I invite you to take your Bibles this morning and turn with me over to the book of Romans.
We're going to be in Romans chapter 1. We're going to begin in verse 1, work our way through verse 17.
So Romans chapter 1, verses 1 through 17.
And this morning, we are going to ask a rather simplistic question of Scripture.
And that question is, what is the Gospel?
What is the Gospel? I mean, is the Gospel simply walking down an aisle, shaking a pastor's hand, or saying a sinner's prayer,
and then never, ever allowing it to transform you?
This morning, we're going to look at Romans chapter 1, verses 1 through 17.
And these verses are going to help us answer this question, what is the Gospel?
I love the way the Apostle Paul concisely answers this question in verses 16 and 17.
Look at it with me. It's going to be up on the screen.
He says,
Would you pray with me?
Father, this is your Word, and we are thankful this morning that we can come together to worship you here in this place.
Your Word is holy. It is without error.
It is infallible, and it is authoritative for our lives.
And so, Father, this morning we come to worship you and to be changed.
We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Amen.
My wife, Karen, she loves to buy large toys for our children.
And children, especially my kids, they love to receive large toys, right?
They love playing with these things.
And if you come over to our house, you're going to notice all over the place large toys.
Because large toys have large price tags, and you don't ever want to throw them away.
So they just kind of pile up in the house.
And so we've got large toys in the bedrooms.
We've got large toys in the garage.
We've got a large toy called a trampoline out in the backyard.
Sometimes these large toys kind of trickle out onto the back patio, but you kind of get my drift.
They're large toys with large price tags.
And large toys come with large instruction manuals on how to put these things together.
About four and a half years ago on Christmas, my wife convinced my parents to buy our daughter a dollhouse.
But not just any old kind of dollhouse.
This dollhouse was this tall.
It is this wide, and it came in a box that narrow.
And so this box, which weighed about 100 pounds, we couldn't just put this dollhouse together before Christmas and then hide it.
I mean, where are you going to hide a dollhouse that's this tall and this wide?
And so that required me and my dad to kind of put this thing together on Christmas Eve after we put the kids to bed.
And so we began putting this big old dollhouse together in the room over the garage, the bonus room, beginning around 830 at night.
And it took us almost five hours.
My dad and I, we did not kill each other because sometimes that's what fathers and sons do when they work together on projects.
They kill each other.
But we came out of the room unscathed.
We got this thing together.
My dad and I, man, we were proud of ourselves.
Because this wasn't just any old dollhouse.
I mean, every single thing in the dollhouse had to be put together.
Not just the dollhouse, but the furniture in the dollhouse.
I mean, it had toilets.
It had appliances, washers, dryers, you name it.
Carpet.
It was three stories high, so it had steps.
Everything had to be put together according to the instruction manual.
So my dad and I, we got this thing put together and we were so proud of ourselves.
And we've got to take this thing downstairs now and put it under the Christmas tree.
But one thing we failed to do was to measure just how wide the dollhouse was going to be after we got it put together.
And the dollhouse ended up being about that much wider than the door of our bonus room.
And so my dad and I proceeded to take the door off the hinges and get us a little bit more room because we weren't taking this thing apart.
So we got it to the door and, like I said, by this time, now that we've got the door down, we've got about this much room.
Between the edge of the roof, which is plastic, and the door jam itself.
And so we just mashed that thing through the door.
It did nothing to the dollhouse.
The dollhouse was completely okay.
But the door jam, on the other hand, yeah, it got scratched up pretty bad.
And so we got this big old dollhouse downstairs.
We put it next to the Christmas tree.
Christmas Day comes and down comes Ava.
Michael was just an itty-bitty thing at this point.
Ava comes down and she sees this dollhouse and, man, she's excited.
And she plays with this dollhouse all day long.
The next day, she invites her friends over.
Her friends come over and they play with the dollhouse all day long.
And then the next day, on the 27th, she plays with the dollhouse again, but not all day long.
Just maybe, you know, three, four hours.
Then the next day, she plays with it for about another hour, maybe two.
The day after that, about 30 minutes.
The day after that, about 15 minutes.
And then the day after that, New Year's.
Well, it didn't get played with very much after that.
That dollhouse, four and a half years later, is now sitting in our house in the upstairs hallway next to the laundry room where we throw our dirty laundry on top of it every now and then.
We don't want to throw it away.
It costs a lot of money.
It took a lot of time putting it together.
And it's just sitting there right now.
Now, I tell you that to say this.
Big toys, large toys, have large instruction manuals.
This morning, we are going to be looking at the Book of Romans.
And the Book of Romans is much like a large instruction manual.
It is one of the most systematic of Paul's letters.
It reads almost like a theology textbook, if you will.
Now, the Book of Romans was written by the Apostle Paul.
He wrote it to the church at Rome.
And I know that sounds very obvious.
I mean, the book is called Romans.
But it's important as we work our way through these 17 verses that we understand that Paul's audience here are Christians.
He's writing to the church.
They know Christ.
And so he's writing to them, to the church in Rome.
Also, during this time in history, if you know anything about secular history, the whole Mediterranean world was under what was called the Roman Empire.
They were under the thumb of the Roman Empire.
And obviously, the capital of the Roman Empire was none other than Rome.
And so I want you this morning to kind of view the Roman Empire, to view Rome itself as a Washington, D.C.
Because that's essentially what it was.
Right?
Every single vice known to mankind could be found in Rome.
Alcohol, drugs, sexual promiscuity, you name it, it was there.
Rome was religiously diverse, culturally diverse.
It was a melting pot, much like Washington, D.C. is today.
And so Paul is writing to this church, and it's important for us to understand the culture.
One secular historian wrote this about Rome.
He said, quote, Rome was a severely overcrowded, loud, and smelly city.
A place that provided every virtue and vice known to mankind.
The church at Rome came out of this environment.
The people that made up the church in Rome came out of this environment.
And since they came out of this environment, naturally, there were questions.
And one of those questions is, what is the gospel?
And so this morning, what we're going to do is we're going to look at these 17 verses,
and we are going to pull out of it three insights into what the gospel truly is.
Number one, the gospel was promised in the Old Testament.
The gospel was promised in the Old Testament.
Look what Paul says here, verses 1 through 7.
He says,
Pete says,
He 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 the nations,
including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
To all of 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.
Now we could literally take the next three weeks and go over these seven verses,
but for the sake of time, we're going to look primarily at verse 2 because that's what we're concerned with.
The gospel being promised in the Old Testament, and that's exactly what Paul says here.
He says, look at verse 2 again, he says that the gospel was promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
In other words, before the New Testament was written, before Jesus Christ was born,
the Father had already promised that a Messiah was coming.
And He promised, it said, through His prophets, the authors, if you will, of the Old Testament,
He promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
Now, what scriptures is He referring to?
Well, we know the authors are the prophets, but also Romans wasn't written until 57 AD.
It's a rather early New Testament book.
And so the gospel that He's proclaiming here is not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The book of Romans was written before that.
The gospel He's referring to here, the place that it was proclaimed and promised,
is none other than the Old Testament.
The gospel, ladies and gentlemen, is not an afterthought of God.
It's not like Genesis chapter 3 happened, and then God was like,
oh, I've got to do something about this.
The gospel was already promised.
Matter of fact, when original sin entered into the world,
when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden,
right after they sinned, the gospel is proclaimed.
Genesis 3.15, God is talking to the serpent, otherwise known as Satan,
and He says to the serpent,
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
In other words, God is promising that someone's coming,
right there in Genesis chapter 3.
Someone is coming who is going to do what?
He's going to crush the head of the serpent.
And as we make our way through redemptive history in the Old Testament,
all the way up into the New Testament,
it is slowly revealed to us that this Messiah who is coming to crush the head of the serpent
in Genesis chapter 3.15,
is none other than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
And so the gospel is not an afterthought.
The gospel was promised in the Old Testament.
It's kind of like this, talking about promises.
We're on to now the summer days where the kids are out of school,
and people like my wife who work for the school, they're out of school.
They get to stay home with the kids.
And that's awesome.
Until about late June, early July,
where let's just be honest,
we're ready for them to go back to school.
And Karen is there with the kids,
and sometimes, sometimes,
children test the limits.
They test the limits of their mama.
Let me tell you a very exaggerated story here.
I'll come home from work one afternoon,
around 4.30, 5 o'clock,
and I'll pull up into the driveway,
and everything we own
is out on the front lawn.
Everything we own is out on the front lawn.
And there's our kids running around,
yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, just having a good old time.
And I walk into the house,
and there's my wife sitting on the only piece of furniture left in the whole house,
on this chair,
with her hand on her head like this.
And I look at her,
and I say,
sweetheart, what is going on?
And she says,
I only turned my back on the kids for one minute.
One minute is all it took,
and they got everything we own out onto the front lawn.
My mom called,
and I took the phone call.
I should have never done it.
And then I said this,
and gentlemen,
don't ever say this to your wife in this situation,
because you will sleep on the couch that night.
I said,
why does this happen
when it's only you
with the kids?
I'm not there?
Why does this not happen when I'm at home?
Yeah, wrong thing.
I learned very early on as a dad,
that's the wrong thing to say to your wife
after she's been home with the kids
for the last eight to ten hours.
And so,
in all seriousness,
when things start going south,
my wife will often make a promise to our children.
And the promise will go something like this.
You wait until your daddy gets home.
Right?
You wait until your daddy gets home.
Everyone in here,
if you've tested the limits of mama,
you have heard those words.
You wait until your daddy gets home,
and you know mom's not playing.
You know that's a promise
that you can take to the bank,
that when daddy gets home,
yeah,
it's all like Donkey Kong.
It's going to get real,
real fast.
And so Karen will say to the kids,
and she'll make that promise,
you wait until your daddy gets home,
because my kids know daddy don't play.
Promises mean something.
Now,
people break promises, unfortunately.
Your friends will break promises.
Family members will break promises.
Sometimes parents,
pastors will break promises.
But there is one person
that never, ever, ever
breaks his promise.
And that's God.
God never breaks his promises.
And one of the promises we see here
in Romans chapter 1
is the promise of the gospel
that is rooted in the Old Testament.
The gospel was promised in the Old Testament.
Number two,
the gospel is a way of life.
The gospel is a way of life.
Look at verses 8 through 15.
First,
and I love the way he says first,
he's just given us seven verses
of incredibly dense material.
And then he says,
okay,
now I'm going to say what I meant to say.
He's like a typical preacher.
First,
I thank my God
through Jesus Christ
for all of you
because your faith is proclaimed
in all the world.
For God is my witness
whom I serve with my spirit
in the gospel of his son
that without ceasing,
I mention you always in my prayers,
asking that somehow by God's will,
I may now at last succeed
in coming to you.
For I long to see you
that I may impart to you
a spiritual gift to strengthen you.
That is,
that we may be mutually encouraged
by each other's faith,
both yours and mine.
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,
I am under obligation
both to Greeks and to barbarians,
both to the wise and to the foolish,
so I am eager
to preach the gospel
to you also
who is in Rome.
The gospel
is not something
you just simply
believe to be historically true.
I say often to our youth
that just because you say
you believe something to be true
doesn't mean
you are that
which you believe.
For example,
I believe Hitler lived,
it doesn't make me a Nazi.
I believe Stalin lived,
and that does not make me
a communist.
And so,
just merely affirming
the historical facts
of something you say
you believe
doesn't make you
a follower
of that thing
that you believe.
I say that because
I want you to look again
at verse 8.
Paul says to the Romans,
to the Christians
at Rome,
he says,
your faith
is proclaimed
in all of the world.
I want you to think
about the world
at this point.
It's the Mediterranean world.
These people are located
in Rome.
Their faith is known
all over
the Mediterranean world.
It's 57 AD.
There are no phones.
There's no internet.
There's no radio.
So how did the whole
known world
at that period of time
know how big
the faith was
of those Christians
in Rome?
I'll tell you how.
Word to mouth.
They believed in Christ.
They believed the gospel.
But they didn't just
believe it.
It impacted their lives,
and it impacted
their lives so much
that people saw
a difference in them.
And that reputation
spread all over
the Mediterranean world.
And so when Paul
is talking about
faith here,
he's not referring
to just that
initial trust in Christ
that brings about
salvation.
He's talking about
the persevering trust
that brings about
spiritual strength
and growth
which is ongoing.
And so Paul moves on
into verse 12,
and he wants to be,
he says,
mutually encouraged
by each other's faith
both yours and mine.
Paul,
the Apostle Paul,
knew that it was
important to be
plugged into a local church.
He knew it was
important to be
worshiping,
to be fellowshipping
with a body
of believers.
I want you to think
about who Paul is
for just a second.
Paul wrote 13 books
of the New Testament.
He's the greatest
missionary this world
has ever seen.
He has received
direct revelation
from Jesus,
but yet he knows
it's important
to be involved
in the life
of the church.
He wasn't someone
that just showed up
once or twice a month
on Sundays
when he had the time.
I would argue
that Paul
was instrumental
in the churches
that he was involved in.
It was important
to him
to be involved,
and so I ask this
of you and of I.
If the Apostle Paul,
13 books of the New Testament,
greatest missionary,
direct revelation
from God,
if the Apostle Paul
knew it was important
to be plugged
into the local church
and to be involved,
how much more
you and I?
And so Paul
wants to be encouraged
by each other's faith
and he goes on
to say,
I am eager
to preach
the gospel
to you
who are at Rome.
Now when I was
preparing for this message,
the first question
I had when I read that,
I was like,
why does Paul
want to preach
the gospel
to the Christians
in Rome
when their faith
is already so big
that the whole
Mediterranean world
knows about it?
Here's the answer.
The gospel
is not just something
we say we believe.
It's not just
affirming
a historical fact
or saying
a sinner's prayer.
Yes,
the gospel
is that initial
trust in Christ
that brings about
salvation,
but when we
receive the gospel,
when we trust in Christ
truly as our Lord
and our Savior,
it impacts
our lives.
The gospel
is a way
of life.
Now,
like any good
speaker,
you always want
to illustrate
the point
you're trying
to make.
And the point
we're trying
to make
this morning
is that the gospel
is a way
of life.
And so what I'm
going to do
is I'm going
to give you
an illustration
that just FYI,
it's going to
break down,
but I think
we can kind
of put the pieces
together and
understand it.
The gospel
is a way
of life
in the same
way that being
an athlete
is a way
of life.
For example,
to become an
athlete,
you've got to
try out for the
team.
You make the
team,
you become an
athlete.
athlete,
right?
However,
if you don't
show up to
the practices,
if you don't
put on the
uniform,
if you don't
come to the
games,
if you're not
a team player,
if all you
ever do is
make the team
and earn the
title athlete
and never do
anything else,
are you really
an athlete?
No.
What about
like a student?
The gospel
is a way
of life
in the same
way that being
a student
is a way
of life.
To become
a student,
you register
for classes.
You register
for classes,
you're now
a student.
But,
if you never
show up to
class,
you never
do the
work,
you fail
everything
and you
drop out,
are you
really a
student?
And more
importantly,
for high
school students,
it's even
more a way
of life.
They go to
proms,
they've got
homecoming,
they go to
football games,
they've got
these different
organizations that
they're a part
of,
it's even
more of a
way of life.
If all you
do is go to
Pickens High
School,
register for
classes and
never show up
ever again,
are you really
a student?
No.
Because when
you're a student,
it's a way of
life.
When you're an
athlete, it's a
way of life.
The gospel is a
way of life.
It transforms
us.
We come to
faith in Christ,
Christ.
We exercise the
spiritual gifts
that God has
given us in
his church.
We are
involved in
the church.
We worship
in the church.
We fellowship
with one
another.
We serve
with one
another.
We go on
mission trips
with one
another.
Youth go to
camp with
one another.
It's a way
of life.
That's what
the gospel
is.
So the
gospel is
rooted in the
Old Testament.
The gospel is
a way of
life.
And then
finally,
the one point
that I think
everyone in here
is familiar
with is that
the gospel
is the power
of God
for salvation.
It's the
gospel that
saves us.
Verses 16
and 17,
Paul says,
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.
For in it the
righteousness of
God is revealed
from faith for
faith as it
is written,
the righteous
shall live
by faith.
As we come
to a close
in this
message,
I want to
leave you
with an
encouraging
word.
That
encouraging
word is,
the gospel
will bring
you persecution.
Praise the
Lord.
Right?
The gospel
will bring
you persecution.
All over
this world,
even today,
people are
beaten and
murdered for
their faith.
Now,
we don't have
that problem
necessarily here
in our country,
but I will
let you know
you will be
persecuted for
your faith.
Why?
Because the
gospel is a
way of life.
It alters
the way you
think.
Your worldview
will be different
than other
people's worldviews.
Your priorities
will be different
than other
people's priorities.
And every now
and then,
people might
look at you
and think,
man,
you're a little
weird.
Right?
The gospel
will bring you
persecution.
And so,
Paul says,
in light of
that,
in verse 16,
he says,
I'm not ashamed
of the gospel.
In other words,
I don't care what
kind of persecution
comes my way.
And think again
about who Paul
is.
Paul was locked
up,
beaten,
often near death.
He was flogged,
stoned,
shipwrecked,
and he was always
looking over his
back because his
countrymen wanted
to kill him,
and the Roman
government wanted
to arrest him
and execute
them,
which they
ultimately did.
And Paul says,
in light of all
of that,
I don't care.
I don't care
what's going to
come my way.
I am not ashamed
of the gospel.
Why?
Tells us right
here in this
passage.
Because it's the
power of God
for salvation
to everyone
who believes.
First Baptist,
there is no
greater decision
that you will
ever make
than who
is Jesus
Christ.
Your career
plans,
your college
plans,
your family
plans,
our vacation
plans,
now that we're
in the summer,
don't matter
at all
compared to
who is
Jesus Christ.
It is the
greatest decision
that you
will ever
make.
Jesus Christ,
God in the
flesh,
came to this
earth and
lived 33
years without
sin,
completely
fulfilling the
law.
He went to
the cross
willingly and
died.
He was buried.
Three days
later,
He rose from
the dead.
dead.
And here's
where it
gets real.
Not only
did He
just raise
from the
dead,
but He
was seen
by not
just one
person,
not even
by His
eleven
remaining
disciples.
He was
seen by
hundreds,
hundreds of
people over
the period
of forty
days.
He ascended
back to
heaven.
He is
seated at
the right
hand of
the Father.
You know
what He's
doing right
now?
He's
praying for
you.
He's
praying for
me.
The greatest
decision you
will ever
make is
who is
Jesus.
The gospel
was promised
way back in
the Old
Testament.
It's a
promise rooted
in the Old
Testament.
the gospel
is a way
of life
and it's
the gospel
that brings
about
salvation.
Would you
pray with
me?
Heavenly
Father, we
come before
you this
morning humbled
for what
you have
done for
us.
None of
us in
this room
are worthy
of what
you have
done for
us.
So this
morning,
Lord, we
come before
you.
We're
thankful for
the gospel.
We're
thankful for
your grace,
your love,
your goodness.
And Lord,
there be
somebody in
this room
this morning
that does
not know
Christ.
It is my
prayer this
morning that
this would
be the day
of repentance,
the day of
faith, that
they would
trust in
Jesus as
their Lord
and their
Savior.
Father, I
pray as we
begin these
summertime
months that
we are
reminded the
gospel is
just not
simply believing
a series
of facts.
The gospel
impacts our
lives.
May we
leave here
reflecting that
in this
community,
in the
people that
we come
into contact
with each
and every
day.
We pray
this in
Jesus'
name.
Amen.
pour
an
それ
into
the
future.