A Servant of Christ | Romans 1:1 | Dr. Brian Lee (7/10/26)

Later in Romans. Turn quickly to Romans chapter 12, and we're gonna read just a few verses here to highlight this aspect of God's call to serve. Romans 12 verse four. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. And we see here among other passages in the New Testament that there is a specific type of calling that one could receive from the Lord to know what our service is in his house. Even in the old testament, we see this pictures of different roles and callings from the people of God, especially in the different roles we see in serving in the temple. And again, this points us to his call through his word, the word of God, seeking and hearing his voice in discerning, not just knowing what our call is, but discerning and confirming what our call is in the local church as servants of Christ.

And so I guess the question is, what is your calling? Do you know what your calling is here tonight as you sit here and receive God's word? What is your calling that you know from the Lord, the gifting that you have? Do you have a confirmation of that calling as Christ and as God has led you? If you are in doubt of how God is calling you, I am reassured by this, that the Lord sees our hearts above all else in wanting to know what our gifting is and surrendering that to him that we might serve him faithfully in whatever calling he has for us in the local church or in any other ministry.

And, of course, this speaks to how he has gifted us, finding that out, how he's calling us, how he's leading us. And he will show us to the degree we hear his voice in his word and in prayer to the degree we walk close with him. And I wanna go back to Romans one one because I think we have a a picture of this in the life of Paul. So in Romans one one, Paul as a servant of Christ heard a specific calling after salvation, actually, to be an apostle. Because if you remember Paul's salvation story, Paul was not told what his specific calling was until after he was initially saved on the road to Damascus.

If you go to that passage, we're told that he surrendered to what God told him or actually Jesus told him. Right? He was struck on that road to Damascus, and Jesus tells him in Acts nine verse six to rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. And he surrendered to this voice. He surrendered to the word of Christ and went.

And it was there that a disciple from Damascus named Ananias, who was given that vision from the Lord of what Paul what Paul's calling was. He was to be the messenger to deliver that to Paul. And Paul was saved by them because how does Ananias address him? He says, brother Saul. So Paul was saved, but yet he was yet to receive his specific calling, and he received that from Ananias, the words that Jesus gave him, that he would be a chosen instrument called to carry the gospel to the Gentiles and to kings and to the children of Israel.

And, yes, Paul was chosen. He was elected. He was called. That was his destiny in Christ. But Paul also had to walk in that destiny, in that calling by faith.

And we know from the life of Paul and other books that he even went to Arabia. We are told he went to Arabia in Galatians for a period of three years to confirm that calling he received in Damascus. And I like to imagine and believe based on what the word says that Paul during these three years, he was in the word because he was the Hebrew of Hebrews. He knew the scriptures. And so I can imagine Paul rereading the Hebrew scriptures, our old testament, to hear the voice of his new master, Christ.

And so if you are still in need of registering, you see the dates there, this is a time that we always look forward to as a church family, in need of registering, you see the dates there, this is a time that we always look forward to as a church family. And then we get to meet many other brothers and sisters from, not just here in Illinois, but out of state and even internationally. And so we invite you to register if that is something you'd like to do. The next announcement is about VBS. And I've also heard recently that closing the registration is closing for this soon, I I believe sometime next week.

But VBS will be from July 28 to July 31, and we are still in need of some volunteers. So if you would like to volunteer and serve in this capacity, you see the QR code on the slide. Lastly, as you know, this is a reminder, but if you are new to this place, we meet here three times a week. We have the joy of being in the house of the Lord three times. So Wednesdays, we have prayer at 7PM downstairs.

And this past Wednesday was such a blessing for those of you who were here. Such a blessing to hear people pray and cry out and to hear scripture being read, even some singing this past Wednesday. It was a blessed time. So we invite you to join us on Wednesdays, if you can at 7PM. As you know, Fridays, we meet at 7PM for bible study and Sundays on the Lord's Day at 10:30AM.

So we invite you to those meetings. Well, I have been asked to have the honor the undeserved honor to give the word of God tonight, and so it is my joy to do that. And our main passage is in the New Testament. And so if you would turn with me to the book of Romans, we are going to look together at the beginning of the book. Romans one verse one will guide us in our study tonight, and we will also look at the surrounding context of chapter one and also, in some ways, the overall context of the book of Romans to help us understand tonight's theme, and there is a theme for tonight.

But beyond that, we are also gonna highlight the life of the writer of Romans, and that is the apostle Paul. And before we look at the text, allow me to make a brief comment. And the comment is this, it is sad and unfortunate these days that we have some Christians who criticize or even attack the the writings of Paul or twist his words or take them out of context. And these critiques are often directed at passages where Paul writes about God's design for marriage, including the roles of husbands and wives, or it could be about the role of women in the local church, or about sexual immorality, or other doctrines of truth. And I say this in love tonight, I pray, that if anyone has a problem with the words of Paul, they have a problem with Christ himself.

Because Paul's words are the words of Christ that he promised in the gospel of John, specifically John 16 verse 13, where Jesus promises that when the spirit of truth comes, that his words, Christ's words, would be revealed and guide us into all truth. And the books in our New Testament that contain Paul's writings are Christ's words through the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, the spirit of Christ. And it's not just the words he wrote, but Paul, on more than one occasion, encourages us today to imitate his life. I wanna take a moment to mention one reference of this before we get into our main text. It's in Paul's letter to the church in Philippi.

He says the following in Philippians four verse nine. He says, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. His life, his example of living, what you have seen in me. And as we look at both the writings of Paul and his life example tonight, especially regarding the theme of tonight's message, I pray that we would be inspired to imitate him because he famously said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. So may that be true tonight by the grace of God.

So let's turn now to our main passage, which gives us three main principles. Romans one one, servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. This is very similar to his other epistles. He introduces himself at the beginning of the letter, not just as the writer, but what his identity is in Christ. And in almost every letter, he identifies himself at the beginning as an apostle like he does here in Romans.

But this introduction is unique. For while he does call himself a servant at the beginning of his letter to Titus, and he also identifies himself with Timothy as servants, plural, at the beginning as an introduction to Philippians. Romans is the only letter addressed to a church where Paul introduces himself alone individually as a servant. And that is our theme tonight. The title of this message is a servant of Christ.

What it means to be a true servant of Christ. And so here we have our first principle at the beginning of our text. And the first principle is this, a servant of Christ serves only one master, and that is Christ Jesus, his authority, his supremacy in one's life. And as obvious as this might seem as we read this at the start of Romans, Paul identifies himself here as a servant of Christ Jesus. There is no one else here identified but Jesus.

One master, one lord, one Christ. In fact, we're gonna take just a few moments here. Let's scan the first six verses of chapter one of Romans and see how everything is about Christ here at the beginning. We just read at verse one that Paul begins a servant of Christ Jesus. But look at verse three.

It says concerning his Son. How about verse four? The son of God. And later in that verse, Jesus Christ our Lord. In verse five, for the sake of