Paul Baits the Hook in Romans 1:8-15

Paul is writing the letter to the Romans to explain the gospel to them and explain to them how it radically affects our lives. Paul begins the letter by introducing himself which we looked at last week. It was obvious that Paul was passionate about his desire to see the gospel flourish in Rome. And in vss.8-15 it is obvious that Paul is determined to see this happen.

Paul had never been to Rome and therefore had never met the Christians there. He had heard a lot about them. He wanted badly to go to Rome to minister to them and to evangelize the most powerful culture in the world at that time. He would try several times to go to Rome but would never make it until the day he got arrested for preaching the gospel and sent to Rome to be tried and beheaded.

Romans 1:8-15 – 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I want you to know, 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. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

We could look at this text several different ways, but I have chosen to look at it from the perspective of Paul’s prayer life. A man’s prayer life reveals a lot about him.

I. Paul Prayed with Thanksgiving. ( 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, )

Paul is a very thankful man b/c he has been radically converted to Christianity.  He had met the resurrected Christ personally.  He knew and understood grace.  Paul often began his letters with Thanksgiving, but this one is very unique.

II. Paul Thanks God for the Christians’ Faith. ( 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. )

Paul thanks God for the Romans Christians’ faith. He doesn’t thank the Christians for having faith, but Paul thanks God for these Christians and the faith that they have. Paul says, “I thank God for all of you.”

Now let me take some issue with our Arminian friends for a moment. You see our Arminian friends can accept that salvation is a gift and that grace is a gift. But they are absolutely certain that faith is not a gift. No, faith is something that we do which prompts then God’s grace and salvation.  But if that is true, why is Paul thanking God for the Romans’ faith? If the Romans’ faith is entirely produced from within the Romans, shouldn’t he be thanking the Romans for their faith? But he doesn’t do that does he? I thank God for your faith.

Why? Because God is the cause and the root and the source of their faith. Even their faith is a gift of God. Salvation is of sovereign grace, and even the faith and repentance which we manifest in response to the gospel message itself are works of the Holy Spirit in us.

Martin Luther was absolutely right when he told his struggling protégé Philip Melancthon, “the gospel is wholly outside of us.” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 48. pp. 277-282. Letter number 91.)

Now I admit that this theological issue is subtle in this verse, but the theology is definitely there.  This issue is so important to so much of what has to say throughout this letter.  Paul is baiting the hook: the hook that he will set by the eleventh chapter.

Paul is going to share the gospel with these Christians in this letter in a way that will reveal the Gospel from God’s perspective:

• The Gospel is the Story of God’s Works
• All People have Rejected God and are Sinners
• Some People are Justified by Faith and Forgiven
• All the Justified are Given Power to Worship God
• God is Sovereign Over Who Gets Justified by Faith
• Therefore We should Worship God with our Lives

This is the Gospel according to God.  This is a letter about God’s sovereignty in Salvation.  This treatise is designed to impart wisdom to Christians that they may align their lives with the Divine Gospel.

So even here in the way that Paul talks about the way he prays for the Roman Christians, he speaks of it in a way that reiterates the fact that God is in sovereign control – and therefore God is the only one who deserves any THANKS.

In fact, Paul has been talking this way since the very first verse:

• 1:1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 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,

Paul reminds his reader that the gospel was already known in the Old Testament, even from the first moment of human sin. Immediately after Adam and Eve violated the terms of the covenant of works, we read of a promised redeemer who will come through the seed of the woman (Eve), and who will save Adam’s race by crushing the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Throughout the Book of Genesis, we read of God’s covenant promise to Abraham, in which God promises to be God to Abraham and his descendants, and to make him a great nation, the father of countless descendants, as well as the one through whom God will send the promised redeemer. This glorious thread of the promise of final redemption continues throughout the Old Testament and is gloriously expressed by Jeremiah in his prophecy of a new covenant (our Old Testament lesson), in which Jeremiah foretells of a time in which YHWH “will make a new covenant with the house of Israel . . . . “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” For Paul, that which had been promised throughout the Old Testament is now a reality in Jesus Christ. Paul is not making this stuff up as he goes–the gospel was promised beforehand! In other words, the promise of redemption, which lay hidden in the Old Testament in type and shadow has now been brought out into the open for all to see in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

• 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

God’s name = God’s glory, character, reputation
among all the nations = global, original purpose of Creation, repeated to Noah, repeated to Abraham, repeated to David, repeated through the Prophets, repeated by the angels at that birth of Christ

• 6 including you who are called (sovereignty) to belong (sovereignty) to Jesus Christ, 7 To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called (sovereignty) to be saints:
  Grace (sovereignty) to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Paul is obviously driving home a point!!!!!
His greeting is saturated with the Gospel of Sovereign Grace
His prayers are saturated with the Gospel of Sovereign Grace
Get ready for a letter that is chock full of the doctrines of Grace
And this letter is not written to be a theology lesson, but a explanation of how and why the gospel should/will radically change your life

III. Paul Acknowledges that Even His Prayers are THROUGH Jesus Christ. ( 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you… )

As we have noticed, Paul is setting up his audience to truly understand the sovereignty of God – in all of salvation, in all of world history, in all aspects of our lives.  So, Paul doesn’t even take credit for his own prayer life.  Notice his words, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ.”

Paul is here mentioning the ongoing mediatorial, priestly role of Christ.  Paul is saying, I lift up this prayer of thanksgiving to you in conscious dependence upon the One who is at the right hand of the Father so that the Father hears this prayer of thanksgiving through the lips of His Son.  It’s as if God is hearing the intercession of His own Son when I lift up an intercession.

Do you realize that when you pray as Jesus commanded you to pray, with the desire for the kingdom of God and in submission to the will of God, your prayers visit God the Father on the throne of grace as if they came from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ, because every prayer that goes to that place from God’s people goes through the one who reigns at the right hand and who ever lives to intercede?

And the apostle Paul is in the midst of this little prayer report to say, I thank God through the Lord Jesus Christ. But he’s not done.

IV. Paul is Motivated by His Determination for Global Evangelism
( 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. )

Paul doesn’t thank God for the Christians’ health or prosperity.  Paul doesn’t thank God for the new building the church built in Rome.  In fact, the church was meeting in small groups scattered all across the metropolitan of Rome.
He is thankful to God for granting faith to the people in Rome and spreading their testimony globally.

It thrills Paul’s heart to think that in Rome, the capital city of the world, there are believers gathered from around the word, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that their faith is so clear that a testimony is being sent out not only in Rome, but throughout the known world.

People are talking about boy have you heard about those Roman Christians? They’re right under the eyes, right in the shadow of the emperor, and they believe with all their hearts in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what causes you joy and thanksgiving tells you a lot about what you care about and a lot about what you are.

Our prayers, friends, ought to be shot through with thanksgiving and they ought to be shot through with thanksgiving and rejoicing over the truth and what the truth is accomplishing in the hearts of men and women.

Paul wants the Gospel to flourish and the kingdom of God to grow around the world.

1. So he prays for Christians.
2. And he wants to preach the Gospel to the CHISTIANS in Rome!

The Gospel is not just for unbelievers.
The Gospel is to preached to believers as well

As far as we can tell, the church began meeting in Rome as Jewish converts who had probably gotten saved in Jerusalem at Pentecost had finally returned to Rome.  Also, Gentile converts who had been saved in Asia Minor because of Paul’s missionary journeys had migrated to Rome and brought Christianity with them.

Here is the problem: it seems that the Jewish converts and the Gentile converts were not meeting together.  We are going to discover what the problem was as we read this letter.  But we can already tell you based on these first few verses that the solution to their problem is going to be a proper understanding of the Gospel.  Christians need to be taught and re-taught the Gospel.

And that requires you to see that the entire Bible is about the Gospel.  That is why Romans has 60 Old Testament quotes.  Paul is going to prove to both the Jews and the Gentiles that the Gospel is a story that began in the mind of God prior to creation of the word.  It is not bound to any ethnic group, religious group = in fact it is about a new race of people unlike Jews or Gentiles.  And most importantly it is about the incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ is the center and end of Scripture = the center and end of the Gospel = the center and end of our lives.

Invitation:

• Thank God for gracing us with faith.
• Pray for Christians: at MVC, and at other churches scattered across our region.
• Prepare yourself to be re-taught the Gospel as we go through Romans.
• Let’s be open to the Gospel changing our lives and our church.