of God, the good news of God, it's not an invention of man. It wasn't something that Paul or Barnabas or anybody else sat back and began to think, "Boy, I'm a little bored today and I'm going to pontificate and philosophize and come up with all these interesting ideas on the creation of the world, the universe, and everything in between."

No. This was a 5,000-year account being written. Our God, outside of creation, reaching into creation through his son, Jesus Christ, to let us know how much he loved us and that he died to redeem us and that he had a plan all along because he knew the wickedness of our depravity of our hearts.

Paul didn't bring to the Romans some new type of entertaining teaching or ideology. There's nothing new. If you go into a church somewhere someday here and somebody says, "I have something new to show you," run the other way. There's nothing new about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We don't need a new program. It's not a new rock band. It's not newness that entices. That's a bait and switch. Do you know what I mean? It's a bait and switch. No, we don't see that. He presents the gospel.

Remember what he said in Corinthians? He said, "I preach resurrection, but I preach Christ crucified." Remember, because after his time in Greece and Athens and things didn't necessarily go the way he envisioned or he thought it would go, he says, "From now on, I preach Christ crucified." Because that's what it's all about. It's about Jesus.

So Paul shared something very precious, very old. God's plan before the foundation of creation. You can read in Scriptures, and I'm going to go quickly—you can listen to the tape or go to the website, you can get the copy if you need to. I'm going to go through some passages that speak to this. I mean, almost every chapter of the Bible, you can see Jesus Christ in it. His declaration of the promised one that would come.

Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 15. "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, like God, from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear." Right? Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14. "Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign." We tend to put this in Christmas cards right around Christmas time when everybody starts to focus on Emmanuel. But what about all year? Is this not promised, not true all year? Is this not prophecy? Of course it is.

"Therefore, the Lord will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel," meaning "God with us." Isaiah chapter nine, verses six and seven. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Savior or a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts"—that's the most common title used throughout all of Scripture—"the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this."

Micah chapter five, verse two. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come from me the one to be the ruler of Israel, whose goings-forth are from of old, from everlasting." Malachi chapter three, verse one. "Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to him on his temple, even the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of Hosts."

This is not a new idea. This was not something that was just envisioned in a man's mind. This was promised throughout all of history, back to the garden when Eve, when original sin happened. What was the first thing that Eve was constantly looking for? Do you remember when we went through Genesis? The seed of the promised one. It was the first thing she was looking for.

She knew and understood she needed a redeemer. She knew that covenant relationship had been broken. We were meant and designed to walk with Jesus in the garden, in the cool of day, hand-in-hand, in real agape love and fellowship. It was never meant to have this distance that sin, once sin entered into humanity through the nature of Adam, that you and I took on that nature.

And we'll talk more about that in Romans about how when we receive Christ, we also receive his nature and our nature, our fallen nature—we receive his righteousness and we gave him our sin. Now, he never took sin and literally it didn't get imputed to him. He took it upon himself. There's a difference, right? We take his righteousness and it's imputed upon us.

It's his righteousness that we take. And that's how God sees us. When you look at the Scripture and as we study the book of Romans, you won't be able to miss it: that we take on the righteousness of Christ and that's how he sees you and I when you're a born-again believer in Christ. But without his righteousness, he sees us dead in our sin and our trespasses. And if we're dead in our sin and trespasses, what happens? He says in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death."

Well, let's look at verse three. "Concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh." There's a lot here. This is the center of Paul's gospel, isn't it? "His son, Jesus Christ our Lord." If you're taking notes, underline that in your Bible. Circle that, underscore it. Understand that's the gospel. If you get presented a gospel of anything else other than Jesus Christ, that's the wrong gospel, friend. That's not the gospel of our Lord. The gospel of our Lord is of his son, Jesus Christ. That's the gospel.

Everything orbits around it, kind of like the sun. Everything orbits around it, right? The center of Christianity is not a teaching of a moral system. It's a person: Jesus Christ. David Guzik said that. Born of the seed of David. Now, many of you know David was obviously the second king of Israel. He had a godly ambition to build a temple, the temple for God, right? Because he had heard and seen and he had dwelt in this really nice home and he had seen this Ark of the Covenant that was being set up in a tabernacle that was taken up and put down, taken up and put down.

And he thought to himself, "My God should not be dwelling," because where did he dwell? In the mercy seat, in the Tabernacle, in the Holy of Holies. "My God deserves better than this. I'm sitting in this nice house as a king in this mansion, and my God is sitting in a pop-up tent." He says, "No, it shouldn't be that way. My God should have the very best."

So he had it on his heart and ambition to build a temple to God. But what happened? Remember, Nathan the prophet, Nathan at first says, "Hey, that sounds great, David. That sounds really good. Let's do it." And the next day, Nathan gets either a vision or meets with God and he comes back and he says, "Hey, not a good idea. You've got blood on your hands, David. It's not for you to do this. But your son Solomon, there will be one that will build this house, this temple for me."

And it was just as it said; it was just as it was prophesied. Solomon ended up going and building this temple. But as part of this temple, as he was explaining this to him, in 2 Samuel chapter seven, look at verse 12 please in your Bible. 2 Samuel chapter seven, verse 12.

Nothing makes a pastor happier than hearing the pages of a Bible turn. I know some of you got these fancy applications. I'm waiting for them to build that into the app where it goes "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh," so I know you're turning. Well, through the prophet, as I mentioned, Nathan here, it was 2 Samuel chapter seven again, verses 12 through 16. It says, "When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed"—there it is again. There it is again. That word that's important that goes right back to Genesis three.

"Seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he shall be my son. If he comes in iniquity, I will chasten him with a rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But my mercy shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul." Remember, the spirit of Saul, the Holy Spirit had moved or left Saul like that and he didn't even recognize it. Most scary thing that can happen to any of us is when the spirit of God is removed and we don't even notice. Wow.

"Whom I removed before you and the house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you." And he says it again: "Your throne shall be established forever." What do we call this? The Davidic Covenant. It was the provisions for the Davidic Covenant. And what did it include? It included five things, if you're taking notes.

Five things we see here, right? David is to have a child, yet born, one that would be born, right? Who would succeed him and establish his kingdom. Second, the son, Solomon, is going to build the temple instead of David, right? Third, the throne of his kingdom shall be established forever. Who is all this pointing to? Jesus Christ, the promised seed. The one whose throne would reign forever and ever.

Number four, the throne will not be taken away from him, even though his sons justify chastisement. Now, who's that talking about? It was talking about Solomon. Number five, David's house, throne, and kingdom shall be established forever through Jesus Christ.

You know, and the covenant here has many confirmations in the Old Testament, specifically Psalm 89. Please turn there in your Bible, Psalm 89. It speaks repeatedly of this theme. You see, friends, the reason I keep going through these scriptures is because we're dealing with a biblically illiterate generation. Many of us have not grown up with the Bible in our hands.

In the 1960s, you've heard me say it before, everybody grew up with the Bible. Everybody grew up with prayer in school. You were raised that way. I have a book in my office. Pastor Bill ordered it for me off the Amazon because we saw she had a book she brought in from her daddy in 1906. Grandfather, was it 1906? She brought a book to show.

And this was what it looked like in 1906 when you would go to school. You would get this book and it had a beautiful inscription from her grandfather to her. It was very precious. I'll keep that private; that's between her and her grandfather. But she began to show this to me, this book. And it was all the accounts and stories of the gospel.

And it was beautiful. And they all, from a very literal level, they learned the alphabet that way, just like in Hebrew school, right? Aleph, Kaf, Beth. Just like the Hebrew children, as they would grow up, they learned the Hebrew, right? The alphabet. Aleph, it's a silent letter in the Hebrew. So what would they do? Just like we would say, "A is for apple." Aleph, right? Or if they were going to Kaf or Gimel or any of the other letters in the alphabet. They would go through and they would associate it with something.

Well, our children, we grew up that way. Not us, but that generation, they grew up and they had the Bible. And they would "A is for Adam," right? "B is for the Bible," you know, because the Bible told me so. And they grew up this way and they studied the scriptures. Friends, there is an enemy out there and there's a deliberate war and he has removed the Bible from most places so that there's a way that he—because, you know, in a military strategy, some of you know I'm former Navy for a short period of time there. You guys have military experience.

What do you do when you're in the military and you have a weapon? If somebody takes your weapon, what have they done? They've disarmed you. What do you turn around and do? You find another weapon. You don't turn around and say, "Well, the weapons aren't for me. I'm just going to—" No. You're getting cover and a weapon. Right? You with me?

But that's what Satan's done. He's neutered a population. Yes, I use a strong word. He neutered a population. He's begun to take the seed and the Word and he's removed it. He's removed it from every place he can so that people don't know the Word of God. That's why when I'm going through these things and people are—some people aren't believers here maybe this morning, and they're hearing this for the first time. And their eyes are opening because they're going, "I didn't know this. I had no idea that this all existed."

I love, you know, I remember Jason, if I could bring you up in your testimony, is that all right? I'm going there anyway. So I remember Jason in the beginning. Jason turned around—I love my brother—he turned around and in the beginning, he had kind of grown up near some Christian ideas and ideologies. And I remember him coming in and going, "I've got a problem. This, this, this, and this. If the Bible's true, then you're going to have to prove it to me."

Oh, I love those conversations. I just pray to Jesus, "Lord, let me get out of the way. You just, Lord, just love him. Jesus, do it. I'll time you, Lord." No, I mean, it's amazing. So he turns around and he asks a lot of these really great questions. And we just start turning through the Bible.

And I said, "No, go get your history books. Go get your science books. They don't contradict. The Bible's already shown it. Science is catching up. Science catching up." He literally—and it was beautiful. I love that. I love people that are inquisitive. At least he's searching out. He understands why he believes what he believes. And that strengthened his faith. And now he knows why he believes what he believes. That's why our foundation class that's coming up is important.

Well, so he turned around and he would ask questions. And we would just turn, just turn. And he was like, "Wow, I didn't know that" or "I never saw that" or "How could that be?" and "Why wasn't I taught that?" Man, I was robbed. My elementary education, I was robbed.

And that's a lot of the feelings people have when they come to Christ initially. They're rejoicing and they're happy, but there's this feeling of like, "Why didn't I know this? Why didn't anybody show me the history book?" Jesus always said, "If you seek, you shall find." It's a matter of will. It's a matter of desire of the heart. It's a motive of the heart. It's never a lacking fact. It's never factually lacking anything. It's a motive of the heart of are you willing to seek and are you willing to actually read and believe.

If you read history and you read and it corroborated through four or five different sources, if you then come back and go, "Well, even the historians are all wrong, the Bible's all wrong." What's the problem there? Who's the problem with? Is the problem with the Bible or the historians or everything else—the archaeology or the artifacts? No, the problem is with your heart.

It's like when people say, "I'm an agnostic." I don't get it. Why somebody would call themselves an ignoramus, I have no idea. Do you know that's what it means? Gnostic: to know. "A" in front of it negates it. That's what it means. You're calling yourself an ignoramus. You're actually, in a modern Latin translation, you're calling yourself ignorant.

But they don't know that either. And that's why they walk around and say, "I'm agnostic." Don't get me started on atheism and what atheism is. It's a philosophy. That's a philosophy. It's not even a—you can maybe see it's a religion. But what is it? What's the closest thing we see it to? Humanism.

It's where you've elevated yourself to be a God. You're going to serve something. Something's going to be your master. It's either going to be you or it's going to be God of the universe. But you're going to serve something, I assure every one of you in here. Me included, serve something. That's a fact. Whether it's your flesh, your lust, your desires, whatever.

The thing is, your faith is only as good as what you place that faith in. And when that day comes and you have to give an account, I don't want to be standing before the living God going, "Well, I'm the answer." Okay. The great accuser there turns around and heaps the sin on you and you turn around and go, "Well, yeah, well, where's your get-out-of-jail card?" You don't have one.

Everybody wants fire insurance. Not everybody wants a master, doulos, a bondservant. That's what we are: to be slaves. He's our master.

Guest (Male): Pastor Matt VanderVen on His Perfect Love. We're developing our study in Romans and if you enjoyed today's message, we'd like to know. Email us at our website, HisPerfectLove.org, and be sure to include your prayer requests. And while you're there, you'll notice a place to listen to Pastor Matt's sermons, including all of Romans. That's at HisPerfectLove.org.

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Are you looking for a Christian school that offers a quality education and a nurturing environment for your children? If so, you might be interested in Calvary Chapel Christian Academy, a ministry of Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Calvary Chapel Christian Academy is a non-denominational Christian school that serves students from kindergarten to 12th grade. The academy's mission is to provide a Christ-centered education that equips students to love God, love others, and serve the world. The academy offers a rigorous academic curriculum, a variety of extracurricular activities, and a caring and supportive staff.

The academy is located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit our website at CCHarrisburg.org/Academy. That's CCHarrisburg.org/Academy. This has been His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt VanderVen. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you back here next time when we'll share another study in Romans. His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.