Tonight, we begin a new series through the book of Romans. Has anyone ever had a pen pal before? That used to be a thing, before email and text messaging. Landrie, our daughter, went to a summer camp this summer and walked away with lots of friends who all live in different places across the United States. They keep in touch over email, but remember email hasn’t been around forever. Before there was email, there were letters. People who wanted to keep in touch, or communicate a message, would write letters to each other to keep each other updated on their lives and to express their friendship when they were separated by distance. Letters are almost as old as time.

Did you know that our New Testament is made up mostly of letters? 24 out of our 27 New Testament books, are letters. Letters that God wrote, by using people to write them. Now we have different human authors who wrote the Bible, 40 different human authors who wrote the 66 books of the Bible over about a 1,600 year period of time. One of those 40 people who God used to write the Bible, is a man named Paul.

You’ve probably heard of him, but Paul is a man that God used to start churches across the whole civilized world after the life of Jesus. Paul wasn’t always a Christian. In fact, before Paul was a Christian, he was a persecutor of the church. An official persecutor. He was a Pharisee, which is what they called the Jewish lawyers during the first century. You’ll read all about the Pharisees in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they’re the people who were generally adamantly against Jesus. Not all of them were against Jesus, some of them became Christians. But Paul started out as one of the pharisees who was adamantly against Jesus. You might remember Paul’s conversion that you can read about in the book of Acts chapter 9, but long story short, Jesus shows up to Paul as a blinding light, and Paul becomes a Christian. Paul spent the rest of his life preaching the Gospel and starting churches all across the civilized world.

One city that Paul did not get to start a church in, yet the church had made its way to, was Rome. Rome was definitely on his list to visit, but at the time that the book of Romans was written, Paul had not been there yet. What you had going on in Rome was, the Christians who had become Christians in all the places across the civilized world where Paul had been planting churches, many of them had made their way to Rome. Some are even called out by name in the book of Romans. During the time after Jesus went back up to heaven, the Roman Emperor Claudius had banished all Jewish people from Rome, so Rome had become a place where there was no Jewish foundation for Christians. No synagogues to meet in. No one who would be familiar with God at which point one could point to Jesus through the Old Testament. But in AD 54, Claudius died. After Claudius came Nero, who was probably the worst persecutor of Christians out of any Roman Emperor who was Emperor. I’m sharing all of this not to give you a world history lesson, but to frame up some context that will help us interpret the book of Romans.
When we put all the context clues together from the book of Acts, which tells the chronology of churches Paul started and how they started, with Paul’s other letters, such as 1 & 2 Corinthians, it becomes obvious that Paul wrote this letter to the Romans during his time in Corinth, which would have been around 57 AD. Nero was OK to the Jews, he was allowing them to come back to Rome, but these Roman Christians were dealing with the onset of immense persecution, coupled with the reintroduction of Jewish culture coming back to Rome. And when I say immense persecution, I don’t mean crude jokes at the water cooler. I mean he covered them with animal skins and fed them to dogs. He publicly tortured them as spectacles. He burned them alive as a pathway to the coliseum, he called them “Christian Candlesticks.”

So if you were a Christian in Rome, you were confronted by your life being at risk, suffering associated with losing your life, and people who professed to believe in God coming back to Rome to tell you that you’re wrong. Makes you appreciate being a Christian in America, doesn’t it? But when we read this letter to the Romans, I want you to keep three things in mind.

One. This is a letter from God, who by His Spirit, used this man, Paul, to write it.

Two. This letter’s original audience was dealing with a horrific situation by being Christians living in Rome. It would have been easier to leave, but they chose to stay in order to share the Gospel with the lost people who needed to hear this message the most. Makes Colorado seem more bearable and maybe we should stay here to do the same thing, doesn’t it?

Three. God used Paul to write this letter for the purpose of writing the Bible. The things we read in the book of Romans, and all the books of the Bible, are as true for us as they were true for these Roman Christians who were the original recipients of this letter. That was a long introduction, let’s get started! Take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter 1, verse 1.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God
–Romans 1:1

The first thing I want to show you in this letter, is a picture of identity. Look at how Paul is identifying himself. Three things that construct his identity.

1. A servant of Christ Jesus. Now if you’re reading a more literal translation than I’m reading you might see the word slave there. The CSB uses the word servant because of the nature of slavery in the first century, which was not the same as the nature of slavery that we remember which led to the civil war, but the concept of belonging to a master was the same. Paul belongs to Jesus Christ. As a Christian, you belong to Jesus Christ. The key to our identity in Christ is servanthood. We exist to serve the Lord.

   
   

2. Called as an apostle. Paul was not self-appointed. God called him. As a Christian, you are not self-appointed. God called you. Whenever the going gets tough, remember this. The Christian life is rooted in obedience to the call that God has put on your life. This is especially important when you’re the member of a church plant. God has called you here, and he’s not asking you to produce results, he is asking you to be obedient to the call that He has put on your life to serve Him wherever He takes you. That applies to your church family, but it especially applies to your actual family. It applies to your friendships. God has placed you right where He has called you. It applies to your job, when it’s hard, remember: God called you there. There is not one area of your life as a Christian that is not ordained by God. Live your calling!

   
   

3. Set apart for the Gospel of God. Paul had received a specific task from the Lord. Remember in Acts chapter 13, when the church in Antioch was praying and fasting, wondering what they were going to do next? The Holy Spirit showed up and said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them.” Paul’s mission was to start churches. And he followed the Lord wherever the Lord would lead. Where God guides, God provides. As a Christian, you are set apart for a specific task. That is going to be different based on your gifts and talents, but I want to challenge all of us to be praying to the Lord, “What is it that you are setting me apart for?” Because God’s promises are perfect. Look at the next verse:

   
   which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures—concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was a descendant of David, according to the flesh and was appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.
   –Romans 1:2-4

   The entire Bible is God’s love letter to the Christian. Since sin entered the world in Genesis chapter 3, God promised that He would send the Savior. He promised the Savior would come from the line of King David. Christ was the instrument of all creation, and in Him, we defeat death.

   
   Through him we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the Gentiles, including you who are also called by Jesus Christ.
   –Romans 1:5-6

   
   Through Jesus we’ve received grace. Do you know what a red flag of spiritual immaturity is? When someone says, “I hope that person gets what they deserve.” I hope I don’t get what I deserve. Romans 3:23 says the wages, or the outcome, of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rather than hoping anyone gets what they deserve, let’s hope they get saved and find God’s grace. And do you know what the word apostle means? The sent one. Sometimes people elevate the word apostle to something unattainable, or something that only applied to Jesus’s disciples or to Paul, but the truth is, we are all called to apostleship, being sent to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

   
   Remember our purpose statement at Our City Church. The purpose of Our City Church is to glorify God by living as disciples of Jesus Christ, while introducing as many people as possible to Jesus as Lord, and discipling them in order to make a positive impact for God’s Kingdom in our city. I want to get the Scripture back on the board and read this again.

   
   Through him we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the Gentiles, including you who are also called by Jesus Christ.
   –Romans 1:5-6

   
   This is a call to obedience. For the sake of Christ, among all people. Including each other.

   
   To all who are in Rome, loved by God, called as saints. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
   –Romans 1:7

   
   You see, we don’t live obediently because we’re trying to be a bunch of rule followers. We live obediently, because we’re loved by God. We’re called by God. We’ve experienced His grace and His peace that surpasses all understanding. That is the meaning of your salvation.
   You are loved, you are called, you are covered in grace, and you live in peace that can only come from the God of the universe who has adopted you into His family.

   
   And when your life is in the overflow of God’s love, God’s calling, God’s grace, and God’s peace, your reputation will show it. Look at what’s next:
   First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because the news of your faith is being reported in all the world.
   –Romans 1:8

   
   Our City Church, let’s live in the overflow of God’s love, God’s calling, God’s grace, and God’s peace, and have a reputation of faith that is being reported in all the world.

   
   The Romans did it, under immense persecution, and we can do it too. Why not here? Why not now? If you’re wondering, how do we get a reputation like that? It’s easy.

   
   Abide in Christ. Abide in God’s Word. Pray continually. Serve intentionally. Surrender to Him. Proclaim the Gospel. Multiply disciples.
   These are the six values of Our City Church, and the way we do these things is not on our own strength. It’s the overflow of God’s love, God’s calling, God’s grace, and God’s peace.

   
   Next, Paul expresses his desire to be with his pen pals, his brothers and his sisters in Christ.

   
   God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in telling the good news about his Son—that I constantly mention you, always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God’s will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
   –Romans 1:9-10

   
   Do you know what’s interesting? Paul did end up coming to them. But not the way he thought he would. You see, more context on this letter, at the end of Romans, Paul shares his big plans to start a church in Spain. That he would travel through Rome and on to Spain, and reach the ends of the earth. But God had different plans. You know, Paul lived a rough life. He was beaten, flogged, stoned, left for dead, imprisoned, shipwrecked. In this letter to the Romans, in Chapter 15, Paul mentions that he was headed to Jerusalem. What Paul didn’t know at the time he was writing this letter, was that when he got there, he would be arrested. Paul gets arrested in Jerusalem, and shipped from city to city, finally arriving in Rome, as a prisoner. In fact, the last verse in the book of Acts leaves us open ended, Paul is preaching the gospel under house arrest, in Rome.
   You see, we can make all the plans we want, but God’s plans are better. And God’s plans are perfect. He has a plan for you. Plans not to harm you but to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope. God ultimately delivered Paul to Rome, just not they way Paul thought He would. And God has a plan to deliver you from whatever circumstances you’re going through right now. The hard job, the difficult relationships, the medical diagnosis, the financial hardship. But it might not be the way you think you’re going to be delivered, it’s going to be better. Paul was set apart for a specific work, and he is rejoicing in heaven right now with the Lord. That is what is going to happen to you too, so long as you’re in Christ.
   Now if you’re here today, and you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life, maybe you’re sitting here and thinking, I want to experience God’s love. I want to experience God’s calling. I want God’s grace and God’s peace. I want to get in the game and go all in on God. I want to invite you to do that right now.

   
   We end tonight with the call to obedience.

   
   For I want very much to see you, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,
   –Romans 1:11

   
   Now if you’re on the edge of your seat, wondering, “what is this spiritual gift?” “I wish someone would impart a spiritual gift to strengthen me!”

   
   

   Guess what. It’s right here.
   
   

   that is, to be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
   –Romans 1:12

   
   We have this gift right now in this room, in the life of our church.
   This is the purpose of the church. To build each other up.
   Iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens the other. Let’s do life together, let’s follow Jesus together.
   
   Do you trust God’s plans?