Romans 1:1–17 introduces Paul’s letter to the Romans and presents its central theme: the gospel is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes. This study explores Paul’s calling, his desire to visit Rome, and the foundational truth that the righteous live by faith.
We’re going to be looking at the book of Romans. We studied Romans a few years ago and worked our way through the book, but as you look at Romans, a couple of things come to mind.
First, this is one of the books Paul wrote that contains more doctrine than any of his other epistles, or letters, to the churches. It deals with the very issues we’re facing today—not only in our world but also in the church.
If we can grasp the message of the book of Romans, we’ll be able to answer people who are being deceived by false teachings that have entered the church and by a world that is becoming increasingly anti-God in its character. We’ll also be able to give them an answer for the hope that is within us.
One of the things we often forget is that many people are not taught history, and as a result, we don’t know history very well. The Apostle Paul lived in a culture that was not unlike the one in which we live today. Roman culture was very anti-God in its character. So much so, in fact, that the emperors exalted themselves and wanted to be called gods. The people were involved in many sinful and despicable lifestyles and activities.
Yet this is where God birthed His church.
This is also where the Apostle Paul was given the distinct calling to take the gospel to the Gentile world—to people who had been raised in that culture and knew nothing of the Scriptures.
Paul, however, had been trained by one of the most famous rabbis in Israel. Many Bible scholars believe he was being prepared to become part of the Sanhedrin and the leadership of the Jewish people. Yet Paul did not believe in Jesus. Instead, he actively sought to destroy those who claimed the name of Christ. At that time, those believers were primarily Jewish, with very few Gentiles among them when Paul was first called.
Let’s read the beginning of chapter 1, where Paul introduces himself to the church in Rome—a church he had never visited. This was before Paul was imprisoned in Rome. Although he had never been there, he had heard about the Roman believers and the impact they were having through their lives. He also wanted to explain to them the importance of living according to the Word of God, the principles of God’s Word, and the truth of the gospel.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made 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: by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for His name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:1–7)
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, as we come before You this morning, I pray that You would speak to us through Your Word. Help us to understand the importance of what You have shared with us, what You have called us from, and what You have called us into. Thank You for transforming our lives, just as You transformed the life of the Apostle Paul, making us bearers of light, truth, and the gospel.
Lord, I pray that You would speak to us this morning through Your Word and help us understand the importance of Paul’s message to the church in Rome and to us today. Speak to us, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Many Christians have a false perspective of what it means to be a Christian. They also misunderstand how the Word of God applies to the Christian life. Some Christians buy into the idea that we only need the New Testament—from the Gospel of Matthew through Revelation—and that we can simply ignore the Old Testament because it pertains only to Israel.
But Paul, in his introduction, already says things that prove that idea is incorrect.
I remember hearing a man say that in the Old Testament the New Testament is concealed, and in the New Testament the Old Testament is revealed. There is a great deal of truth in that statement.
The Old Testament—or what Paul simply called “the Scriptures”—was given to the nation of Israel. Paul never referred to it as the Old Testament; he referred to it as the Scriptures. Those Scriptures are foundational to understanding the entire Bible.
If you misunderstand this, you’ll misunderstand the significance of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It is one book with one message, and at the center of that message is Jesus Christ. The Bible is not primarily about the nation of Israel. It is about Jesus and how God used the nation of Israel to point the world to the Messiah, to bring the Messiah into the world, and to preserve both the gospel and the Word of God.
Background of Romans
To give you a little more background on Paul, he was probably one of the most brilliant scholars of his day. Even today, many Orthodox Jews who reject Jesus as the Messiah view Paul as the person they oppose more than any other New Testament writer.
Why? Because Paul was once exactly where they are.
Before Paul was saved, he believed what they believe. In fact, before his conversion, Paul knew more than they did. He thoroughly understood the Scriptures and the prophets. His entire life had been devoted to studying them.
Now let’s look more closely at some of the verses we’ve read and examine Paul’s life, God’s calling on him, and why God chose this Jewish scholar—trained to be a rabbi—to bring the gospel to a world of pagans who had no knowledge of the Scriptures.
Think about that for a moment.
Imagine being called to preach the gospel to people who have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You would first have to lay the entire foundation of why humanity needs a Savior, why the Savior had to come, why Jesus came the way He did, and why God designed His plan of salvation as He did.
God chose exactly the right man for that task: the Apostle Paul.
Paul describes himself as “a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.”
Those words summarize his calling.
First, he was called to follow Jesus.
If you go back to the book of Acts, you’ll find the account of Paul’s calling. As I mentioned earlier, before his conversion, Paul wanted nothing to do with the church.
He had no time for Christians Paul You will find the first time you see him in the book of Acts Stephen is being stoned. There’s a young man standing holding the robes of those throwing stones. Because I don’t know if you ever been out throwing stones? It’s pretty hard to throw if you got a heavy coat or robe on you. It’s a whole lot easier if you take the outer garment off and you can get your arm going. So you can whip up faster. That young man was Paul. At that time he was referred to in the book of Acts as Saul. He was endorsing everything they were doing; yet, he heard some amazing words from the mouth of Stephen.
As Stephen is lying dying at the hands of these Jewish radicals that want to silence the message of the gospel and Jesus. Stephen looks up into heaven and sees the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s an amazing thing that it says there it says that he is standing at the right hand of the father. The other time you see Jesus in heaven. He’s seated at the right hand of the father, but as Stephen is being martyred. Jesus stands and then Stephen says an amazing thing. He says that God would not charge his death to those that are killing him. He forgives him one of those men. Saul was sent on a mission not long after that.
The church had been growing. If you remember in the book of Acts at the beginning of the book The Apostles were in Jerusalem. Jesus had risen from the dead. Jesus had appeared to the Apostles. Jesus had told them that he was going to send his Spirit upon them. Then he gave them the Great Commission. That they were to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
If they were to start where in Jerusalem. It was to take the gospel to Jerusalem and Judea and if you don’t know the Old Testament. You won’t understand what he’s talking about Jerusalem is the heart of Judea It was the Temple Mount. They were to take it to the center of all the Jewish worship and explain. Fulfillment has come of all that you’ve been worshiping and all the sacrifices system that you’ve had It’s been fulfilled in Jesus and the gospel is here and the mess good news is here and your Messiah is here.
They were to take it to Jerusalem then Judea the land of the northern the southern kingdom. Then to Samaria the land of the northern kingdom and then to the uttermost parts of the earth. The gospel was to be fulfilled. Not only in the promises given to Adam when it was told him that there would come one who would crush the serpents head even though the serpent would bruise his heel. That through him the salvation would come to whom not just certain descendants of Adam but it was to be made to all the descendants of Adam who would believe. Again reaffirmed in the book of Genesis when God calls Abraham out of her of the Chaldees. He says Abraham it is through you that the whole world will be blessed.
Well, how did that happen because Abraham never got out of once he got into Canaan. He never left Canaan except to go over to what today would be called the Gaza area. Or, to southern came that’s about as far as he got But the whole world was to be blessed because through him would come the seed of the Messiah through him through Isaac through Jacob through Judah through David. Then Jesus would come now as Paul in his anger Because he believes that the church the Christians are blaspheming the Word of God. So he is going about to have them either thrown in jail or killed because that’s what you do with blasphemers He’s on his way to Damascus if you pull out a map of the Middle East you see that Jerusalem.
You know in America we have our size. It is so big when we go from here to Minneapolis. That’s like less area than going from Jerusalem to Damascus. You cross three countries in Europe. You haven’t even gotten out of Texas; yet, we need to look at the scriptures and understand they walked where they went. If they had a mule or a horse. Maybe they could ride or a cart, but it was usually walking Paul’s on his way to Damascus he’s walking to Damascus and his whole intent is to go with those that are with him.
They’re going to round up the Christians of Damascus throw them in jail or kill them and All of a sudden The Lord appears to Saul and it says in the book of Acts that a bright light shone and The Lord spoke to Saul and he said Saul Saul why persecutest thou me? Saul thought he’s persecuting Christians now Jesus appears to him and says why are you persecuting me and Then he makes another amazing statement to Paul Why do you continually kick against the pricks? You don’t know what that is if you didn’t grow up on a horse farm Where they used horses for or mules or oxen for using their farming implements Sometimes what you’d have you’d have a stubborn mule or a stubborn horse or an ox and they wouldn’t want to pull And so what they do is they kick
Trying to get that machine off of them and What they would do is the farmer would put what they called a prick and It was a sharp object so when the oxen tried to remove the machine from him, he’d hit the prick and it would be painful and It would teach him stop kicking and start pulling. What Jesus is telling Paul is stop kicking and start pulling. Why are you kicking against the pricks? Why do you why do you kick against everything. I’ve showed you why do you kick against my word? Why do you kick against the prophets?
Why do you kick against all that, you know? and all of a sudden Saul was brought under great conviction Everything he had learned about the prophets and the law. Had been pointing to a Messiah. It’s just he did not want to accept Jesus as the Messiah, even though he knew. How do I say that that so emphatically he knew because he knew the scriptures He knew who the Messiah he had read Isaiah chapter 53. He knew who it was speaking about We’ve been studying Daniel he had studied down. He had read the prophets He’d read Zechariah He’d read all the things that told them.
This is when the Messiah is coming. This is where the Messiah is coming This is where he’s going to be born. This is going to be his ministry This is what he’s going to do on earth and then he’s going to be taken away He’s going to be crucified for the sins of the world All of that was known by Paul, but he was kicking against the pricks He didn’t want to believe it Why because if he believed that it would be make a radical transformation in his life Why do you think a lot of people don’t want to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior? They love their sin too much They love their position.
They love their power They love what they have achieved that Satan has given to them in this world and they’re unwilling to give it up And so they’re like Paul. They’re constantly kicking against the pricks get away from me. Get away from me.
Get away from me And God doesn’t give up. He didn’t give up on Paul and Paul That day on the road to Damascus was transformed From the biggest Persecutor of the church to the biggest promoter of the gospel Paul tells us He says He was separated for a purpose He was called to be an Apostle in another letter to the church, he says I am the least of the Apostles Why do you say that? You see the other Apostles had all followed Jesus when he walked on earth They’d all come to faith Paul didn’t Paul was as one born out of season. I Don’t know if you’ve ever had somebody in your family that all of a sudden all the kids are up here in age and then all of a sudden there’s a straggler that comes My youngest sister’s nine years younger than me And I don’t think my mom and dad thought she was going to be born.
They didn’t I don’t think they expected it But she’s there And she’s a wonderful lady And the thing is Paul says I was like that I was born out of season I Was I wasn’t one of his followers on earth and Yet he called me and he called me to a be an Apostle and then he gave me the most important assignment They give to anybody I Was to be an Apostle to the Gentiles Now I want you to imagine what went through Paul’s head when God told him that This is what an Orthodox do Jew of the day of Paul how they viewed the Gentiles dogs unworthy To be in your presence They were like a lower-class citizen in their eyes because as I said, they knew nothing about the Bible and They were pagans For the most part they worshipped false gods false idols and they had no desire for truth and So the Jews looked down upon him and Paul by his own testimony in another letter Says that I was a Pharisee of Pharisees born of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews in other words, I was up here in the eyes of my religious community and in my own eyes But he says I all of this that I’ve attained in my few short years that he’d been on earth Nobody says in that same testimony. I counted as dung manure To be trampled under by men It means nothing what means something is that God called me out of that and to present the gospel to the very people I despised What an amazing statement being made by God and what a calling he placed in preparing a man to bring to those that had no concept of who God was of Creation other than what they could see in the world around them and they God gave them a man who Studied the prophets in the law and the and the writings and the books and he knew God’s Word So Paul says Unto the gospel of God, that’s what his calling was unto the gospel of God Which he had a promised a for by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures I Already gave you those promises Just some of them That this Messiah would come that there would be the gospel of the good news is that man No longer had to be separated from God awaiting his day of judgment and awaiting The eternal separation from God but rather he could be forgiven his sins and be brought into a new fellowship and relationship with his Creator and Redeemer and he could walk with him and experience what God intended him to be and why he had created him to be what he was and Is and that was the gospel that and it all centered on Jesus Christ He said verse 3 Concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord Which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and here I want you to see Paul is saying and this He’s already attacking some of the false teaching that has come into the church You know, there’s people today that say Jesus didn’t really come bodily. He just came spiritually Then he really didn’t die physically that he really wasn’t buried He really didn’t arise again from the dead, but rather it was all some type of spiritual experience Paul says what no he was after the seed of David according to the flesh God came according to the flesh.
He came as the second Adam he came in fulfillment of the promise gave and given to Adam and the promise given to Abraham Isaac Judah and David They’ve come in the line of David now, it’s interesting as you look at this This is a stumbling block for many Jewish people and It’s a stumbling block for many Muslim people to think that Jesus is God come in the flesh But I want you to know you wouldn’t be able to be saved if he hadn’t and the thing is as you look at this the amazing Thing is how God in his word Lays it all out and historically. It’s a hundred percent accurate There are people that say Well, I don’t know if I want to believe the Bible because it was written You know most of us written thousands of years ago if not the Earliest that we have in the most recent of the scriptures that are written was during the Apostles and that would be 2,000 years ago. And so how can I believe a book that’s two to three to four thousand years old? How can I believe the authenticity of it? But yet you look at? Archaeological discoveries Historical discoveries, I like to use the example of Hittite nation Back at the beginning of the last century the people said Hittites didn’t exist It was something that these Christians made up and put in their Bible There’s no nation like the Hittites you go and get a world map of the ancient world today and you will find the Hittite nation It was one of the most powerful nations in the Middle East Prior to Abraham coming to that part the Hittites they and you go to Turkey today They got a Hittite Museum Israel has a Hittite Museum of artifacts from the Hittite culture But there were people who said our Bible can’t be true.
It talks about the Hittites. They never existed Yes, they did just did the archaeologist hadn’t caught up with the Bible yet same thing with some of the names of kings of Different cultures that are referred to in the Old Testament. They say well that King didn’t exist Well, then they find that name written on some pillar that they did an archaeologist digs up in the Middle East and there’s the guy’s name This book is true historically Archaeologically it’s it’s
But more significantly, it’s true spiritually. And what Paul and what the Jewish people were saying is, well, I don’t know about this Jesus. There are some interesting things.
If you want to really have some, hear some really neat testimonies, go on the YouTube website of one of the ministries that our church here supports, One for Israel. And it gives Jewish people that have come to Christ and why they came. And most of them would say their view prying to God opening their eyes and bringing them to understanding of salvation, their view that Jesus was Catholic, their view that Jesus was a Gentile, their view that Jesus was a figment of people’s imagination.
He never really existed. And that the whole purpose of the New Testament was to teach people how to hate and kill Jews. That’s what they believed before they came to Christ.
Many of them give that as their testimony. Know how many of them come to Christ? They get their hands on a New Testament. And I don’t know about you, but if you’ve ever read through the Bible, you get to the genealogies and you’re going, Oh man, genealogies.
I’m going to sit here for half an hour, 45 minutes. And it’s name after name, half the names I can’t even pronounce. I don’t know where they came from.
I don’t know where they’re going. And why does God put all these names in here? Know how many of those Jews get saved because they read the book of Matthew and they read the genealogy of Jesus? And they start reading this and they go, But this is Jewish. This is what I learned.
Adam and Moses. And then you go to the genealogy and you see that it talks about the fact that there’s Abraham and Isaac and David. These people that they know and they say, It’s Jewish.
And they come to accept Christ because they realize it’s real. Paul says, Jesus was a real man because God had to come in the form of flesh, but he was different than any other man because he came in the seed of a woman. Every other one of us was born in the seed of a man.
You had two parents, mother and a father. Your father’s seed impregnated your mother. Mary, there was no man.
God was formed in her womb. Jesus was formed in her womb without a father. Because his father was God.
He’s God come in the flesh. And Paul says that. And he says, And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness.
A lot of people say, Well, I don’t think I believe in the Trinity. You know, there’s people that claim to be Christians. They don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
They don’t believe in the Holy Spirit. They don’t believe that if you baptize, you don’t baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit because there isn’t God manifesting himself in three persons. Well, I don’t know.
Right here we’ve got all three persons in the opening paragraph of Paul’s letter. You’ve got the Holy Spirit. You’ve got God the Son and God the Father.
They’re all God. But yet you go to the book of Deuteronomy and it says that we worship but one God who manifests himself in three different manifestations. He possesses the spirit of God.
And it says here, By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. I want you to just pick that apart a little bit. It says, By whom we have received grace.
You and I sit here today not because we’re worthy of sitting here today. If you would sit down with me and I would sit down with you and we’d be openly honest with one another, we could bear all the sins that we have committed in our life that would keep us from heaven. I remember Dave Hunt said he was speaking at this one conference and he made a similar statement.
And a little old lady stood up and said, I’ve never sinned! And her daughter came up to Dave Hunt afterwards and said, No, I can tell you she was lying. The thing is we’ve all sinned. But for God’s grace, what we deserve is an eternal judgment.
You see, one of the things that made Paul’s challenge to the group of people that God had called him to minister to, they have the view that many pagans in our culture have today. If you go up and ask them, Are you a good person? Yeah, I’m a good person. What makes you a good person? Well, that guy over there, he’s a lot worse than me.
I don’t do what he does. That makes me a good person. But the problem is, the comparison isn’t between us and other people.
And half the time if we were really honest with ourselves, we think a lot more highly of ourselves than other people think of us. Because they can see our flaws, where sometimes we tend to cover them up. What Paul is saying here is, God extended His grace.
Grace is favor, forgiveness, that I get that I don’t deserve. I don’t deserve it. I deserve judgment, not grace, not forgiveness.
And so he says, that through Jesus Christ we experience God’s grace. And so my message is a message of grace. Showing the grace of God, that God is gracious to forgive sins, and not judge and do what you’re worthy of receiving.
And he says, and apostleship. Now, when he’s speaking of apostleship here, the word apostleship has a couple different meanings. One, the Apostle Paul, they had a very special commission.
They were commissioned to do something that the early apostles were commissioned to do something, because they were the early leadership of the church that was called to share the gospel, to share it with people. And Paul says, I’m an apostle to the Gentiles. Apostle also has another meaning, and it means commissioned.
You’ve been commissioned or sent. Paul was an apostle. He’d been commissioned to go to the Gentiles.
He was sent to the Gentiles. Jesus Christ has sent us. Now, we’re not apostles, in the sense that we have special knowledge, and we have special things that the apostles had, that they needed to impart onto the church, and to the early Christians.
But we are, in the sense, sent by God. You were saved not to sit in the pew on Sunday, and then leave and never share the gospel. You were saved to proclaim truth, just like Paul was saved to proclaim truth.
How will those that do not know the truth hear, unless there’s a preacher that’s sent? Who but knows that you are that preacher, and that you have been placed in certain positions. Women say, well, women aren’t supposed to be preachers. They’re not supposed to stand up here, and expound the word of God.
But what you are supposed to do, is you are supposed to share with people that God brings in your path. Paul tells women, the older women in the church are to teach the younger women in the church, what do they teach them? How to love their husbands, how to love their families, how to love their God. We’re all called, and we’re all commissioned, for obedience to the faith among the nations, for His name, not for our glorification, but for His name, among the nations.
One of the amazing things is, this little church here, we’ve never commissioned, and sent a missionary to any foreign country, but God’s brought foreign countries to our church. We had Haitians come here for a while. We had a Somalian come here for a while.
We’ve had people from the Middle East come here for a while. You see, we’re commissioned to take the gospel to the nations. We’ve got people from the Philippines that even come here.
The thing is, it’s not just to be held in this small circle that we’ve got. There are some groups of Christians that they become so ingrown, they never share the gospel with anybody. There’s one group of Christians that they begin to have a really odd thing.
They said, well, they took and threw away portions of Scripture, like where it says that children are a blessing of the Lord, and that if your quiver is full of them, you’ve been blessed with God. And they would say, no, you shouldn’t even have children. And so they would say that you should never have children, you shouldn’t go outside and share the gospel.
Guess how long that church lived? Until the people all died that were its members because they never got anybody else to share with. I don’t think that was even Christian. And the thing is, what we need to say is, God says, among whom ye also are called of Jesus Christ, to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints.
You don’t have to go out and do a bunch of miracles to be a saint. You’re called by God, you’re a saint. You’ve been transformed by the blood of the Lamb and you are now a new creature in Christ.
You are one who is a follower of Jesus. Called to be saints, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the introduction to Paul’s letter.
This is the beginning of Paul’s testimony that he’s going to go into more of things that God has revealed to him in this letter. But this letter is an amazing letter because it speaks to people not only in his culture, but in our culture today. And it doesn’t take long to get into the heart of the matter.
Why don’t people believe in God? That’s going to be coming in the first chapter. Why don’t people believe in God? Have you ever stopped to think about why don’t people believe in Jesus? Why don’t people believe in God? Why is the only time people ever, Jesus ever crossed their mouth is when they swear and use his name in vain? Why is that? It’s because of the lies they bought into and God has brought the truth. It’s because the prince of the power of the air desires to keep men enslaved and to follow him in a rebellion against their creator because he’s delusional enough to think he can beat God.
And some people are delusional enough to follow him. This is the introduction to Romans. I want us to really be excited about this book.
Learn lessons that are in this book that are applicable today because there’s false teaching coming into the church that are addressed in this book. There’s dealing with, did you know this deals with humanists, secular humanists, Muslims, Hindus. All these people are dealt with in this book.
It doesn’t call them out by name. It calls them out by the belief system. And we’re going to look at it and see what God’s got to say on how we deal with it because these are real issues for us in our day.
Let’s just go to the Lord in prayer. Lord I pray that you just help us to understand and help us to be encouraged as we look into Paul’s letter to the Roman church. A church that was in the very heart of paganism.
A group of believers that needed to be encouraged and needed to understand where their power came from and needed to understand what they’ve been called to do. Lord that’s us today. We need to understand where our power comes from.
What we’ve been called to do. And we seek to honor and glorify your name. This we ask in Jesus name.
Amen.