“God’s Good News”
Romans 1:1-7
September 7, 2008
The year was 1974, and as a 13-year old dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan, I was anticipating the breaking of the most revered record in all of baseball, Babe Ruth’s seemingly-untouchable 714 home runs. Only two other men in history had hit as many as 600 homers, Hank Aaron and the great Willie Mays, and Willie’s career had petered out more than 50 homers shy of the record. But Aaron, the model of consistency, had soldiered on and now, on a mid-April Monday evening, Aaron faced Al Downing of the Dodgers needing one home run to do it. And as this 13-year-old watched along with a nation of baseball fans—some of whom were bigots who hated Aaron for challenging a white man’s record—Hammerin’ Hank launched a fastball into the left-field bullpen to set the record. Sports Illustrated recorded the event on the cover of its next issue, of course, without words, but only with a number: 715. In a year filled with bad news—an American president would, only a few months later, resign in disgrace—Hank Aaron provided some great news for us. And by the way, as far as I’m concerned, he’s still the home run king.
In looking for this magazine among my collection, I found another—the cover of John Elway after he and the Broncos had beaten the Falcons in the Super Bowl. Sometimes, what’s good news for one person isn’t good news for the next! But today, we begin a study of the best news ever delivered to men and women, the news that despite the fact that we are natural-born sinners, through and through, who by nature rebel against a holy God, that God has made a way for us to be reconciled with him and with each other as well. As we begin a series I’ve entitled “Living Free”, finding the key to real freedom in life, we look today at God’s Good News. Let’s read together today’s text: Romans 1:1-7.
The older I get—I turn another page this week—the more help I need with some of the basic functions of life, such as eyesight. Though I didn’t go for it, the eye doc recently recommended bifocal contact lenses. Bifocals? Those are for old people, right? Or is that the point? Regardless, it’s no fun to not be able to see clearly. A few weeks ago I went swimming in a pool that was apparently heavily-chlorinated. I like to open my eyes underwater when I swim, and I did that day, but all that chlorine messed up my sight, and for several hours afterward, I felt like I was looking at the world through a cloud. Clear view is important! If we have the wrong viewpoint on life, the wrong worldview, then everything comes out wrong. The Bible is a viewpoint book; it answers the “Big Three” questions about life: who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Identity, purpose, and destiny are all key issues for human beings.
What you need to know about
I. The Value of Romans
Romans is a viewpoint book; as we study Romans we answer some of the biggest questions we face in life:
• What’s wrong with the world?
• What’s wrong with me?
• How can it be fixed?
• How can I be reconciled to God?
The book of Romans holds the potential to shape much of what we believe about life, the universe, and everything.
I’m standing here today in significant part, humanly-speaking, because of a man named Martin Luther. Here’s what Luther said about Romans:
“Romans is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes.”
Augustine was converted through reading Romans; Luther read Romans and rediscovered the doctrine of justification by faith and led the Protestant Reformation. John Wesley found his heart “strangely warmed” as he read this book, and came to faith. John Bunyan read romans and wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. In fact, the book of Romans has figured prominently in every significant evangelical resurgence in history. I am convinced that studying this book together will make an impact in your life, not only deepening your understanding of God’s Word, but because right doctrine is essential for right living—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise—Romans will make a difference in the way you live as well. With those things in mind, let’s dig in!
II. The Writer of Romans - :1
That the apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans is not argued. But note what he says of himself:
A. Paul, the servant
Gk. doulos “one who serves”. Paul’s first form of self-identification, this man who had accomplished great exploits in service to God, is to call himself the willing slave of God. Paul does not come at his readers in some condescending way, but he’s just a servant of the same God to Whom his readers owe their lives and allegiance.
B. Paul, the proxy
Next, he calls himself an apostle; I’ve chosen the word “proxy”, which brings that oft-used but not-always-understood word down into terms we can grasp. This is what an apostle was, a person given legal authorization to speak on behalf of another. As the Bible uses the term, there are several characteristics of a person who served in this way:
• Chosen and sent forth directly by Christ, personally
• An ear/eyewitness of the resurrected Christ
• A person confirmed by God with signs/wonders
It’s because of these reasons that I believe we’re off-base to refer to people today by this term, apostle, but Paul met the qualifications! Paul has the full authority of God Himself; he speaks for God with God’s authority. A politician recently decried some of Paul’s writing in this particular chapter; though this man professes faith in Christ, he labeled Paul’s teaching here “obscure”, implying that it carried less authority than the red-letter teaching of Jesus. Oh, no; that idea is false and dangerous. Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit; God’s Word is without error; we can take it to the bank, for Paul is God’s proxy. Third,
C. Paul, the marked man
The term is “set apart”, signifying a man chosen by God for a special role in proclaiming the gospel of salvation. So this is Paul: God’s focused servant, doing the specific work to which God had appointed him; acting as the very mouthpiece of God Himself. To whom did he write?
III. The Recipients of Romans - :6,7
We’ve just finished a study of the book of Acts; Acts is historical narrative, a type of literature more common to the Old Testament than to the new. There are some general rules that we apply when trying to understand Acts; if you’ve been around that long, you remember, for instance, that we read history descriptively instead of prescriptively; in other words, we read what happened, but we don’t necessarily assume that what happened will happen again in just the same manner as it did then. Romans, on the other hand, is a letter, and that means that there are certain rules for reading and understanding it as well, rules that govern the way we would read a letter. Here’s the first revelation:
A. Not written to us, but for us
We must take this into account every time we read a letter; our problem as Christians is that we want to go too quickly to application without taking time for proper, contextual interpretation. Before we can determine what Romans means for us, we must determine what Romans meant for the Romans to whom it was addressed. We read, as it were, over the shoulders of those to whom the letter is addressed.
Now…that may not greatly alter its importance or meaning to us; may not alter it at all. But that’s a discipline we always need to employ: we first ask, “what did Romans mean to its readers”, not first “what does it mean to me?” That said, Romans is among the more “general” letters; much of it could have been written by Paul to any of the churches of his day. At times, he appears oblivious to the particular people to whom he is writing. But if it was a letter written to a specific people, to whom was it written?
B. Church at Rome: majority Gentiles, minority Jews
It was written to the church at Rome, a church not founded by Paul, a church not visited by Paul at the time of his writing. It was composed of both Gentiles and Jews, but by the time Paul wrote this, because Jews had been driven from Rome for a period of time and had only recently returned, the Gentiles were in the majority in the church.
Most every letter has an occasion, a reason for being written. I write letters rarely these days, since the advent of e-mail, but the letters I write, I write for a certain purpose. When I write to the AJC, it’s to comment on some particular event of the times, usually one that has gotten in my craw; I don’t typically write the AJC just to say, “hey, I was thinking of you, and decided to write; no reason!” And generally, even if we still use snail mail and letter-writing, it is for some reason. Romans is no different; Paul had a reason—or several reasons—for writing. As we go through the letter, we’ll talk about several of the situations which likely occasioned his letter, but the essence of Romans is this: the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is it? Why do people need to hear it? How can they experience it? What does it mean for their future? What difference will it make in everyday life? Notice what Paul says is
C. True of them:
Paul probably wrote from Corinth, but he’d never been to Rome. One of the situations that occasioned the letter was to serve as an introduction of himself to them. But though he’s never met them, he knows a lot about them, because he knows what’s true of all believers:
1. Called to belong to Jesus
Notice this: the Romans are identified by God’s action toward them. My chief identity is wrapped up in my relationship to God, specifically what He has done for me. We are called to belong to Jesus. I’m His. Grasping that one profound truth will change your life! But not only are the Romans—and us—identified by God’s action toward us, but we are also identified by God’s attitude toward us:
2. Loved by God
Though I know how unlovely I can be, the God of the universe looks at me with love in His eyes, as He did these Roman believers!
3. Called to be saints
But notice: while God loves me as I am, He loves me too much to keep me where I am! He calls me to be holy, to a life of practical holiness on the basis of the fact that he has made me holy through Jesus. That’s what “saint” means: holy. And it’s a term, not for the superspiritual, but for all believers. In the OT, “stuff” was holy: places, things, priests, days, etc. But according to I Peter 2, it’s not stuff that’s holy now; it’s us!
4. Greeting with meaning: Grace/Peace
“Grace” is God’s unmerited favor toward undeserving man; God, the righteous Judge, remits the penalty of sin because of the sacrifice of His Son, and on that basis, we can have peace with God: all of those truths and so many more, we’ll uncover during our trip through Romans! But I want to spend the remainder of our time considering
IV. The Point of Romans - :2-5
This wonderful letter deals with many issues of interest to us, but there is a center point; there is a theme around which everything else revolves:
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the point!
Next week, we’ll consider the touchpoint verse of the entire book, Romans 1:16, where Paul makes his landmark statement: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to all who believe.” When you see that word “gospel”, there is a simple definition: it is the title of today’s message, “God’s Good News”; that’s what “gospel” means. No news could be better, not Hammerin’ Hank’s 715th; not the election of your candidate in November; not anything else. Note what Paul says:
A. Origin: “promised beforehand”
Paul sets the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the context of hundreds and hundreds of years of Old Testament history. This is no fly-by-night faith; its roots go back to the promises made by God in the Old Testament to His people, the Jews, of a Redeemer, a Messiah, Who would come to deliver them. That’s what the gospel promises: deliverance and freedom! And it is God’s response to His surefire promise in the OT!
B. Center: Jesus
“Concerning His Son” – Jesus is the subject matter of the gospel; Jesus is the Center. Paul frames Christ in several ways in the next few verses, referring to both His human nature and to His nature as God come in the flesh. He speaks of Jesus’ power, His perfection, His sovereign power, and so on. But be clear on this point: without Jesus, we have no good news. We have nothing to offer the world. Our “good news” is bad news without Jesus; He is the Center, and we dare not miss Him. “Religion” has nothing worthwhile to offer you. Self-improvement doesn’t cut it. Without Jesus at the center, we’ve missed the mark.
And yet I sometimes wonder how many “church folks” miss this critical point. We are slow to speak of Jesus! We’ll talk about the church, about “God”, about “the Lord”, etc., but getting some church people to utter the name “Jesus” isn’t always easy. Why? It is possible that we miss Jesus in all of our religious activity? Is it possible that we have the trappings of faith but miss the point?
Thursday evening, I brought SweePea home, after Art & Sherry had kept her for 6 weeks. We’re staying for a few nights in a motel; we’ll move into our home tomorrow. But it was interesting: the kids were all excited to see her, wanting to cuddle and snuggle with their dog after this long absence. But SweePea? She wanted to sniff around, explore the room, check things out; she wasn’t too interested in sitting and loving, at least not at first. And it occurred to me that some professing Christians are like SweePea. Jesus desires a close relationship with us, and we concern ourselves more with the surroundings, the trappings, the ambience, than we do Him! But according to Paul, Jesus is the Center of the gospel!
C. Response: “the obedience of faith”
This is a difficult-to-pin-down phrase as to Paul’s meaning. Is “faith” the “obedience” to which Paul is pointing, so that the response to the gospel is faith? Is he speaking of obedience flowing from faith? It seems to me that what he’s doing here is drawing a clear linkage between these two words, that while they are separate, they are inextricably linked. Paul will argue, in chapters 3 and following, that it is by faith alone that we are reckoned to be right with God. But faith is never alone; in other words, true faith will evidence itself in changed living, in obedience to the commands of God. How do I know that I have true faith in Jesus Christ? By looking at the way my life is changing, the desire I have to obey God, the obedience that, however imperfectly, I offer to Him as the expression of my faith. Finally,
D. Motive: “the sake of His name”
Your salvation and mine is not primarily, not first-and-foremost, about our escaping hell and receiving heaven, wonderful and important to God as those things are. Contrary to the chorus that we sing sometimes, as much truth is in that chorus, Jesus didn’t think of me above all. He was motivated by the glory of God, the sake of His own name among the nations. God loves you, but He cares more about His own glory than anything else (if He didn’t, He’d be an idolater, by the way!). This was His motive, the motive of His good news.
Hank Aaron’s 715th was not only a milestone in baseball history, and a landmark in the civil rights story, but good news to a little boy who knew the batting averages and earned-run averages of all the major league players as well. It was good news I witnessed with my own eyes, and that image is seared in my mind forever. But the good news of baseball players and NFL quarterbacks, of winning teams, Berlin walls toppling, technological advances and peace treaties pales in comparison with this news: you, because of God’s plan and Jesus’ sacrifice, and for His glory, can come into freedom that God designed you to live in. There is no better news anywhere than that!
Table Talk
• What are some areas of your own understanding that you’d like to “shore up” as we go through Romans?
• From what you know of some of the religions of the world, how does the gospel of Jesus Christ differ?
