Called to Belong

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

I am absolutely thrilled to study the letter to the Romans with you because of the impact it had on me personally as a young Christian. 25 years ago, I was the type of person Paul had in mind when he wrote the letter. 

Romans was written to systematically explain and defend the Gospel to new believers. There’s some incredible depth here that we will need to wrestle with, but I’m certain it will bear fruit in your life and in our church. 

The Protestant Reformation started with a German monk reading Paul’s letter to the Romans, specifically the last verse we’re going to read today. And so, let’s dive right into God’s Word.  

[1] Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,  

Slave is a better translation than servant. I can work for two employers, but I can only have one master. And that’s how Paul describes himself, even before claiming the title of Apostle. He’s a slave of Christ Jesus and he’s been given the task of spreading the Gospel. 

What is the Gospel? Paul tells us: 

[2] which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,  

The Gospel is a fulfillment of Scripture. But what is it about? 

[3] concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh  

The Gospel is about Jesus, the Son of God. He is also a real human being with a real family tree. But’s He’s much more than that. 

[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,  

The resurrection verified and announced Jesus as the Messiah, the true Son of God. He is also our Lord… 

[5] through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,  

If we put it all together, Paul is describing the Gospel as good news that has been entrusted to us but belongs to God, is about Jesus, is according to the Scriptures, was verified and accomplished by the resurrection, is for all nations, and it produces obedience for the sake of God’s glory. 

That’s a lot of theology. And thankfully, Paul is going to teach us more about all of this in the coming weeks. But now he makes it personal: 

[6] including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, 

Pause and marinate on that for just a minute. God’s great story about Jesus, foretold thousands of years ago and fulfilled thousands of years ago specifically includes you. And me. We are called to belong to Jesus. We should repeat that often. We are called to belong to Jesus. 

And as we study Romans, I want us to keep this in mind. We are going to get very technical at times but remember the point of all this. God did this so that people from every nation could be INCLUDED in his family… so that we BELONG. 

[7] To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

More beautiful words. Loved. Called. Saints. Grace. Peace. Father. The Gospel of God makes these things possible for us. 

I’m going to read verses 8-15 as a whole. Paul did not plant the church in Rome. He hasn’t even had the opportunity to visit Rome yet, so he’s going to explain his purpose in writing.  

[8] First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.  

[9] For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you  

[10] always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.  

[11] For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 

[12] that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 

 [13] I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.  

[14] I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 

[15] So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 

Notice once again how clearly Paul says that the Gospel is for everyone. There were social classes and racial divisions in ancient Rome just as there are today. That’s been true in every time and place throughout history. 

But the Gospel is for the educated and uneducated. It’s for the rich and the poor. It’s for blue collar and white collar. It’s for the citizen and the foreigner.  

This is not a passing thought. It’s a crucial piece of information if you want to understand the first few chapters of Romans. The Gospel is for everyone. 

And now we have come to Paul’s thesis statement. This is what He’s going to systematically defend in the first half of this letter. 

[16] For 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.  

There it is again. The Gospel is for everyone who believes. It went to the Jews first chronologically, but it’s moving outward to all nations. 

With that context, it explains why Paul feels the need to say he is not ashamed. He was a Jewish man writing a letter to Romans. Elsewhere, Paul recognizes that the Gospel was often a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. 

Paul knew the Gospel could unite those who accept, but it could also divide those who reject it. That’s why he calls it the power of God. We get the word dynamite from this Greek word for power.  

If you’ve ever driven near Nashville, you’ve seen rock walls beside the highway with indented lines running down the rock face. They drilled down into the rock and packed dynamite in those holes to blow open a path for the highway. 

The Gospel is not just a cute story or a nice philosophical idea. It’s something that has blown history wide open. Even if you don’t believe Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, you’ve got to admit His impact. No religion comes anywhere close to the geographical, social, and ethnic footprint of Christianity. 

It’s the power of God on full display. 

[17] For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” 

This verse is the one that kept Martin Luther up at night. That German monk I mentioned earlier. And it all hinges on what Paul means by “the righteousness of God”. 

Paul is not referring to an attribute of God or an activity of God detached from the Gospel. He’s describing something God has achieved for us in the Gospel. In it God is revealing something powerful for us… His own righteousness can be received by faith. 

Righteousness is not a word we use in everyday life, but we use the concept all the time. It’s a relationship word. What do you say to a friend or a family member after there’s been some sort of argument or disagreement? “Are we good?” Has this been resolved? Are things ok between us now? 

That’s the concept, but it also carries some legal weight. If you get caught committing a crime, you’re not going to be right with the government until you pay the fine or serve a prison sentence.  

Righteousness is like that – it’s about being in a right standing or right relationship specifically with the God who created us and owns us. 

Paul says the Gospel shows us how to be right with God. And the answer is “by faith”. He uses the word faith 3 times in this one verse and 40 times in the whole letter, more than any other book of the Bible. 

If this was a sermon, Paul’s text is Habakkuk 2:4 – “the righteous shall live by faith.” His interpretation of that verse, which we will learn in the coming weeks, is not how righteous people live their lives. It’s how sinful people become righteous. 

Paul is already giving us the cheat code. “From faith for faith,” he says. This righteousness is received altogether by faith from first to last, or as the Reformers said it, by faith alone.   

Paul is describing God’s righteousness as a gift that God supplies, not a standard God is holding us to by our own merit. It doesn’t originate in us at all. It comes from God, and it lands on us the moment we trust him. 

You need to know that this verse is hotly debated between Protestants and everyone else. Do some research on it. Don’t take my word for it. It basically comes down to this: is righteousness something God gives us by faith, or is it something God does in cooperation with us? 

As a Protestant, I think Paul makes a sharp distinction between the Gospel of grace and the fruit of obedience that it produces. This is not something Martin Luther invented. He was simply recovering something the church in his day had lost. 

And the Apostle Paul seemed to think the message of the Gospel was easy for the church to lose. He’s so anxious to defend it in his letters because we are always in real danger of losing it. 

The most common way to lose the Gospel, according to Paul, is the slide back into moralism or what he calls works righteousness in Galatians and Titus. 

It’s a distortion of the Gospel that leads to pride or anxiety. Pride if you think you’re doing a good job and anxiety when you think you’re not. 

This concern is not unique to Paul, either. The preaching of Jesus was often meant to crush these same moralistic tendencies. 

In Matthew 5:20, Jesus said this to the people: 

[20] For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 

In other words, the best people you know aren’t good enough to put themselves back in my favor. The best people you know aren’t good enough to get themselves to heaven. 

What hope do any of us have, then?  

The dynamite of the Gospel comes crashing in with the only answer… faith in the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. It’s not earned. It’s received.

There are hunting clubs down in the Mississippi Delta that are so exclusive, the waiting list to join is inherited.  A man puts his name down for his grandson before the boy’s even born, and by the time a membership opens, half the club’s founding members are just names on a plaque by the fireplace. 

But imagine if you’re a member of one of these clubs, and the landowner announces that he’s opening the membership list to anyone who wants to join? In fact, he’s going to pay the membership fees himself! 

The new people would be happy. The old members? Not happy. Why? Because they think they deserve membership and the new people don’t. Even though none of them really did anything to earn it themselves. It was decided before they were born. 

That’s the best way I know to explain where Paul is going in this letter. It explains the tension between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. And just like the parable of the Generous Landowner in Matthew 20, it explains God’s heart for the lost. 

Every nation included. Every nation belongs. This good news is for anyone who will receive it by faith. This table is for anyone who has received Jesus by faith.