SERMON: GM15-047
SERIES: Renewal Through Romans: The Gospel Defined, Explained
& Applied
SETTING: North Kelso Baptist Church
SERVICE: Sunday AM (February 15, 2015)
SUBTITLE: The Man and His Message Part 6
SCRIPTURE: Romans1:5-6
SUBJECT: Paul’s commission
SUMMARY: The Apostle Paul was commissioned by God to bring
about obedience to
the faith among the Gentiles
SCHEME: that the Christian grasps the significance of the commission of the
apostle Paul in order emulate it
_____________________________________________________________
Our theme continues
to be: The
Recipe of an apostle
This
is a good reminder for us all that we need to understand the various
ingredients that God used to make this man such a unique player in the eternal
plans of God
Proposition: The
Apostle Paul was qualified by God for his task
Interrogatory Sentence: What were the qualifications
that enabled Paul to write his letter to the church at Rome?
Transitional Sentence: The
passage before reveals four (4) ingredients that God used to make Paul such an
important player in the life of the church;
·
The Childhood of Paul
·
The Conversion of Paul
·
The Credentials of Paul
·
The Commission of Paul
The Man and
His Message
Romans 5-6)
(Part 6)
INTRODUCTION
Paul
was an apostle, which is a special messenger, who gave up his personal rights
for the Kingdom of God. He was a messenger of Heaven because he served the
Kingdom of God and because his goal was an eternal reward in Heaven not on
earth. But as Christians special messengers should we not all do the same?
This
morning we will dig deep into Paul’s commission and see just what Paul was
assigned to do. But before we do, let’s take a minute and…
REVIEW
Our theme continues
to be: The
Recipe of an apostle
This
is a good reminder for us all that we need to understand the various
ingredients that God used to make this man such a unique player in the eternal
plans of God
Proposition: The
Apostle Paul was qualified by God for his task
Interrogatory Sentence: What were the qualifications
that enabled Paul to write his letter to the church at Rome?
Transitional Sentence: The
passage before reveals four (4) ingredients that God used to make Paul such an
important player in the life of the church;
·
The Childhood of Paul
·
The Conversion of Paul
·
The Credentials of Paul
·
The Commission of Paul
Last week we looked at
Paul’s credentials. We examined those things that Paul claimed that gave him
the authority to write his letter to this local church.
We saw that Paul revealed four
(4) attributes about himself that he trusted would effectively establish and
validate his credentials.
Paul revealed that he was a:
·
Subjugated One (Servant) – a doulos or a bondservant. He thought
of himself as the lowest of all slaves on the depth chart. He considered God
his absolute master and he was a mere slave dedicated to doing the absolute
will of God. He professed no will of his own, but was committed to doing the
will of God.
Paul also revealed that he
was a:
·
Selected One (Sent One) – an apostle – one who had
been called and officially sent as a representative on the business of a
superior. He used a word or title that designated “one who was sent on a
mission on behalf of someone else.” As an apostle Paul was not ministering by
his own authority, but by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was on
business from God. He was on God’s business and this business had a specific
task to perform.
Paul revealed that he was a:
·
Separated one – he had been set apart,
cut out of the herd, if you will, he was marked out and set apart by
boundaries. His boundaries was the call and commission that God had given to
him specifically. He was marked out or cut out from regular believers (if there
is such a thing) for a specific job for God.
Finally, Paul revealed that
he was a:
·
Scripted one – he did make up the things
that he was teaching. His gospel was not new. It was contained in the OT which
the Jews were familiar with. The savior that he preached was promised and
prophesied in the OT and was declared or demonstrated to be what he had claimed
to be, by the power of the HS in the resurrection.
[So, now let’s move now to
the fourth ingredient in the theme of the Man and his Message, and that is…]
4B Paul’s Commission (5-6)
The Apostle Paul was commissioned by God to bring
about obedience to the faith among the Gentiles
Our
passage before us emphasizes at least three (3) details about Paul’s commission
by God. Paul emphasizes The Purpose of His Commission, The
Place of His Commission, and Paul emphasizes The Product of His Commission
[We find Paul’s commission
in verses 5 & 6…]
“Through Him we have
received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for
His name, among whom you are the called of Jesus Christ…”
So here we have Paul, who
considers himself to be a slave who is writing to saints, says that through
Jesus Christ he had received his commission.
In order to understand what
Paul meant in these verses we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions:
First
– Who is Paul talking about? Notice Paul said, “…’we’ have received grace
and apostleship.” Who is the “we?”
Who is he talking about? It is possible that Paul is including all of his
companions and helpers in his statement.
After all, he might be
including Phoebe who visited him and brought him a report of the church, and
who is going to carry this letter back to them. He also might have included
Timothy, or Lucius, Jason, Sosipater, Tertius, Gaius, Erastus, or Quartus.
These individuals are currently with Paul.
Some might say that it could
be that Paul is referring to the members of the church at Rome. Of course that
would be a huge list of people to include in with the “we.”
This is doubtful for a number of reasons.
It seems if you read enough
of Paul you will discover that he “editorializes”
often. Paul seems to mean he has received “grace and apostleship.” Paul is
saying he received his commission from God and from no other source. It was God
who commissioned him. This is the “royal” we or the “editorial” we. He simply used
the word “we” in place of the word “I.”
[Now, a second question we
would ask…]
Second – why was Paul commissioned? Paul draws our attention to three
(3) aspects of his apostleship.
1B First he gives us the purpose of his apostleship.
The purpose was to bring
about “the obedience of faith.”
It seems that this means that Paul presents faith as the basis for, or the
motivating force of obedience. Obedience is the natural product of genuine faith.
Faith produces obedience.
It seems that Paul is right
in line with the Apostle John when he makes his point that faith produces
obedience to Christ in the life of a believer. There is no such thing as a
believer who is not obedient. Another way of saying this would be that there is
no such thing as a genuine believer who is consistently disobedient.
Paul states this principle
as the first aspect of why God gave him his commission as an apostle. The
purpose was to encourage, exhort, and enlist believers in obedience.
By the way, this shows us
that Paul’s first mission or job was not evangelism. I am not discounting
evangelism, but that is not the first job of Paul. He was to be used of God to ensure
that these people in Rome who said that they were believers were actually characterized
by obedience.
Paul saw his mission, his
ministry, his commission to be to call
men and women to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s job is to help people
live a life of obedience from the time of their conversion and throughout their
lives where their obedience grows and deepens as the believer gets older.
Paul is well aware of the
fact that there is an initial saving faith which is the seed for a continuing
and abiding faith that is made known by the act of disobedience. For Paul
obedience always involves faith and faith always involves obedience.
Paul’s job was to call men
and women to a faith that was always inseparable from obedience – he was
committed to the fact that the savior that we believe in is nothing less than
Lord and to an obedience that can never be divorced from faith.
God has a purpose for us –
that purpose is obedience of faith.
Paul wrote to the Ephesians,
“For
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10,
NKJV)
He told the Colossians, “…that
you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every
good work…” (Colossians 1:10, NKJV)
Paul instructed Titus, “…to
affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to
maintain good works…” (Titus 3:8, NKJV)
The writer of Hebrews, which
I think is Luke, exhorted the Hebrew Christians, “…consider one another in order
to stir up love and good works.” (Heb 10:24, NKJV)
Don’t forget that James, the
Lord’s half-brother and the pastor of the church at Jerusalem taught that
obedience demonstrated the reality of genuine faith in Christ:
James wrote, “…thus
also faith by itself, it if does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17,
NKJV)
Ø Keep in mind that we are not
saved in order to store up a bunch of theological truths in our brains. We are
saved to surrender our lives to the Lord in absolute obedience. I love what
Donald Grey Barnhouse said in his commentary, “We are to be mastered men and
separated saints.” [1]
Ø Handley Moule wrote, “Self-surrender
taken alone is a plunge into a cold void. When it is a surrender to the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me, it is the bright home-coming of the
soul to the seat and sphere of life and power.”
IOW, God doesn’t expect cold
hearted obedience for the sake of obeying, we are willingly and happily obedient
because we know that God loved us and saved us. That knowledge brightens up and
makes us willing to obey and it gives us real life and empowerment.
By the way, this phrase, “the
obedience of faith” is used by Paul in the beginning and at the end of
this letter.
It is important to him. We
see just how important this when we read in the last chapter of Romans Paul
writes:
“…but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to
all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience
to the faith…” (Romans 16:26, NKJV)
And for the record, the
obedience that Paul is anxious to bring about and ensure is not an obedience to
a set of rules, regulations, or rituals of human religion. This obeying by
faith in Christ is a depending upon Christ for the ability to obey and for the
actual obedience.
Ø A victor at an ancient Greek
Olympic game is said to have been asked, “Spartan, what will you gain by this
victory?” He replied, “I, sir, shall have the honor to fight on the front line
for my king.”
This is the spirit and heart
that should typify everyone that belongs to Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of
Lords, and the King of kings.
John MacArthur records a
cute little illustration about how everyone should be involved in the service
of God and that they should be obedient to Christ:
Ø After D. L. Moody finished
preaching one day, a highly educated man walked up to him and said, “Excuse me,
but you made eleven mistakes in your grammar tonight. Moody quietly and
politely rebuked his critic when replied, “I probably did. My early education
was very faulty. But I am using all the grammar that I know in my Master’s
service. How about you?
[This leads us to the second
aspect of Paul’s apostleship…]
2B Second – he gives us the place of his apostleship
We are able to see the
locality of Paul’s apostleship. It is
“among all the Gentiles.” Paul is not called to a specific nation or
country or even peoples group. It isn’t like God said go Africa, or to the
Philippines, or Mexico. Paul is directed by God to go to the Gentiles.
This calling is distinct
from the Jews, who are his own people. Mind you he never forgot his own people.
He tried preaching to them first by going to the synagogues. Then he would
minister to the Gentiles.
Paul tells us clearly in
Romans 15 that he is the apostle to the Gentiles. He makes much of his office
as the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul made it clear that his authority extended
to this church. Paul has the definite, God-given right to address the people of
the church at Rome.
The authority that he has to
bring about this obedience is not derived from any man or organization. His
authority is derived from the Jesus Christ Himself.
Remember, Paul wrote the
Galatians a letter and he made this statement:
“For I neither received it
from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus
Christ.” (Galatians
1:12, NKJV)
3B Third – he gives us the product of his
apostleship.
“…grace and apostleship, for
his name.”
Notice first of all, that
grace must precede service or apostleship. And what is grace? Most say it is
unmerited favor and that is true. We can never earn, deserve, or merit anything
from God. Grace is those gifts God gives to us for enablement. It is his grace
that enables us to do anything for his name sake.
Secondly, we the ultimate focus
of Paul’s ministry.
The ultimate focus of Paul’s
ministry is: the name of Jesus His Lord. In Scripture, you know, that name
refers to the person in his or her true character and significance. Paul is not
sent out for his own personal gain or interests. He is sent out by God for the
glory and the benefit of Jesus Christ, His Lord.
Verse 6 refers to the
Gentiles even before Paul speaks directly to them in verse 7. This verse is
almost a parenthesis. It connects “Gentiles” in vs. 5 by the pronoun
“whom.” So Paul makes it clear that is
commission includes those in
the church at Rome. By virtue of being Gentiles they all under Paul’s
responsibility. Those in Rome cannot disavow or deny Paul’s apostleship over
them.
Why is that? The last phrase
of verse 6 answers that question: “…also are the called of Jesus Christ.” God
has called these Gentile Christians to Himself and to Jesus Christ.
Remember this word call and
its derivatives contain the idea of an effectual
calling. The ‘calling’ is that powerful and irresistible reaching out of God in
grace that actually brought them into His kingdom.
I know that many genuine
believers have a burden for the lost, or a missionary might have a burden for
Argentinians, or Colombians. But we don’t obey for the sake of the lost or even
for the sake Argentinians or Colombians, our obedience is for the sake of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
The primary reason we share
the gospel is not so that the lost might be saved, the primary reason we share
the gospel is that it magnifies the nature and character of the Lord Jesus
Christ. A nice by-product for a lost person is that they can be saved.
Everything we do is for Jesus
Christ. The primary purpose of any activity, action, or even attitude is for
God’s glory. We share the gospel with every creature in order to magnify or
enlarge the character and nature of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[For example, it says in 1
Corinthians 10:31…]
“Therefore, whether you eat
or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31, NKJV)
Paul will tell the Romans
later in chapter 15; “…that you may with one mind and one mouth
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:6,
NKJV)
Listen carefully, the reason
that we do all that we do, our submission, our obedience, and our willingness
to be bond-slaves is for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[For example:]
Our sins were not and are
not forgiven simply for our benefit. Our sins were and are forgiven for the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember what John said in
his first letter? “I write to you little children, because your sins are forgiven for his
name’s sake.” (1 John 2:12)
We as witnesses for Christ
are in no way of no importance in sharing the gospel. But salvation is first
and foremost for the glory and sake of Christ.
So Paul makes it clear that
his commission is to make sure there are no mavericks, but that all believers
are obedient to Christ Jesus as Lord; that his commission is to the Gentiles
specifically; and that his commission is to bring glory to Jesus Christ.
Now let’s stop here for a
minute and backtrack and dig a little deeper. I want you to catch the total
significance of what Paul has said. Let’s ask ourselves:
What does it mean to be called of Jesus Christ?
First of all – it means more
than simply hearing a gospel presentation. This word for ‘called’ went through
a development from the time Jesus first used it Matthew’s gospel and the when
it was used in these letters.
Remember Jesus said, “Many
are called but few are chosen.” (Matt 22:14, NKJV)
When Jesus used this word it
represented the voice of God that goes throughout the world proclaiming the
gospel to all ears.
But by the time Christian
doctrine is developed by God in the NT letters, the “called” represented those
who had listen and who had accepted an acted upon the gospel message.
According to Greek Lexicons
and Thayer’s Greek Lexicon in particular, “Everywhere in the NT letters only
those are spoken of as called by God who have listened to His voice when it was
addressed to them in the gospel message. Those who have ignored the message of
the gospel invitation are not counted as being among the “called.”
When you read Revelation
17:14, the word is even further developed:
“He is the Lord of Lords and
King of kings; and they that are with him are called, chosen, and faithful.” (Rev 17:14)
So, these Christians in
Rome, and for the matter every believer today, have been the object of the
effectual calling of God. God calls whom he saves and saves whom he calls. No
one who is called is not effectually saved, and no one who is saved is not someone
who has not been called. Those who are called are rendered willing and able to
heed the gospel message.
They are removed from the
curse, made alive by the HS, given the gift of faith and repentance and pass
out of death into life and into the realm of God’s eternal blessings.
The called are the children
of God, heirs of God, joint heirs of Christ. The exact moment God gives a
person life through the HS they are made a spiritual being and are made
complete in Christ.
From that moment onward God
is at work conforming us into the image of His Son through the renewing of our
mind, Romans 12:1-2.
So, we are able to Paul’s
purpose for his apostleship, Paul’s place of his apostleship, and
Paul’s
product of his apostleship and ministry. He desires to call the
believer’s to life of greater faith and obedience. His authority is to the
Gentiles and extends to the church at Rome. The product is the glorification of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
To summarize we are able to
see that Paul has told these Roman believers in the church at Rome everything
about himself to establish his credibility.
·
He is a servant
·
He has been appointed by God and is not self-appointed
·
He is brought nothing new to the table
·
His priority is Jesus Christ and his ministry is bringing many to obedience
·
His authority comes from Christ
Our theme has
been: The
Recipe of an apostle
This is a good reminder for us all that we need to
understand the various ingredients that God used to make this man such a unique
player in the eternal plans of God
Proposition: The
Apostle Paul was qualified by God for his task
[Well,
let’s wrap this up, shall we?]
CONCLUSION
A
small boy walked on a beach one day, and he saw a matronly looking woman
sitting under a beach umbrella on the sand. He walked up to her and asked,
"Are you a Christian?"
"Yes,"
she answered.
"Do
you read your Bible every day?"
She
nodded her head. "Yes."
"Do
you pray often?" the boy asked next.
Again
she answered, "Yes."
With
that he asked his final question: "Will you hold my quarter while I go
swimming?"
With
his questions the little boy was determining the ladies credentials. Was she
trustworthy enough to hold his quarter?
In
the opening verses of Romans Paul is giving his readers credentials for writing
this letter with the expectation that they will pay heed to what he writes.
Romans has this fascinating lengthy introduction. He tells us four or five
things about his authority to write to them as he does. He tells us he is
trustworthy, worthy to be listened to.
[Exhortation…]
And So, I
exhort you as genuine believers to submit to the obedience of faith
and to emulate Paul’s commission by proclaiming the gospel to the gentiles
around us.
Remember
the Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 28:19-20…
“Go therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and
lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-29,
NKJV)
Let’s
pray! J
Benediction Blessing:
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with you all. Amen. (Philippians 4:23, NKJV)
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