The Gospel is Jesus

Romans 1:1-7 The Gospel is Jesus (Romans 1:1-17- The Gospel: the DNA of the Church)

What should a pastor preach on his first Sunday at a new church? The temptation would be to conduct a shock and awe campaign…to blow the congregation out the water with a dynamite message…an unforgettable sermon. That would be a mistake in many different ways.

Instead of a shock and awe sermon, I would like to turn your gaze to what is most important. That’s where we should start. The gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ is the message I want to begin with, end with, and always turn to.

Over the next 3 weeks we will look at Romans 1:1-17. We will explore the gospel, the DNA of the church. I didn’t do so well in biology, but I’ve heard that every person has unique DNA, which can distinguish them from other people. If the church does not have the gospel as its DNA, it will cease to be the church. It may look like a church, but it will morph into something else entirely: a social club, a coffee shop, a rock concert, or an entertainment venue. If you lose the gospel, you lose the church. If you lose the gospel, you lose all hope. The true church is a group of people saved and called together by the message of Jesus Christ.

In Romans 1, Paul displays the gospel as the heartbeat of his life and ministry. My prayer is that our hearts will beat with that same rhythm.

Read Romans 1:1-7

The Gospel:
1. Promised in the Old Testament (1-2)
2. Proclaims Jesus Christ (3-4)
3. Demands a Response (5)
4. Bestows a Calling (6-7)

Normally, ancient letters had a very short greeting, lasting only a few words. Paul takes these seven verses to introduce the letter. This should encourage us to have a special place in our hearts for long-winded people.

1. The Gospel was promised in the Old Testament (1-2)
First, Paul introduces himself: he is a servant of Christ, an apostle, and dedicated to the gospel ministry. These are not titles he picked for himself. He was specially picked by Christ to spread the gospel across the Roman Empire and to write parts of the New Testament.

In verse 2, he begins to describe the gospel: it was promised in the Old Testament. Book by book, passage by passage, the Old Testament has sign posts. These signs read: a Savior is coming! God is going to do something amazing! When we look back from the vantage point of the New Testament, every one of these signs points to Jesus and his work.
Where, then, do we find the gospel? The gospel is found in seed form in the Old Testament. The New Testament contains the full-grown plant of the gospel. The gospel is not the whole Bible, but it is found in the Bible. We find the gospel when we find the message about Jesus Christ.

2. The Gospel proclaims Jesus Christ (3-4)
These verses show that the gospel is Jesus Christ. Paul makes some significant statement about Jesus in these two verses. Before we dive in, here is the overview: verse 3: Jesus is King; verse 4: Jesus is God.

A. Jesus is king
He is the promised king who will rule on David’s throne. Many years ago, God promised King David, that there would always be one of his descendants sitting on his throne. King David’s descendants lived and died. But the ultimate fulfillment of this promise is Jesus Christ, who will reign forever. Not just over the people of Israel like King David did, but over the whole universe.

It says that Jesus was made or born of the seed of David. Jesus was a physical descendant of King David…according to the flesh. What does “according to the flesh” mean? The Apostle Paul understands the universe as divided in two realms: the flesh and the spirit. The flesh is what is visible and temporal. The spirit is what is unseen and eternal. According to the world, Jesus is a descendant of King David…a rightful heir to his throne. That’s why the gospels of Matthew and Luke contain the genealogies of Jesus: to prove that in an earthly way, he is the heir to the throne.

B. Jesus is God
In verse 4, Paul tells us that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God. Jesus has always been God’s Son, but he was declared to be the Son of God IN POWER. How? By his resurrection from the dead. God’s Son had never been displayed like this before! This declaration of the powerful Son of God was done in the realm of the spirit (not the flesh). Before God the Father, before the angels, and before believers, Jesus Christ is heralded as the Son of God as he rose victorious from the grave.

Here’s another way to look at it. Let’s say a US senator was a member at our church. Let’s also say that he was a deacon. In the realm of church, he is a brother in Christ, and one of its leaders. But, when he steps into the political realm, he has power that none of us have. So, Christ, is the King according to this world. But in the spiritual realm, he is the Son of God. That was proved by his resurrection from the dead. One day the whole world will see Jesus for who he truly is: the King and the Son of God.

The gospel is all about Jesus first and foremost…who he is and what he accomplished for us on the cross. The gospel would not be good news if it was about us and how we should work hard for our own salvation. No. The gospel is good news because it is a message about what Jesus Christ has done for us. It is good news because Jesus Christ, the God-man, died for our sins, was buried, and rose again in power. He ascended to heaven and reigns as Lord.

We need to hear good news. Life is full of bad news. Pick up the paper. Turn on the news. Talk to our neighbors. People are suffering and dying. Nations are destroying one another. Death is having a party all over this world.

We need to hear good news. We work hard at our jobs. We wonder if we will keep them. We try to sleep at night. We attempt to pay bills. We suffer heartbreak, sickness, and despair. As Christians, we struggle to honor God in our families and with our time. We fight against the world, the sin nature, and the devil.

The gospel is a message that turns this brutal world on its head. The gospel proclaims that we can be rescued ultimately from the curse of sin and death. The gospel proclaims that the Son of God reigns. Nothing will thwart his plans. No one can stop him from bringing his children home. The gospel fills our hearts with joy with the news of sins forgiven. Gone. Nailed to the cross. The gospel fills our hearts with hope by giving us a future that is beyond this world.

You may have grown up hearing the gospel, and think that it is old news. No. We need to hear its beautiful sound every day. We are surrounded by bad news. So, we need good news every day. We are tempted to made Christianity something about us. So we need to hear the gospel: a message about Jesus Christ: the King of the universe and the Son of God.

3. The gospel demands a response (5)
Don’t think that because the gospel is not about us, it doesn’t demand a response from us. In verse 5, Paul says that he received his ministry from Christ for: “obedience to the faith” or more literally “the obedience of faith.” This phrase is a bit ambiguous. The clearest explanation is that we obey the gospel by believing it. One commentator puts it in the negative: “the chief act of disobedience to God is unbelief. The gospel is a message that we obey by believing it.

We must understand the facts of the gospel. We are sinners. We face punishment before a holy and righteous God for breaking his law and spurning his name. But God in love and mercy provided his Son Jesus Christ to take our punishment by dying on the cross. This Jesus did not stay dead, but rose from the dead, showing that he had conquered sin, death, and hell.

We must know these truths, but we must also have confidence that they are 100% true. Then we must make them the center of our lives. Belief is not a mere intellectual activity, but a whole-hearted trust in the person of Jesus Christ. We repent of our sins, and cast our lives entirely on Jesus Christ. He will save us and keep us to the end. Knowledge-confidence-trust

4. The Gospel bestows a calling (6-7)
Paul was called by God to be an apostle and devote his life to proclaiming the gospel. In verses 6-7, we learn that every Christian is called by God. This calling is incredible and irrevocable. It is done by God for us…not by us.

A. We are called to belong to Jesus
Before you called on Jesus to be your Savior, Jesus called you to be his. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, reached out and claimed you as his own sheep. If you are a Christian, it is because of the call of Jesus on your life. If you belong to Jesus, everything he has is yours. Your life is bound up with his.

B. We are beloved by God
Another amazing thing about being Christian is that you are loved by God the Father. You are his child. You are dearly loved and cared for by your Father. It is perfect love that will never fail. We love God because he first loved us.

C. We are called to be saints
Every Christian is a saint. In other words, we are called to be holy. Every Christian has been called away from sin and the world and set on a course to become like Jesus Christ. That is who we are. When we become Christians, we become saints. Because that’s our identity, we live lives set apart to Jesus Christ. The call to be holy is not some legalistic mantra, but it is the call of our loving Father to become more like his Son Jesus Christ.

The gospel does not offer mere fire insurance from hell. Belief in the gospel—in Jesus—ushers us into an incredible reality. We belong to Jesus and we are loved by the Father. We just taste this reality here on earth but will experience it fully in eternity.

Conclusion

1. The gospel demands a response of faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. If you have not done this, the stakes are high. Eternity in hell or eternity in heaven. Jesus Christ stands waiting to save you of your sins, if only you trust him. Do not wait. You may not be alive tomorrow. Don’t deceive yourself, thinking that you are saved because you grew up coming to church or because you do good things for others. You will be lost if you trust what you have done. Trust what Christ has done for you.

2. The gospel is Jesus Christ. We as sinners often we twist it, and make it about we have done. We center it on ourselves. I encourage you to proclaim the gospel correctly by offering the person of Jesus Christ to others. Not just a set of doctrines, but Christ. The gospel IS doctrine…it is teaching about Jesus Christ. The gospel is a message, when believed, connects people to Jesus Christ. We offer Jesus Christ to the lost by speaking of him. And that is the gospel.