Keep Listening

Let's grab our bibles. Grab your bibles in turn to Romans chapter one.

If you don't have a Bible with you, just raise your hand because we're

passing those out right now. And also if you don't have a bulletin,

if you didn't pick one of those up on the way in the worship center

doors, raise your hand for that, because notes super helpful. Okay.

Romans chapter one, Yeah, exiting, so exciting. While you're turning to

Romans chapter one, we're gonna be in verses one through six this morning.

Let me just say, y'all, I don't mean to flatter, I believe

this is true. Y'all are the best. Yeah, y'all are the best.

So many of you wrote little index cards of greeting or affection of all

types and drop them off. Somebody collected them all up and bound them up

and handed them off to our family. And you guys are just the best.

I know because I talked to pastors. Y'all are really the best.

I'm just I'm just saying. I'm just saying, let's set these right here.

Romans chapter one, verses one through six is where we'll be this morning,

all gathered here. I'm going to ask our brother to come and read

our sermon text for us, and then we're gonna jump. Our text this

morning is Romans chapter one Versus one through six, God's Words, says Paul,

a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle set apart for

the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the holy

scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh,

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,

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, including you, who

are called to belong to Jesus Christ. This is God's word and men,

Thanks be to God. In October of two thousand and three, my wife

and I received some news. Kara had been feeling different, and so we

went to Walgreen's and got a pregnancy test, and then she did all the

things that are necessary to utilize said test, and then we literally like left

it in another room and went into the bedroom while I timed the amount of

time that it's needed to get a reading. And then, as I remember

it, we walked hand in hand back to the place where the pregnancy test

was and sure enough, double blue line news. We were parents. That

was amazing. And as time passed, like three months went by, and

then the news continued to unfold. It was a boy is a boy.

And then time continued to pass, and the news that we understood so well

at the beginning continued to unfold all the way through parenting. And what I'm

getting at is that the truth of the news was in October two thousand and

three, we were parents. Did we understand the truth of the news,

Yes we did. Did we understand the fullness of that news? No we

did not. It's still coming. And this church in Rome is in a

similar situation. Hear me out. The church in Romans in a similar situation,

insomuch as they understood the truth of the news about Jesus Christ, his

death, his resurrection, they had the facts of the Messiah. Many of

the people in this church had probably been in Jerusalem at Pentecost, holy Spirit

fell, and the testimony about the truth of this news was attested to by

the Holy Spirit with signs and wonders. Many of the people of this church

had the Old Testament scriptures and had some understanding of who God is and what

He's been doing, and the promise to shed light on the entire higher world.

Somehow through this Messiah, they understood the truth of the news, but

they didn't understand the fullness of the news. And so Paul, under the

inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes this letter, helping them to understand more

of the fullness of the news about Jesus Christ, about God's wrath on unrighteousness,

about God's righteous judgment, about our peace with God through faith, about

our release from the law, about life in this spirit, about God's sovereignty

and salvation. You get the point, the fullness of the news. And

with his first few sentences here in verses one through six, he's trying to

open the ears of this church in order to pour in not something different than

the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but a fuller understanding of this gospel and its

implications. He's saying something alike like this, Keep listening to God's gospel.

He is communicating life altering, world changing news. Keep listening to God's Gospel.

He's communicating life altering, world changing news, and that sentence is very

well directed at us as well. Right, we may know the truth of

the Gospel, but there are so many aspects and implications that we don't have

a grasp of, or we often lose our grasp of. And we need

to keep listening to God's word as he continues communicating by his Holy Spirit through

his word aspects and implications of the Gospel about Jesus. Keep listening. I

think we can organize what Scripture is saying here in these six verses under three

headings God's Messengers, God's Son, and God's aim God's Messengers, God's Son,

and God's aims Son. To start off, keep listening, who should

we'll be listening to God's messengers. I'll put it this way, keep listening

to God's Gospel through his commissioned messengers. Who are his commissioned messengers. That's

the biblical writers, right, including Paul. Here he writes, Look at

verse one, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. Right, he's saying

I belong to Christ called to be an apostle, saying I'm assigned by Christ

as an apostle, I'm sent from Christ, set apart for the Gospel of

God. I'm reserved for Christ. He's saying, I am commissioned for this

work of communicating these aspects and implications of the Gospel to you. Listen to

me, keep listening. I've been set apart as an apostle, and just

quickly so that we understand what the office of apostle is. But the office

of apostle is there There were a small handful fourteen if you want to get

precise, but a small handful of men who were who had seen the risen

Christ, who were sent by him in a specific way. They were given

power for miracles, the signs of an apostle, and they were instrumental in

writing the New Testament. These are the apostles, the office of apostle.

Now I know that contemporarily the word apostle kind of gets thrown around a little

bit in some ways not so helpfully, right, in some ways very dangerously.

Some people claiming like they have the authority of an apostle, so don't

you know, don't question them, and they have a special power amongst God's

people in really some abusive ways. Whenever anybody starts calling themselves an apostle at

least orange flag goes up. What do you mean? On the other hand,

On the other hand, I don't want to get too jittery that there

are ways in which an apostle like influence regionally or across denominations, and that

sort of thing does take place. There are there are people who are especially

gifted and and have a large influence and exercise teaching in what could could be

called I'm reluctant to call it an apostolic type of way right in a very

way that helps the church at large beyond just the local churches. Okay,

so let's not be too genery about this unless we have cause that's who the

apostles are. The apostles are, and Paul is one of these few that

have been commissioned by God through Jesus Christ, sent by Him for proclaiming and

explaining and applying what what does he say set apart for the Gospel of God,

the Gospel of God. While while we're explaining technical terms like aposible,

we might as well explain the technical term gospel. It means news. It

means good news. So the Gospel of God means God's News, that is

good. I mean, look, if God has something to communicate, we

want to hear it. And if God says this is good news, I

want to hear it. And Paul saying, I have been commissioned to explain

the good news of God. You might be familiar with the saying of Behold,

I bring you good tidings of great joy. This is what the angels

announced as they were announcing the birth of Jesus Christ. They're like, hey,

we're not just talking about there's been a baby. There's a whole plan

that's gone into this, and now he is come, and behold, I

bring you glad tidings of great joy that will be for all the people's It's

good news. But not only that, Paul saying, I'm not the only

commissioned messenger. He says, Paul, and a servant of Christ. Jesus

called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which

he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. I'll say, look,

I've been commissioned by God, but God commissioned others before me to tell

what He has been planning. That's what the Old Testament is all about.

The Old Testament is the Gospel concealed, and the New Testament is the Gospel

revealed. In other words, the Gospel of God. This good news about

Jesus Christ, who he is and what he has done, is the coherent

center of all the scriptures. According to the scriptures, there's one thing going

on here, and it's about Jesus. As Jesus explained himself after he rose

and he was walking on the road to a mass, He's like, I

can't believe. You still don't get this, As my paraphrase is, oh

slow of heart, dull of hearing, slow of heart to believe all that

the prophets have spoken. And then he explained through Moses and the writings and

through all the prophets, all these things concerning himself. The coherent center of

the scriptures is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to the scriptures, which

means this, which means that if we're just thinking and choosing scripture without regard

to the Gospel to just sort of make use of in our life, without

any conception of how it connects to the Gospel, we are essentially in a

large sense, taking the scriptures out of context. Because the context is the

Gospel. Now they already know the gospel. These Romans, they already know

the gospel. There Paul is writing to the Church of the Romans. They

know the gospel, they have believed the gospel. But then Paul says,

I'm eager to preach the gospel to you. Do you see that down in

verse fifteen? You just skip ahead into next week's passage. They says I'm

eager. I'm eager to preach to you the gospel. Well, they already

know it. Why then is he eager to preach to them the gospel and

write this letter because there is a further explanation of the Gospel and its implications

for their lives and their character and importantly their community. They've heard the news,

Why do they need to keep listening to the news. Because even though

they've received the truth of the news, there's so much more fullness to the

news. They need to keep listening to God's commissioned messengers. And so do

we. And when I say we need to keep listening, I don't mean

keep listening for someone else to write some more Bible. I mean keep listening

as the Spirit of God speaks through the Word of God, which is centered

on the Gospel of God, and we see the aspects and the implications of

this gospel grow as we mature as the people of God. I mean this

gospel it stretches all the way into the past, It pushes all the way

into the future. It spreads around this entire globe. It touches every crack

and crevice of your heart. It forms every aspect of your character. It

impacts every relationship that you have first and foremost with your Creator. Keep listening

to the Word of God. Listen and learn how to love like Christ.

Listen and grasp God's plan for every tribe and tongue and nation. Listen and

learn to put sin to death. Amen. The Spirit of God speaks through

the Word of God to the people of God to do the work of God.

Keep listening. Well. Not only is passage concerning God's messages, but

also concerning God's Son, God's Son. I think we could say this from

these next few verses. Keep listening to God's gospel concerning the place and power

of his Son. Keep listening to God's gospel concerning the place and power of

his Son. I'm going to say something that is way more controversial than it

sounds Christianity is about Jesus. That's way more controversial than it sounds. You're

like, yeah, I think we'll think about it. Think about the ways

in which Christianity is stretched to be about all kinds of other things besides Jesus,

not only in the culture, but also in your own heart and life.

How easy it is for Jesus to sort of like drift from center stage

in your heart. Christianity is not about centrally, it's not about rules for

living that. Christianity is not centrally some form of god informed therapy. It's

it's not about the formation of community. It's not about influencing the culture for

godliness. It's not even centrally about helping other people. The Gospel is about

Jesus, who he is and what he's done. Verse three. Set apart

for the Gospel of God, which you promised beforehand through his prophets and the

holy scriptures concerning his son, here's what the news is about. It's about

Jesus. It's about Jesus, who was descended from David according to the flesh.

In other words, Jesus is the king who was promised that who somehow,

some day would establish his kingdom over all the earth, and that reign

has already begun in part in the people that belonged to Jesus, and who

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. In

other words, Jesus has been established in a role and a function, now

in a unique power right. The eternal Son is now God, the son

and resurrected man, and appointed to a function of power. What kind of

power for the kind that Hebrews seven speaks of when it says, this undying

priest is consequently able to powerful to save to the uttermost those who draw near

to God through him, if he is able to save to the uttermost those

who draw near to God through Him, through whom through Jesus. The gospel

is to news about Jesus. That there's a king who rules his people with

love, that there's a judge who pardons the guilty, because there's a lamb

who was slain for sinners, and a priest who intercedes completely, and a

shepherd who loves and is gentle and lowly, and a savior who forgives all

all your debts The Gospel is about Jesus. It's not about you. Keep

your eyes on him, keep your hand in his hand, abiding in him.

Apart from him, you can do nothing and listen. Yes, of

course Jesus has things for you in the way of practical living. They'll let

my hyperbole confuse you, right, Yes, he he is going to guide

you in ways of living. He's going to guide you in ways of feeling.

He puts a community together, It's true. And the way that you

live out his character in demonstration the world will influence the culture for Godliness.

And the way you live out his character and his ways and his commands will

mean that you help many, many people. So don't be confused by my

hyperbole. I'm just saying we tend to miss the forest for the trees.

We tend to minor on the fountain and major on the streams, and take

our eyes off of Jesus in the business, in the business of even listen,

in the business of even ministry, in the business of even raising a

Christian family or having a Christian marriage. Christ Christ is the fountain of all

those things. Do you abandon the fountain for the stream? The stream dries

up and it reminds me. In my mind, I think of my son,

my six year old, and going off to his cousin's house to play.

And his cousin's house is cool, their backyard is dangerous. There is

a zip line, a trampoline, a swimming pool, a jacuzzi, and

lots of rocks to hide behind. And you know, we're like, Okay,

go busy yourself, but at all times, you need to be able

to see us from where you are. You need to be able to look

up from what you're doing and your eyes beyond us, because if you can't

see us, you're not safe. And I just think that that's a fitting

way of thinking about the business of our Christian marriages and Christian families and Christian

ministry and Christian the way we want to do business and all the rest.

And we can focus major on the streams and minor on the fountain, and

before we know it, we are unsafe because we can't see Jesus. Especially

if we've been a churchy person for a long time, sometimes we really need

the reminder of the Gospels about Jesus. As Christ himself warned another church,

I know your works, your toil, your patient endurance, but you've lost

your first love. We've lost your first love. Come back to the fountain.

Who Jesus is and what he's done In all that you're doing. Does

your heart have him in view? If not, it's time to pause and

put your eyes on him again. And you can do that by continuing to

listen to his gospel, has communicated through his messengers, because it's about him,

and we've talked about his messengers, talked about God's Son. Lastly,

this God's aims, God's aims. I'll put it this way. Keep listening

to God's gospel and align with his aims. Well, what do I mean

by aims? I mean that this Jesus, that the gospel is all about.

He's doing. He's doing things. God is accomplishing things through Jesus.

Take a look starting in verse five, through whom we have received grace an

apostleship. Okay, now there Paul is talking about himself and the other apostles.

He's getting kind of back to his credibility as an apostle, as an

commissioned messenger. So yes, we all receive grace through Jesus Christ. I

think Paul is talking here specifically about him, the gracious apostleship which he has

received. But certainly that's something that God has done through Jesus Christ. For

Paul, like every ministry that we receive, every role that we receive or

received from Christ by grace. But then he says this, then he sees

he says this to bring about the obedience of faith. To bring about the

obedience of faith, that's a hugely important term. It's a hugely important term.

That every word of scripture is deliberately chosen and inspired by God, but

that doesn't mean that every term is just as important as any other. And

this term the obedience of faith is a key term for the whole book of

Romance. Now, sometimes when we start a book of the Bible I'll start

with like a whole lecture on Hey, here's the background of the book,

and here's what it's all about, and here are the themes all this way.

And I didn't want to start Romans that way. Instead, I want

to sprinkle that in throughout messages as we go. Sorry, that was the

choice, But I do want to sprinkle that in right now, regarding this

term the obedience of faith, I have a homework assignment for you. Okay,

here's your homework assignment. As you read verses one through six at home

this week, I want you to also flip forward to the end of the

Book of Romans, chapter sixteen, and I want you to read versus twenty

five through twenty seven. So you're reading the very first few sentences and you're

reading the very last few sentences, and I want you to notice what is

in both places not Now. I know you can't help yourself. You're got

you got. You guys are good students. You're gonna study hard. And

in fact, this is a good time to plug this. We we've got

we've got setting out on those shelves over there by the coffee the coffee place.

We've got these books. They are this is, this is Romans.

It's Romans. And here's the thing. It's got the text of Romans and

every other pages blank for your notes. So you good students, you can

just pick one of these up right. You can order them right there.

There's a little sticker on there. You just scan it and order it online

and they'll mail it to you. Right. So if you want to bring

this week after, we can just keep all your notes about Romans in one

place. You can do that who's interested? Right now, where's your hand?

Like, I'm giving this stuff out, Josh bunch, come and take

this one, because yeah, because I also have this one. It's pretty

the same thing, but this one's illustrated. It's got designs and stuff.

Right, who's interested in this one? Same thing? All right, Diana,

see you sit close, you get stuff. And then we got this

version. This one's my favorite. This one not only has the text of

Romans, but also at the bottom it has study notes to explain things as

you go, right, as well as having the blank page here, and

that means that you just have more space for notes as well as explanations.

So I'm giving this one away two all right, passing on back? Come

on, Yeah, they're they're not expensive. Don't order some. I didn't

mean to turn this into the crisis, right, but we're gonna we're gonna

be students. We're gonna be students of God's word. And if you'll look

at the front of this letter and the back of the letter, what you'll

notice that is that there are several themes that run through the whole book,

like longitudinal themes that go from the beginning all the way to end to the

end. So if you want to know, like what is Romans all about,

read the first six verses, read the last three verses, and you'll

already have a head start because he's talking about the same things throughout the whole

thing. And one of the things he's talking about is the obedience of faith,

the obedience of faith. In other words, as you might know,

he's helping to define what biblical faith is all about, because we use the

term faith in a lot of ways that that really don't done done align with

what Bible's talking about when we talk about faith. When it talks about faith.

I think there are like three other kinds of faith that we talk about

when we say the word faith that isn't actually biblical faith, Like one is

casino faith. It's like, I'm just generally optimistic that God is going to

make things work out the way I want them to work out. I've got

faith that's not biblical faith. That's what I call casino faith. And then

we also use the word faith this way, like the random thing faith,

I just have confidence in this thing, it kind of works, this thing

is I have faith in this I have faith that my Toyota tundra is going

to start every time because she's awesome. It's just random thing faith might not

have anything to do with God. It's certainly not have anything to do with

biblical faith. It's just random thing faith. And then there's another type of

way we use the word faith, which I call demon faith. Demon faith,

which is to say, I believe in God. I believe the things

that the Bible says are true. And James says, well, the demons

believe true things about God. They know they know better than we do,

but that doesn't mean they've placed their trust in him. It's demon faith.

True faith results in obedience, and true obedience that God desires is rooted in

faith. I remember when I first trusted Jesus Christ with genuine biblical faith,

like I knew about all the things. I was a churchy church kid,

I had demon faith. It was not a part of my life, this

faith. There was no obedience of faith. I didn't live a life that

was as the scriptures say, for the sake of his name. In fact,

by the time we got to age twenty five, I was about as

a pathetic characters you can imagine. I had all the privileges of a loving

home and knowledge of the scriptures, and yet I was actually just kind of

a wasteoid. And then came a time that I knew I needed a real

relationship with the living Christ. I needed forgiveness and transformation, and I knew

that I didn't deserve it. And Paul actually touches that when he says here

that the take of his name among all the nations. In other words,

this good news is going into all the world, not just those who thought

they had it coming. There isn't a type of person in the world that

is excluded from gathering under his name, including privileged wasteoids. That his grace

is for all the peoples is a part of what makes it glorious. And

like for the Romans, what Jesus Christ was bringing about got very very personal

for me. Right when it says including you who are called to belong to

Jesus Christ, it included me, and I suddenly knew what it meant to

be called to belong to Jesus Christ, and my life changed. I had

heard God's gospel all my life, and one day I started listening and kept

listening, And what has grown up in my life, not perfectly but genuinely

is the obedience of faith. For the sake of his name. For some

of you this morning, the obedience of faith is a big question mark.

For you. I'd like to handle that much the same way that this letter

handles it for the church that first received it. Right because for some of

you, on one hand, for some of you, your Christianity essentially amounts

to just staying out of trouble and saying the right things. There's a kind

of obedience in your life. There's a kind of obedience of life. But

it's essentially the kind of obedience that allows you to avoid repentance, maybe even

avoid Jesus. After all, if you're obedient enough, you might not need

grace, you hope, And that's not the obedience of faith. And if

you keep listening, really listening to what God is communicating in his words,

you'll see that not needing grace, you not needing grace. That's a sham.

You can't obey yourself into right standing with God. We are just way

more messed up and sinful than that. And you are way more messed up

and sinful than that. And besides, the obedience of faith doesn't even start

with you. It starts with Jesus right trusting him and walking with him and

listening to his promise of grace, and then continuing to listen as you understand

him more and more as someone who sat in church for years and avoided Jesus.

Let me tell you, all the bitterness that you imagine repentance will be

Jesus will turn to sweetness. But on the other hand, some of you,

some of you, even though you know Christ and love him and want

to obey him, you don't know if your obedience is good enough. You

worry that you're disappointing Jesus most of the time, especially when you hear about

how how other people are living out their faith and maybe even seem to suggest

that their lifestyle is what God really requires. I just want to strengthen and

encourage you with this. God's pleasure in you is not about the speed with

which you run. It's about having your hand in his. That's it.

The obedience of faith is first and foremost about faith. His promises depend on

faith. They all rest on grace, not your performance. By all means,

keep living out your faith as obediently as you can, keep listening,

you'll grow, But don't submit to a sense of condemnation. Christ died to

kill condemnation. Don't go pick it back up and carrying it around. There's

so much that God has for us in the Book of Romans, understanding real

faith, understanding no condemnation, understanding our release from the law. This is

so much that God is communicating to us, so let's keep listening.