The Word Made Plain

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Word Made Plain with Senior Pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching through the book of Romans. Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter one, verses two through seven.

Tony Clark: All right, let's dive into the Word of God. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Romans chapter one as we make our way through this book. I've been praying about how to attack this particular book. For the first few messages, we're going to take our time through chapter one and pick up the speed a little bit once we get to chapters two and three. We'll just see how it goes. We are just so thankful we're going to let the Lord lead as we go through this incredible book.

Father, thank You so much for this time You've given us. Thank You, God, that You love us. Thank You so much that You've given us Your word to guide us and to lead us into all truth. So, Lord, move in our hearts, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Romans chapter one, looking at verses two through seven. The title of this message is Promise Keeper.

There was a time in our country where a person's word was his bond. All that was needed was a hearty handshake, a look in the eye, and the deal was done. Today, with so many promises being broken, we now need lawyers and courts and judges to make people keep their promises. I'm so glad that the God we serve keeps His promises to us.

There are approximately 7,000 promises in the Bible, and God keeps all of them. Why? Because He's a promise keeper. God is going to keep His word to us. By way of background, in these verses, Paul is writing to the believers in the city of Rome that God is a promise keeper. Paul identified himself to them in verse one by telling them that he was a bondservant of Jesus Christ and called to be an apostle by Him, and how he was separated to preach the Gospel of God.

In verses two through seven, which is one continuous sentence in the Greek language, he continues his introduction to this letter to them. Remember, it is one sentence in the Greek language. Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the Gospel of God, which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, among whom you also are called of Jesus Christ; 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. For those English majors, I'm sure you think this is a complete run-on sentence. It is awful to read that, but in the Greek language, it was just one sentence.

Paul didn't want his Jewish readers to think that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was something new or unrelated from their spiritual heritage. He says in verse two that the Gospel is the fulfillment of the promise He made and was preached through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, which is a reference to what we call the Old Testament. The Greeks and the Romans loved to hear some new teaching or doctrine. We saw this in Acts 17, verse 21, when Paul talked to the philosophers in Athens. It says, "For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing new but either to tell or to hear some new thing."

The rumors going around were that Christianity was this new thing that had come around. Paul is saying no, this was talked about in the Old Testament. We know that today we are saved by grace. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." It was the same way in the Old Testament. Genesis 6:8 says, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Grace is in the Old Testament as well, all the way back to the book of Genesis.

We know that faith and belief are a part of salvation. Notice in Ephesians it says we are saved through faith. Genesis 15:6 says of Abraham, "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." Habakkuk 2:4 says, "The just shall live by faith." I just wanted to whet your appetite for how our salvation was spoken about in the Old Testament. This means that God keeps His promises. He promised to save by grace through faith all the way through the Bible.

As children of God, we need to be known to keep our word as well. If we promised our spouses or children something, we need to do it and keep our word to them. The Bible says in Matthew 5:37, "But let your yes be yes and your no, no; for whatever is more than these is from the evil one." Meaning that if we don't keep our word, we lie, and lying is of the devil according to John 8:44. We all know that things come up and plans change, but let this be the exception and not the rule.

God keeps His promises to us. He has always planned on saving Gentiles or non-Jewish people. Amos 9:12 says, "And all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does this." This is what Paul was telling the believers, especially the Jewish ones in the church. This was so important because the Jewish people in the days of Jesus hated non-Jews. Even the rabbis taught that the only purpose for non-Jews is to keep the fires of hell burning. This is how much they disdained them. Paul is letting them know that God had always had a plan to save the Gentiles.

Paul told them that he was called to be an apostle to preach the Gospel of God, and the Gospel is all about His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David. Once again, he is speaking to those believers with a Jewish background. God promised King David in 2 Samuel 7 that he would have a descendant to sit on his throne forever, and it was fulfilled through Jesus Christ. This is why it is said about Jesus in verse three that He was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.

Paul goes on to say in verse four that He was declared to be the Son of God. The term Son of God speaks of Christ's deity, that He is fully God, and the term born of the seed of David speaks of His humanity. Jesus was and is fully God and fully man. I want to draw your attention to the word declared. The Greek word is horizo, and it means to define or to determine. It is where we get our English word horizon from. It is defined as a line that determines the farthest visible part of Earth in reference to the heavens.

You can look as far as the eye can see in the horizon, and you will not find a clearer depiction of God than Jesus in the Gospel. He came with power according to the Spirit of holiness, meaning that He was without sin, by the resurrection from the dead. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about His death, burial, and resurrection. Believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one fundamental truth of being saved. If Jesus just came, said some profound things, and died, He would have been no different than any other religious leader.

What sets Jesus apart in our presentation of the Gospel is the resurrection. He rose from the dead to never die again. Our judicial system is based upon the testimony of witnesses. If the resurrection of Jesus Christ was put on trial, it would have an overwhelming victory because according to 1 Corinthians 15:6, over 500 people saw Jesus alive. If 500 people march into the court and say that they saw Jesus alive, there would be an overwhelming victory.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ must be a part of our preaching of the Gospel. None of this modern preaching of the Gospel says, "Come to Jesus and He will give you love, joy, peace, happiness, and a good life." That is America's way of preaching. No, the true preaching is that Jesus came to die for your sin. This is why He came, so you could be brought back into a right relationship with Him. He came to die for your sin, was buried, and rose again. That is the preaching of the Gospel, not just giving people the benefits.

Don't give people the cure without first convincing them that they have a disease. Many people give the benefits of the Gospel without showing them why Jesus came. If you try to preach happiness and a good life to someone who is part of the lifestyles of the rich and famous, they will say their life is good without Jesus. But when you tell them Jesus came to die for their sin, and you point out sin to them, now you convince them that they have a disease and that Jesus is the cure.

Paul continued in verse five and said that it is through Him that we have received grace and apostleship. Paul just gave an overview of the Gospel, and now he returns to talk about how he received this grace and apostleship that he mentioned in verse one. Through this grace, we receive forgiveness of sins. It is so important that we share with people how God's grace rescued us from a life of sin. A lot of people think Christianity is for perfect people. No, Christianity is about a bunch of forgiven people, saved by God's grace.

Paul said not only had he received God's grace but also direction, a calling to be an apostle. Notice he says it was for obedience to the faith. Paul is saying that for him, his obedience is tied to him being called to be an apostle. I just want to know, are you being obedient to the calling of God upon your life? For Paul, this was his life. The same fervor he gave to persecuting and killing Christians before he was saved, he gave that same fervor to his Christian life.

He told the believers in the city of Colossae that when Christ who is our life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory. He told the believers in the city of Philippi, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." When the grace of God came upon Paul's life and God called him to the apostleship, he went for it with all his might. Has this happened to you? Is Christ your life? Do you live for Christ? Paul did. Paul could also say, "Follow me as I follow Christ."

Can we say this to those around us? Can we say this to our families, that we are so about that Christ life that we can say, "Follow me as I follow Christ"? I pray I can say this to my family. Paul was about that life. I wonder what you are about today. If we were to sum up your life, what would you say your life is about? Is it about making it to the top of the corporate world, the military world, or your profession? You talk to young kids today, and they want to make it to the NBA. All those things have their place.

But for Paul, he said, "For me, it's Christ." He said he lived for Christ. For him to live was Christ, and to die was just gain. He was living for Him now, but when he died, he was just going to go be with Him. No matter what, it was all about Christ. I wonder what we are about in this life. Can we say, "Follow me as I follow Christ"? Paul was all about it. This is why many scholars agree Paul was the greatest Christian to ever live. He said he was the chief of sinners, and when that grace came upon him, he dedicated everything to Him. May we be about the Lord.

I love how Paul told them in verse six, "among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ." In other words, Paul was saying they were called too. Jesus Christ called those believers in Rome just like He called Paul. Then he said in verse seven, "to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints." Rome at this time was the largest city in the world with a population of over one million people. They worshipped many gods, but the followers of Jesus Christ worshipped one God and lived by a higher moral standard.

They stood out in that corrupt Roman society. What I find beautiful about this is Paul telling these believers living in such a corrupt culture that the one God called them beloved and called them saints. Out of the 7.5 billion people on the Earth today, in the midst of a corrupt culture like America, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you too are beloved and called to be a saint. You might have blown it this week or this year, and you don't feel like you are beloved by God, but you are.

You are loved by the Father. You are not only beloved but called to be a saint. Some people think that saints are special people in religious history, but in reality, there are two types of people in this world today: saints and "aints." If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a saint. Paul wraps up his introduction in typical fashion with, "grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." In Paul's day, when Greeks greeted each other, they would say charis, which is Greek for grace. When the Jews greeted each other, they would say Shalom, which is Hebrew for peace. In most of Paul's letters, he linked the two greetings together: grace and peace. They are always in this order.