GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

Greetings ...

It is so good to be here! We had a great trip coming across the country, from California to Arizona to New Mexico to Texas to Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama to Georgia to South Carolina. We wanted to drive across with our children to give them a sense of the distance we were covering, and also to give them a taste of how majestically beautiful our country is. For me personally, the highlight of the trip was our stop in Texas. My family is from Texas originally, and I asked my parents to drive down from Colorado to meet us in Amarillo and travel from there to the family farms in Munday, Texas and the Followwill farm in Parker county just outside of Ft. Worth.

My people are farming people, and as I visited those farms many memories of childhood flooded my mind. My grandfather knew how to make my vacations at his farm magical for a small boy: he bought me cases of Orange Crush to drink, and he gave me his automatic .22 rifle to hunt with for hours on end. I also remember sitting on my knees at his farm, scooping up handfuls of the reddish, brown sandy soil, and feeling it in my fingers. It meant worlds to me that it was "Followwill land." Being at that farm also brought to mind two farming images from my family past that also appear in the Bible. I want to share those two farming images with you, as we begin to take our journey together here at Metropolitan.

The first image is one my father shared with me. I remember my father talking about his father plowing the fields with a team of horses. For hours my grandfather would plow and break up the hard ground, directing the team of seasoned horses down the rows. This vision of plowing is a rich image to me. Jesus used a similar image in Luke 9:62, characterizing the Christian life as plowing: "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Our church here at Metropolitan has a task of plowing ahead, to prepare the ground for seed. And as we plow together, I want us to have this image in our minds: we are all horses bred for the plow of our great Plowman Jesus Christ. We are all on the same team, with Him in control. He is the Lord of the harvest, and we are all the team in this field. Here is the team: Larry Babb; Lamar, Candace, Jonathan and Laura Buchanan; Shannon, Jamie, Michael and now Alexandria Bullock; Greg, Roxanne, Jill, Katie and Jacob English; Maurice and Thelma Eshleman; Tom, Lisa and Aaron Fletcher; David, Linda, Evie, Emilie, and Bessie Fultz; Lila Fultz; J. B. and Christy Halpin; Homer and Pat Keener; Larry and Anna Fay La Plue and Mr. and Mrs. La Plue; Bill, Sherry and Megan Marrah; Steve, Kris, Angi, Stephanie, and Katie Mitzel; Ed, Kris, Andy, Johnny, Tommy and Anna Natterstad; Tom and Betty Procter; Don, Susan, Carmen, Paul, and Timothy Wilson; and Bryan, Amanda, Sharon, Jeremy and Kendall Wright. And as of today, right between Fletcher and Fultz, we have Dorman, Blythe, Paden, Esther, Jordan, Kaete and Ethan Followwill. Let us all plow together as one team, united under the leadership of our great Plowman Jesus Christ. Thus, the first image is the vision of plowing together.

The second image begins with a story about a very valuable phone call I received one afternoon. It was towards the end of my first year as a Pastor, during one of the most difficult summers of my life. I was working with a man on my volunteer staff who was critical of our church, how it had been "going downhill and not growing." This man was a critical voice about most everything our church was not doing. But one afternoon Ray Stedman called me and asked how I was doing. I told him some of my struggles and difficulties, and he listened patiently. Then he asked me how I was doing with this particular man. He told me, "That man wants every season to be a harvest season. But it doesn't work that way. There is no harvest season without a season of sowing seed." That basic image, of the seasons regulating a farmer's calendar, has been a very helpful one for me. This church has been through a season of pruning, and now we are in a season of sowing seed. By God's grace, we will learn the mighty Word of God together. We can bank on the fact that the Word of our God will not return void, that instead it will return to Him with a rich harvest, as long as we faithfully sow it and rely on our Lord Jesus Christ. We will be tempted by our enemy to be distracted, but as long as we faithfully sow seed during the sowing season the harvest season will come. I pray that our Lord of the harvest will bless the seed sown together for the next year or more as we study the book of Romans.

So, the first image is one of plowing the same field together on a unified team, and the second image is one of seasons: the harvest season will follow a season of faithfully sowing the Word of God. Isaiah 55:11 promises us this: "So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." But how will this sowing work? By God's grace, Jesus Christ in me will sow the seed of God's word in the book of Romans, verse-by-verse, week-in and week-out. Thus, the Lord in me will plant the seed. And all of us will be planting and watering these seeds in our speech together: we are all involved in this seed sowing every time we are in conversations together. And the Lord in each of our hearts will be wanting to prepare us to be good soil: my heart needs to be good soil because I expect Him to teach me worlds; your heart needs to be good soil as you let Him transform your life by one of the richest spiritual opportunities you will ever have in the course of your life: the opportunity to hear, participate in, and apply the book of Romans to your life as it is expositorily preached to you verse-by-verse, week-by-week. This will change your life: it is the most powerful life-changing document in the history of the world. Let's begin by tracing this life-changing power in the annals of history.

Romans in History: The Catalyst of Revival

Dateline 4th Century Rome: A young man living in a city named Hippo in northern Africa receives a job opportunity to travel to Rome and work for the Emperor. He had been raised by a Christian mother who prayed constantly for him, while his father took him out to the brothels. He had lived for some years with a woman, and he fathered a child out of wedlock. This young professor of rhetoric jumped at the job to be a speech-writer for the Emperor. Once in Rome, he became more and more discontent with his profligate lifestyle. He was then transferred to take a position as a professor of rhetoric in Milan, where he sat under the teaching of Bishop Ambrose, a godly man. One day, while walking in a friend's garden, he stopped by a scroll of Romans he had been looking at earlier, praying at that very moment, "O Lord, this hour make an end of my vileness." Just at that moment some children on the other side of the garden wall sang a Latin song with the words "Tolle lege ... tolle lege ... take and read ... take and read." So he picked up the Romans acroll, and read Rom. 13:14: "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts." In his Confessions, this man wrote about that moment: "No further would I read, nor had I any need; instantly at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away." This man's name? St. Augustine, the towering figure of the first millenium after Christ and the apostles.

Dateline 16th Century Germany: A German monk and professor of theology was translating and studying to give lectures on the book of Romans. In 1515, while teaching Romans, he came upon the startling theme verse of the book, Rom. 1:17: "For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed by faith and faith alone; as it is written, 'But the righteous by faith shall live.'" This phrase, "the righteousness of God," stuck in his craw. It wouldn't let him alone. He wrote this about that verse: "Night and day I pondered until ... I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole Scripture took on new meaning, and whereas before the 'righteousness of God' had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage in Paul became to me a gateway to heaven." Two years later, on Oct. 31, 1517, this man named Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenburg, launching the Protestant Reformation, the greatest revival to shake awake a sleeping world since Paul's three missionary journeys.

Dateline 17th Century England: A passionate preacher sat in the Bedford jail in England, where his faithful exposition of the Bible was against the law. Sitting in that cold den, this man studied the great themes of the book of Romans, especially justification by faith. Under the brilliant creative inspiration of the Spirit of God in him, he translated those themes into a parable called Pilgrim's Progress, the second best seller in Christendom, second only to the Bible. John Bunyan loved Romans.

Dateline 18th Century England: On the evening of May 24, 1738, a young Englishman went to a small gathering of believers where one man was reading Luther's preface to his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. This young man wrote in his journal this thought about that service: "About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death." This young man, John Wesley, along with his brother, led the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century.

Dateline 20th Century Europe: In this century, while the Protestant churches of Europe were sinking into the quicksand of liberal theology, a young theologian went back to the basics and studied the book of Romans. Karl Barth wrote commentaries on Romans that blew away the clouds of liberal gas like a wind from heaven.

For me, this book has been the most life-changing book I have ever read. Romans chapter three was used by God in the conversion of Harry Ironside, who discipled Ray Stedman. Ray taught me a great deal about this book by the sheer respect he accorded it. Ray taught that each Christian ought to have a clear outline of the book of Romans in his or her head, so that without opening the Bible he or she had thoroughly inculcated the thoughtflow of Romans and could communicate it. I agree with Ray on this. Ray also said that if he ever went to a new church, he would begin teaching Romans ... and here we are studying it together!! For me, the year I translated and taught through Romans was the most important year in my Christian life. I began to glimpse the perfect logic, the true-to-life truth of the Christian message. We have the only message, the only worldview, that makes sense of human sin and presents a solution to that most terrible problem through the cross of Christ. This is the gospel of God: and it is great news indeed.

Let us study it together. For the past two years, I have been teaching through the Bible book-by-book, one book per week. So, as a tonic to my soul, we will study just one verse today, the first verse of Romans. Here is a very barebones translation of this first verse: "Paul, bond-slave of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, set apart for the gospel of God." As we study this verse, let's do two things. First, I'll look at its three phrases and discuss what each phrase tells us about Paul. Second, we're going to talk about what this verse really means.

What it Says - Romans 1:1

Paul identifies himself in three ways in this greeting verse. First, Paul says he is a "bond-slave of Jesus Christ." This is a stunning statement of humility. He could have given us resume-speak here, writing something like, "Paul, missionary to the Gentiles," or "Paul, who received the epiphany on the Damascus road," or "Paul, theologian par excellence ..." But instead, he introduced himself as a bond-slave.

But what is a bond-slave? This term in Greek, doulos, refers to a slave who has been set free, but who has made a choice to be the slave of one master for life. This master is then the bond-slave's absolute owner and ruler. In the Rome of Paul's day, the typical slave would be enslaved for a limited term, usually 7 years, then would be offered his freedom. He had the choice to be a freeman, and some masters even got a former slave started in business. But, since homelessness and abject poverty were often the consequences when such businesses failed, sometimes slaves chose willingly to become a bond-slave of their master for life. If they chose this route, either their ear would be pierced and a ring would be put there, or a ring would be given them, either of which would identify them as the bond-slave of their particular master. His insignia would be on the ring, and the ring would be fixed on them. This ring meant they were no longer for sale as a slave; they were bought and owned by one master. Paul is thus identifying himself absolutely with Jesus Christ as his Lord and Master, in every way, every day, for the rest of his life. Paul wears the ring whose insignia is the Alpha and Omega, the ring of Jesus Christ.

When I went to Jerusalem in September, 1994, I polled everyone in my family to see what they wanted me to bring back for them. Blythe's answer was very creative. She told me: "Bring back two simple golden rings, one for you and one for me, and we will wear them with our wedding rings as our bond-slave rings. We can wear our bond-slave ring on the same finger above our weddings rings, showing our identification with Jesus and our marriage together." I thought that was a fine idea, so I went into the Old City of Jerusalem into the dark alleyways of the ancient Jerusalem bazaar, and found there an Arab selling rings made of Jerusalem gold. We haggled over price for a bit, then I bought one for Blythe and one for me. We both wear these rings, which are not magical in themselves, but they are a good symbol and reminder for us that we are owned by a Master who set us free that we might be identified with Him for life.

Paul's second term to identify himself is "a called apostle." Paul makes it clear here that Jesus Christ had a claim on his life. In Acts 9, Jesus Christ had called him on the Damascus road on the trip that changed Paul's life. Jesus as the risen Lord called out to Paul, calling him by his former name: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" After this tragic calling, Paul was immediately commissioned into service as a messenger when Jesus said to Him, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise, and enter the city, and it shall be told you what you must do." Paul had been sovereignly and miraculously called by Jesus Christ, and he was called to be a messenger for Christ sent out into the world with Christ's express message. He was a bond-slave wearing a ring, sent into the world with a message.

I remember the day when my Lord called me into service as a preacher and teacher of His word. I was having a conversation in the living room of my home with Bob Smith. Bob used to say he had a plain vanilla name for a plain vanilla man, but in my book he was a giant. He was one of the five founding elders of Peninsula Bible Church. He was an engineer in San Francisco, who so loved the Scriptures that he taught himself Koine Greek so he could read the NT in the original. He became a full-time pastor at PBC some years later, and was the chief architect of the NT form of church government which PBC espouses. He wrote about that form of church government in his golden book entitled When All Else Fails, Read the Directions. Bob was an avid student who loved the Scriptures, he was a man who loved his wife, whose sparkling blue eyes twinkled with the radiance of his indwelling God. I loved Bob Smith. He was known around PBC as the pastor to the pastors, and he spent some 40 years being Ray Stedman's elder. When Bob visited me at our home in Sunnyvale that day while I was still an intern, I asked Bob this question: "What advice would you give a young pastor just starting out?" Bob paused for a moment, then fixed his blazing gaze on me and said, "khruxon ton logon!" Thankfully I had enough Greek at that time to know what he meant: "PREACH THE WORD!!!" I will never forget that moment, or the passion in his voice as he spoke. On that day, at that moment, with the word of a true elder, Jesus Christ called and commissioned me for my life's work.

Paul thirdly defines himself as one "set apart for the gospel of God." This literally means Paul's whole life from the time of his calling was to be defined by and bounded by the gospel of God and his specific commission to preach that gospel to the Gentile world. We will study this in much greater depth in Rom. 1:1-7 next week.

What it Means - Rom. 1:1

So, we have now seen what the first verse of this great book says. And let's all face it, if we have ever studied this book before, we typically blaze over the introductory phrases to get to the meaty material like the stirring truths of the theme verses of Romans, Rom. 1:16, 17. But it is a mistake to pass over any single word of the Bible as if it were unimportant. This verse has been transfixing my mind for three weeks, because embedded in this simple greeting is proof-positive of the most life-changing message in the book of Romans: we can know who Jesus Christ is, and in knowing Him, we can know who we are. We have an identity in Christ that is among our most precious possessions. Studying Rom. 1-8 with a group of ten young men last year reminded me of how important this issue of identity really is: each of them spoke of seeing their identity in Christ as the most important thing God had taught them in Romans. So, what does this verse mean? It means that Paul knows who he is, because he knows Jesus Christ.

This may seem simple at first glance. Maybe even obvious. But it is not. Just ask yourself these questions: Do I know who I am? How would I introduce myself in a letter like this? These questions lead to the two most important questions in life, in this order: 1) Who is Jesus Christ, and 2) Who am I? The answer to question number two can never be discovered until question number one has been answered. This is the walking tragedy of the unsaved: having lost their knowledge of God, they lose all knowledge of themselves. The issue of where our identity comes from, our sense of "who I am," is a central issue for each of us. Let me explain further.

First let me consider the typical man's quest for identity, then I'll address the typical woman's search. For the typical man, his identity early in life comes from his relationship to his father. He identifies with his father, and wants to be like him. Perhaps his family name or background becomes very important to him as a boy, as it was for me when I was sifting that soil on the Followwill land down in Texas. Then he gets into school, and by junior high/high school, his identity starts to be derived from what he does: if he does well in school, he's identified as a "brain;" if he does well in sports, he's identified as a "jock." If he does well at both, he's mister "all-around." As he grows into young manhood, his identity is rooted in what college he attends, what fraternity he belongs to, what degrees he receives, etc. Then, for the bulk of his working life, his identity comes from what work he does, what achievements he enjoys: he might say, "I am a Doctor," or "I serve as President of the Rotary Club ..." But it is all based on what he does. Identity crises arise when what he does doesn't do so well. Where is his identity when he fails? Where is his identity when he retires? All his life, the typical man tries to find himself in his work and his achievements, but unless he finds Jesus Christ, the manliest man of all, he searches for his identity in vain.

For the typical woman's search for identity, it is a search revolving around the man and the children in her life. As a little girl, she gets her identity from her Daddy ... she's "Daddy's girl." His approval, his affirmation, his delight in her ... that's where her identity comes from. She also idolizes her mother and wants to be like her. Her parents define her world, and her identity. Then she goes to school, and soon her identity is tied to her looks. She is quickly identified by her looks and her body shape ... more exactly, she is identified by the boys who like her and are attracted to her. The question, "Who is your boyfriend?" almost becomes synonymous with the question "Who are you?" By junior and senior high, her identity is usually rooted in her popularity, her looks, who her boyfriend is. Then she goes to college ... and soon she gets married. Her identity is then joined to her man, whose name she takes. She surrounds him, being identified as a "wife" now. Soon her identity broadens to be "wife and mother." With her children comes her greatest challenge as a woman: she will be tempted beyond all things to garner her identity from her children. If her children succeed and don't make big mistakes, the world calls her a good mother, and her identity as a mother is validated. But if her identity is rooted in her relationship to her husband as wife, what happens if he dies or leaves her? If her identity is rooted in her children, what does she do when all her children leave and the nest is empty? All her life, a woman tries to find herslef in her relationships; but unless she finds her identity in her primary relationship with Jesus Christ, she searches for her identity in vain.

But our dear brother Paul has fought this battle; he has accomplished this quest of identity. He knows Jesus Christ, so he knows who he is. This is what makes being a Christian so magnificent.

But if you don't know Jesus Christ, you don't know yourself. If He has not found you and you have not responded to Him, you have lost both Him and yourself. I want to give you two painful stories of two people who never found themselves, because they never found Jesus Christ. The first story is about the famous British radio personality and actor Peter Sellers. Peter Sellers was the famous Inspector Clouseau of the Pink Panther series of movies. Having played so many roles throughout his working life, he reached an identity crisis in his final days as he lay suffering with a terminal illness. During an interview, he was asked what his thoughts were about the many roles and many radio voices he had played during his storied career. His answer is haunting: he quietly said, "I only wish I knew which voice was my own." He didn't know who he was through the long course of his life, and at the end he realized he was totally adrift on a chaotic sea. Thank God in Christ that we who are indwelled by Christ have an unshakable identity in Him, and we are not adrift like that poor soul at the end of his life.

Just this week, Blythe and I read an interview with Gloria Vanderbilt, the mistress of etiquette in our country. At age 74, here was her statement of her identity: "I am a phoenix, rising from the ashes." But her life story in the interview was nothing but ashes: she is embroiled in nasty legal litigation with her former lawyer and former psychiatrist, to whom she sold her old business; she had to sell her gorgeous townhouse to pay back-taxes; her handsome and seemingly winsome 24-year-old son threw himself off a balcony of a fashionable high-rise apartment building, killing himself just after cussing her out. His last words were expletives hurled at the mother he apparently hated. Her life was a total, undiluted disaster story. How can you rise from the ashes of sin and misery if you don't know the One who rose from the dead?

Unlike Peter or Gloria, Paul knew who he was. And the great wisdom Paul communicates in this first verse is that his identity is rightly placed. Every aspect of his identity is tied inextricably to Jesus Christ. He is a bond-slave of Jesus Christ, wearing his ring; he is a messenger called and sent by Jesus Christ; he carries the message about Jesus Christ to the world. His identity is derived absolutely within the context of his relationship with Jesus Christ. This is where Paul wants each of us to be once we have reached the great identification messages in Rom. 6-8. We need to listen to Paul when we get there because he has been where we are going.

But like us, Paul wasn't always there. Paul gives us a wonderful insight into where his identity used to lie in Phil. 3:4-6: "Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless." But then Paul chronicles the process whereby he found his identity in Christ in the next few verses, in Phil. 3:7-11: "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." This is where I want us all to wind up: saying and knowing that Jesus Christ is my life.

Conclusion -- How Would You Introduce Your Letter?

As we close our time together, I have a little homework assignment for the next year or so as we study Romans together. In prayer, and as we study this book, ask the Lord within you this question: "Who do You say that I am?" As you listen, think and pray about this, I want to ask you to write out a short introduction to a letter to the Romans that you might write yourself. Start with your own name like Paul did, only follow it with your own statement of identity: "Tom ... Thelma ... Greg ... Lisa ... Roxanne ... Larry ..." and so forth. What words would follow your name? Would your identity be rooted absolutely in Jesus Christ?

I have thought this through for myself, and would be glad to share with you what I would write, as a second example after Paul's. At this stage in my own process of finding my identity only in Jesus Christ, I would probably write, "Dorman, beloved of God at the cross of Christ; adopted as an adult son by the indwelling Spirit; called to be husband of Blythe; called to be father of five children; called to be pastor-teacher at Metropolitan." Now, I share this with you only to be helpful in your own thinking and praying and listening process with the Lord. Let Him answer the simple question, "Lord, who do You say that I am?," and write down your introduction to such a letter.

Oh may we all have our identities rooted absolutely in Jesus Christ, no matter what!!

Back to Index Page
Discovery Publishing
Peninsula Bible Church Home Page