The Noble Servant (Part C)

You're not only called to follow Jesus, you are loved. Every single believer is loved. And I have to tell you that because Satan tries to come and tell you you're not loved. You know, the challenge is he'll challenge you to your death. Until the day you die, you will face temptation and you are built to win.

In the end, that grace is a shield about you. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Romans, so please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.

Romans chapter 1 is the text Pastor Rick will be teaching from on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Isaiah chapter 11, there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse. Jesse is the father of David, King David.

And a branch shall grow out of its roots. Of course, it's messianic and it's talking about Christ. Paul is pointing this out. God promised David that there would always be one from his bloodline eligible to rule the people of God.

And here he is. Jesus in his humanity had a family that had connections to David, King David, bloodline. He was born in the house of Joseph, but he's not the son of Joseph. The Bible never refers to him as the son of Joseph. In fact, Luke says supposing Joseph the father. Well, that still gave him the claim to the throne, born in the house of Joseph. That's why when you read Matthew 1, the book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, it's a big deal.

It's linking everything that's going forward with all that has been revealed going back. And Mary's line that Luke gives us, Matthew gives us Joseph's line. Here's the house he was born in.

He's got entitlement. Mary, Luke gives us Mary's line in Luke chapter 3, which gave him the human bloodline to the throne. And so no matter which way you turn, he had rights. He was from the tribe of Judah. He was from the house of David. And those in his day should have picked up on it.

Some did, most did not. According to the flesh, that's his humanity. That's God voluntarily associating himself with sinners, humbling himself from being born amongst us. Isaiah 53, he poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bore the sin of many.

You know the Christmas story is God wearing humanity, putting on humanity to defeat sin. Isaiah 9, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder. Well for a Jew that government, better be in the line of David, continues and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order and establish it with judgment and justice. From that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord will perform this.

It's going to happen. Now, how do you feel as a Christian when you hear scripture verses read from the pulpit? It should energize you.

It energizes me. I love when I read commentators and they quote scripture and properly apply it. Coming back to Christ's coming in his humanity and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as one begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The only, it says, the only begotten of the Father. Dave Hunt said this, give me just one example of prophecy for the coming of Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, Krishna or Mohammed, much less one that was fulfilled. It's pretty accurate. It's so simple.

Who else has got this? Should that be enough to alert a human being that this is worth their time and ultimately their conversion? Verse Paul says, declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Well, let's keep that with verse three. Concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. That Greek word declared, well, verse three is the fact of his humanity. Verse four now is the fact of his deity. That Greek word in verse four declared is haridzo, where we get our English word, horizon. That's a distinction.

A horizon is a clear demarcation line between the earth of the sea and the sky. Christ clearly distinct through the resurrection from everybody else. The resurrection distinguishes him from all creation to be the Son of God with power. I think that those Christians who only get a charge out of singing songs, emotional stimulants, unfortunately that's carnal if that's all you got. There's so much more to Christianity than just that. I think that to understand the power of God involves more than the feelings of a human being. There's more to us than just sensation. And sensation will get out of hand.

It will take over the ship. After a while the scripture's not even bothered with. When are we going to sing? You hear a Christian say, I don't go to that church because of the music. You have just identified an immature Christian.

That's the singing bad things of course. But what is the most powerful draw of a Christian to an assembly of believers? It is the word of God coming from the pulpit and it is the love of Christ coming from the people. If you have those two things, you are ahead. If you have not those two things, then what are you left with? If I have not love, the Bible says I am nothing.

If they're not listening to the word of God, what wisdom do they have, says the scripture. These things tie in. They're all connected. And one should not be thrown out for the other. We read about in the book of Acts, this is a good metaphor, I'd better write it down. In the book of Acts when that ship was sinking, they threw overboard the cargo. Well in Christianity, if you're in dire straits, there's nothing in our theology to throw overboard. We keep it all because it's all right and it's all worth going down with. If that weren't so, there'd be no Christian martyrs.

I hope I didn't lose you on these things. To be the son of God with power, the self-existent Christ according to the spirit of holiness. Now we get the trinity in this verse. The father is mentioned, the son, and now the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the one person that never had to apologize for anything he said.

He never had to take back a single word spoken. Oh I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. That belongs to sinners. Hebrews chapter seven, with such a high priest. Now Hebrews written much later, but he's looking back at the life of Christ some 35 years before he wrote Hebrews. For such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and has become higher than the heavens. Yeah because he lowered himself to be one of us, but he was always equal with the father by the resurrection from the dead.

The supreme note of his power in our eyes. You know the Romans had no appreciation for the Jews, and yet in this church in Rome there are Jews and Christians, and crucifixion was the lowest form of execution given to a criminal in the eyes of a Roman also. What king would a Gentile come to worship and adore who allowed himself to be Jewish and to be crucified? And yet they came until they took over, because the Christians were preaching this about Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus said no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down myself. That's sovereignty.

I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. That's sovereignty and love in that one verse. So no one is forcing you to be crucified and you are allowing this?

Why? Because of you, because of those to come, because of those past. Verse 5, through him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. Well taking the verse from the back that all nations is for the Gentiles, that includes them with the Jews, which of course Paul suffered so much for daring to think that Messiah was the Christ of the Gentile also. Where there is no saving faith, there can be no true obedience to Christ. So you take an anti-Christ person, for example, someone against Jesus, but they don't steal and they don't commit. Well it's not being accounted to them as righteousness, because that's in the Ten Commandments and they got those two right?

It won't help them, because there's no saving faith. For obedience to the faith, to the faith, Hebrews 6, without faith it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, he must identify him. He must come to terms with the terms of God. And so obedience is a big deal with God, but it starts with saving faith. There are two types of faith that we get in the New Testament. The one where we have faith in Christ, we come to him, he's Lord and Savior.

Then there's the one that allows us to continue on, what generates service. We serve by faith because of our faith. Now there are some brands of Christianity, or not Christianity, but there are some brands of Christians that turn obedience into oppression. Are you a snob Christian? Always looking down on those who are struggling, maybe not, maybe they don't dress the way you want them to dress. Now of course everything within reason, you know, there is an appropriate and inappropriate tire in most places as part of the issue that Paul was dealing with in Corinth with the women having their head covered and things like having their hair cut and things like that.

There's some cultural things that we want to be sensitive to, to a point. But not to the point where we are so religious that we become not witnesses, not lawyers, but judges. Ecclesiastes 7, do not be overly righteous nor be overly wise.

Why should you destroy yourself? That is a profound word from God. Obedience is never legalistic. Legalistic essentially is you've got to do these rules to get favor with God, not grace, your work. That's what makes God happy. Well true, obedience does please the Lord, but it's not the whole story. However, on the other hand, there's this sloppy Christianity that thinks it can just sin carelessly. That drifts into flat out disobedience. And Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments.

Well that's some pretty powerful incentive. So obedience will not allow us to embrace that which insults Christ. In other words, now you may be struggling with something. I'm not talking about a struggle.

I'm talking about being an advocate for, a champion for that cause. Our minds are not to cuddle with things that are false according to Christ or in opposition to him. Have I lost a youth on this? Are you still with me?

Are you doodling on a pad? Are you wondering how much time is left? Satan is hoping you are.

He hopes you are, because he's licking his chops at you. Yeah, preach the word, pastor. You preach it, I'll distract them, because they will be distracted. Or not. You can't come to Sunday with your A-game if you haven't been applying it through the week.

You got to be ready, fighting all the time, regardless of how you feel, how many times you get tripped up, get back up. If you are blatantly flying the flags of sin in outright rebellion or insult to Christ and his cross and his father, don't expect that grace to apply to you. Don't pick a fight with God.

It's not worth risking your eternal destiny. 2 Timothy 2, nevertheless a solid foundation of God stands, having this seal, the Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. In that platoon of Christians that are trying to depart from iniquity, but just can't find their way out, God takes the effort as the deed. Told that to David.

The heart's got to be right. It's one thing if your flesh struggles, the Spirit should always know its place. There is no excuse for not knowing your place in the face of sin as a Christian. That's why many Christians leave Bible-teaching churches, they don't want their sin dealt with. The Bible deals with it. If I just stood up and read the chapters, they would say, you know, I got to find another church.

This keeps hitting me. Yeah, because they're factoring out the grace of God, which is so incredibly powerful, and I don't know that that exists anywhere else. Not in, you know, some may abuse it and it becomes lawlessness. That's not grace. Well, may we not hand out pardons where Jesus does not hand them out. Here's a picture from the Old Testament of what it means to separate from those who are flying the flag of immorality or spiritual disobedience by dollar, whatever it may be. In the Old Testament, you know, Moses went to be with the Lord, not dead yet, he's up on the mountain and he's receiving the Ten Commandments and he comes down and the people are just having a good old time.

They're having a party. They're dancing around a golden idol. And it got so that we come to this point where Moses has to act. And we pick it up in Exodus 32. Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, there it is, right there. No war.

No resistance. They've signed off to it not only in their flesh, but in their hearts. They were unrestrained. The Christian that is fighting sin and failing is not unrestrained. That Christian is trying to break free. Continues, when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, for Aaron had not restrained them.

Pause there. There's a pastor not doing his job because he doesn't want to offend the people or he doesn't want them to turn on him. When a pastor runs a popularity contest, he can't pastor. When he's trying to get people to like him for the sake of liking him, he has not decreased.

He has increased. And so, for Aaron had not restrained them to their shame among their enemies. So there are enemies. There are spiritual enemies.

There are things that will hurt us. Then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said, whoever is on Yahweh's side, come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them, thus says Yahweh God of Israel, let every man put his sword on his side and go in and out from the entrance to entrance throughout the camp. And let every man kill his brother, every man his companion.

And we're not promoting that part, but I get to the point. And every man his neighbor, the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about 3,000 men of the people fell that day. It cost to be righteous. Now, this is what catapulted the tribe of Levi to be the priest and the helpers of the priest. That tribe was singled out.

This is what did it. And Christ is not asking us to kill anyone. But he is still insisting we side against those who side against him. It's a very simple thing.

And everybody in this room can understand that. Christ wants you to side against those things that side against him. So Paul continues. All of this is part of what he's talking about. The Jesus Christ, the prophets, the line of David.

All of that is built into this. Among all the nations for his name. There it is for the Gentiles as commented on. Verse 6. And whom you also are called of Jesus Christ. And these are the Jews and the Gentiles who have been called to Christ. But Jesus said, many are called, but few are chosen. Matthew 22, verse 14. And the reason why they're not chosen is because they didn't receive the Christ. They were called to, and they did not. To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Back up a little bit. Let me give you an example of someone who was called and not chosen. Judas Iscariot.

Very simple. Judas did miracles under Christ's authorities. Had he died that day, it would have been good for him.

But he did not. Well, coming back to verse 7, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. Really, it's called saints. The translators have inserted called to be. But it is called saints. And that's why he addresses many of his letters, almost all of them except the pastoral ones, to the saints.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he is introducing his letter. He had been just warming up.

And he's still warming up. But when he gets to verse 8, he's going to start turning it loose. It's sort of like a pastor who has too much to say.

Fortunately, you don't know anything about that. A saint is a saved sinner and a loved follower of Jesus Christ. And that's why he couples beloved of God called saints. You're not only called to follow Jesus. You are loved. Every single believer is loved. And I have to tell you that because Satan tries to come and tell you you're not loved. You know, the challenge is he'll challenge you to your death until the day you die you will face temptation. And you are built to win in the end. That grace is a shield about you. Anyway, and you shouldn't fret.

You just need to get down to business. You can spend your, you know, burn your calories up worrying or burn them up taking territory from the enemy. Saints have never been a special class of people in Christianity or the church, a holier than thou others. That is a man-made insult to the work of Christ to say we're going to vote on your sainthood. Well, that's already been covered at the cross.

I was made a saint the day I gave my life to Christ and that had been in place from the foundations of the world. So, and incidentally the very word church in the New Testament is ecclesia in the Greek, the called out ones, the separated ones, the saints. So you have two different words with the same fact behind them.

It is a companion word. Jesus calls all who would hear but many don't respond. Saints incidentally is plural.

It's all of them. Everybody in that church, he's referring to one separated to Christ as God pointed out in Leviticus. Grace to you and peace from God. This is what God wants. He wants peace with his people. Charis, that word grace in the Greek and the Jewish equivalent, shalom, peace. If you are very analytical and you don't check that, you're going to have a hard time as a Christian because God's going to allow things that are counterintuitive.

He's going to let things happen that make no sense. In fact, the other way would have been better. When Paul writes to the Philippians, again from jail, he says the peace of God, now catch this, which surpasses all understanding. That takes everything to another level. There's a submission in that that's only available to those who know Christ. I have a peace that is not consistent with natural logic but it has every bit of spiritual wisdom on it. Paul could have reasoned, you know, Lord, you could have gotten me to Rome without the snake bite and the shipwreck.

You got Phoebe there with no problem. But he had a peace still with God that went above all understanding. It does not mean that we stop being rational beings. It's that we do not let what our natural abilities understand to cancel what the spiritual man knows better. A brief picture of that is Peter walking on the water. A rational man would never have even asked. But because of his relationship with Jesus, he knew he could ask for things like this under those terms and he got it.

And then he lost it very quickly. But just understand this grace and this peace to you, the goal of the Christian is to have that peace that surpasses understanding. And I got to tell you, it ain't easy to get there or it's to stay there. But it is worth going back to.

It's better than a good restaurant that I got to go back there. I want that peace that goes beyond understanding that has in it submission. Fine, Lord, that's how you want it. I'll do without it.

And that can be pretty tough at times, but it's better to have it than to be without it. He calls us here our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This and our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ is including Jesus on the level with the Father.

He is not an addition. We have the same thing said about God, God the Father. Galatians 1 for according to the will of our God and Father. See, it's not like God. Oh, and then there's the Father. No, it's God who is the Father. It is the Father in heaven and Jesus Christ's Son who is the Son of God, as he already said.

Well, we're about done. I just want to close with a couple of verses. God does not share his divinity with created beings. Jesus, the Son of God, Isaiah 42.8, I am Yahweh. God is my name and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images. Of course, Christ is the exception. He is the distinction.

And when he showed up as a human, was born of Mary, and Jesus said to Philip, John 14.9, he who has seen me has seen the Father. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again, or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans, here on Cross-Reference Radio.