Paul's Greeting - Romans 1:1-17
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are beginning a new series this morning. We're getting Romans. I'm excited for this. We're going to be in Romans for quite some time. So buckle in, settle down, and just we're going to be in Romans. I'll let you know. We're going to be in Romans for really through the end of the year. So we'll take some breaks for Easter. And it's true. It's a 24 week series. So yeah, I'm excited. We're going-- it's going to be a lot, but it's going to be really good. So we're going to dive in because it's a lot. If you've read Romans, you know it is dense. There's a lot to unpack, so we've got to-- we're already behind. We've got to go. All right. This is-- Romans is kind of like a timeless Christian theology book for all believers, wherever they are around the world through all time. But it still demands that we read it in its proper context, in the way that it was written-- who it was written for. We need to know that in order to understand it correctly and fully. And so with that desire and aim, I want to try to paint the scene before we dive into the actual text, just kind of paint the scene of what's going on.
So I want to cover Paul, I want to cover Rome and the early church, just a little bit here. So Paul, many of you know, was formally Saul. Saul's story was that he was a Pharisee, grew up as a Pharisee, and grew up around the time of Jesus. And so he saw everything that happened. And he was against the early church, persecuted the early church. And really was the name of the Pharisee that had risen to the top. He was a top dog, and until Jesus got a hold of him. And so again, you may be familiar with Saul's conversion to Paul on the road to Damascus, where Jesus confronted him and said, why are you persecuting me? And from that moment, Saul now, Paul, his life has changed. And he goes from, of all people that God could have grabbed, the very one who had taken joy in seeing the church suffer, will eventually suffer for God's church. And I love that radical transformation that happens in him. God has chosen Paul to be the one, the instrumental piece of growth for the early church. This is God's guy that's going to bring about new churches, bring about the gospel message to new corners of the world. Fast forward some time in Paul's life, we won't have time to cover all of him, but by the time he writes the letter Romans, it's been 25 years since he's been converted. So he's had some time in the mission fields. He spent much of that time kind of north above Jerusalem and then east in Aliricum, which is, I didn't know where that was, so modern day. Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, I think I said that right, Croatia, all in that area. Paul has been there planting churches for years, for years. And then he comes to this point, this transitional point in his apostolic career. And it's a time of transition for him where he is coming out of that mission fields and heading back towards Jerusalem and has thoughts of where he's going to go next. And along the way of, we'll cover this in a bit of where he wants to go, he's going to have to confront some issues happening in Jerusalem and in some of the other early churches that he was not a part of yet. But Paul has been preparing for this, some of these big church issues for some time. And the work in the mission field is a pivotal piece of why he was chosen to help address what is going on in the early church. So that's Paul, a little bit of Paul, just a little bit.
Rome, the setting for which this letter is written, is the dominant nation at the time. Rome is a world power and pretty much the world power. There's no one else really going up against them yet. They had control over the known world. And the early church at this time was not... It wasn't started by apostles. When I was prepping for this, I was like, yeah, early church. one of the apostles went out there and started it. No, actually, most scholars believe that the early Roman church was started by Jews who were converted at Pentecost. In Acts 2, when Pentecost happened, and they left Jerusalem and went to Rome. And there was already a Jewish community there in Rome, but these early Christian Jews went over there and started the church. And so this church has been happening for years, and it's great until it's not so great. There's some tension that arises. So at first the church is mostly Jewish people. But then as they start to grow and as Gentiles start to come into the fold and start to know Jesus, there's a tension that arises. And that tension is that because the early church was mostly Jewish, not just people, but in their customs. So they had mostly Jewish songs, they had mostly Jewish customs and things that they did in the service, mostly Jewish people, and the leaders were mostly Jewish. And so then there rose this tension for these Gentiles who were commenting and saying, "How much, how Jewish do I have to become? What is Jesus calling me to? Do I have to become a Jew to become a follower of Jesus?" And there was this ripe, it was ripe for division. It could have gone, "Well, let's start our own church. Let's do our own thing." And this is where Paul, God's bringing Paul into the mixing, "Hey, I don't want my church to split, and I need you to address some things going on." So, yeah. the circumstances were perfect for Paul to come in. Douglass Mew, a famous theologian, points out that what Paul had been doing in his years of missionary work is probably why Jesus or God picked him for this. He had been doing missionary work, planting churches, and integrating cultures and early church together. He had been doing that all over. one, maybe compared to other apostles who had stayed pretty local to Jerusalem, that would know best on how to bring the church together. Yes you're from this background, yes you're from this culture but you can still be a part of this church. So Paul knew how this works and how it worked well. He says, "Moo this, theologian says Paul hopes that his words and God through his words will heal the most serious social and theological rift in the early church, the relationship between the Jew and the Gentile and the people of God. And this possible division, Paul sensed this disunity amongst God's people could bring ruin to the entire early church. So this is very early in the church growing. It's not established yet. It's still a movement that's happening. And so any threat to the church, Paul and the apostles felt, like this is a threat to this whole thing that God has been setting up that Jesus started. So this is much of what Paul wants to address in his letter to Rome.
And then a little bit about the letter of Romans. It is labeled as an epistle, which is a letter to a church. But unlike other epistles, the way the other epistles worked is usually there was a church there started by an apostle or a bunch of followers of Jesus. And they had any issue or questions they would send a messenger or a letter saying, "Hey, by the way, church player that planted us, this is happening, what do we do?" And they would write back and say, "All right, yeah, you need to do this." And what we have in our Bible is that response letter. We don't have the original letter, but we can deduce from how those are written, like, "Oh, they were bringing up this issue." Because that's all that Paul's talking about is addressing this. Romans doesn't have an original letter. God just put it on Paul's heart to send a letter saying, "Hey, by the way, this is me, and this is the gospel." And so it's a beautiful thing, and it's why it's kind of become our handbook for Christian theology, because it doesn't just focus on one issue, he covers everything. And he covers, when he's covering everything, he covers, we'll kind of see that Paul is a run on thinker. It's like this is the power of Jesus, who is this person, who did this, who is from, you know, just like, "Come after, come after." Which is really good, but it's also why it's so dense. Paul's like, just, he's loading it with so much information. So, the letter of Romans is a little different in a way that really benefits us. Anything else? Yes, okay. Some of the general themes that we'll see throughout Romans and through this series are things that still we need to hear today. And maybe we've heard before, but we can always be reminded of them. We'll see that Paul's addressing the continuity of God's plan of salvation from the Old Testament to the New. He addresses our sin and the need that we have. He addresses God's provision for our sin problem in the person of Christ. He covers what it means to live a holy life. This word of righteousness is a big word that Paul loves to unpack over and over again. We'll talk about security in facing suffering and death. And we know from other letters of Paul that Paul fears he doesn't fear death at all. He almost welcomes it. And there's so much more that Paul covers in Rome.
So we over the the course of our series, we aim to cover all this and understand the truth that Paul has packed in here. And I keep saying this, but there is a lot to unpack. And so, it's a little plug. Come on Sunday mornings, we're going to unpack it some more before the service. We're going to all the questions that after Chris and I preach and we're like, hey, they didn't, they didn't cover this. I still have questions. Perfect time would be Sunday morning. Good. See you there. So we'll dive in now. We'll dive into our, we're going to be covering Romans chapter 1 through 17. And even though it's just kind of the introduction, his greeting, there is still so much in here. And so let me go ahead and pray really quick and then we'll read and we'll continue.
God, Thank you for this time and for this letter to the Roman Church. Thousands of years later, it's still serving us and feeding us your truth. So I pray that through this sermon, God, that it would be your words, that we would be encouraged and empowered to understand what it means to be a follower of you. And I pray that as we leave this morning, we're encouraged to give our entire lives to you, God. Help us to understand Paul's words here to see what he's really saying, understand them in the right context. And I pray that we would have an excitement and a joy for getting into your words. So we pray this in your son's name, Amen.
I'm going to break this into a couple sections. Since I'm going to start with Romans 1 through 7. You guys can follow along on the screen or in your own Bibles. Romans 1, starting at verse 1, says, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures, regarding his son, who asked his earthly life was at the Senate of David, and who through the spirit of holiness was appointed the son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. Run on sentence, by the way. Through him we receive grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his namesake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people, grace and peace to you from our God, our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Alrighty. Just an introduction, right? So much in there. So much in there. Paul's, I just want to go verse by verse. But yeah, his, I mean already from the beginning, Paul is writing from a place of passion, right? This is deeply on his heart. He was moved by the spirit to reach out and to write to Romans. And I think that passion really comes through. I mean, even in just saying the word Jesus, you couldn't just say the name. You had to explain who Jesus is, right? Goes to the Old Testament. Paul is, and I love that. I hope that we keep this throughout his writing that Paul is passionate right now. that quill and or, whoever his ghost writers that's writing it down for him is like, "Oh my goodness Paul, you're going crazy." So, there's passion in the text here as Paul is writing it. We'll just dive in.
Verse one. One of the first things that we notice here and it's evidently integrating is that much of Paul's identity is wrapped up in Christ's identity. He now identifies with the person of Christ and Christ's mission and Christ's goal. And I love, again, we covered who Paul was, formerly Saul. And now his identity used to be, I am the guy that's against the church. I am the guy that is going to take down the church. Like, Saul was the one the Pharisees had hoping to, you know, get rid of the early church, that movement. And now he's totally transformed. And now his identity is fully in Christ. And at the mention of his own name, he has to bring up who Jesus is. Because he is so tied directly to him. So I love that, his identity is there. We also hear the Gospel, the Gospel of God. And a little fun point is that the Gospel back in that time was not necessarily a religious word. We hear it today and most of us, and even non-Christians, would hear the word gospel, and they would think about Christianity, they would think about the Bible, they would think about Jesus. But back in that time, the Gospel was used even by Roman generals as a term to say, as a share of victory. we just went and conquered this and they would have a gospel messenger who would go to town to town and give Updating say hey, we just had victory over this area, you know go go Rome and That was the gospel messenger and that was the gospel and so I love that Paul is riffing on that terminology He's calling himself a messenger of the biggest victory in history Christ victory over death over the enemy, he is the gospel, the gospel messenger.
He's already throwing punches. He's like, "Hey, nice to meet you. My name is Paul. Boom, gospel." He's saying the gospel, this message of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the God of the universe, who is the only one with the power to save and the victory on the cross, the meant salvation for those who believe that savior, I carry his redeeming message to all of you.
Moving on to verse, verses three through five. Again, even in this introduction, Paul is connecting the old testament to the life of Jesus. He's making sure that people are seeing the work and plan of Yahweh. That this was not a new thing that God spurred the moment was like, by the way, I think I'm going to send Jesus. No, this has been in the works since Genesis 3. Since sin entered the world, God had a plan of salvation. And this is the one, the God who created the heavens and the earth, who flooded the earth, and saved it with Noah, who, the God of Abraham, of Moses, the God of Israel through King David and Solomon, the God of the Israelites and captivity through the prophets. This, this is that God that put this in the motion. And this is him at work, something he purposed. Verse 4 emphasizes or Paul is proclaiming the power of Christ, his deity, which Paul will reference several times in this letter, continue to emphasize that Jesus is God. So for the Jewish people, he's writing to this diverse church of both Jews and Gentiles, and for the Jewish people, Paul is connecting in their minds that this is the very Messiah that was prophesied in the Old Testament. Don't wait for anyone else. Don't think that it hasn't happened yet. Jesus was here, he lived, he died, he rose again. This is him. All the prophecies that you know, Jewish people, they point to Christ. Don't miss it. And for the Gentiles, Paul is reinforcing, hopefully, what the local church is teaching them, which is, you need to know your Old Testament. This Christ, this plan has been talked about, has been written about. the Jewish people know it comes from their history. This all revolves around Christ and what he has done for us.
He's making sure they understand that you need to know the Torah, you need to know the Old Testament. And that's an issue that gets brought up even today, right? Like, "Hey, I like people, maybe within the church, but people who maybe have a distant relationship with Jesus or kind of not really in the faith." They're like, "Yeah, Jesus's words may be true, but the rest of the Bible I can't get on board with. Or yeah, I like the New Testament, but the Old Testament is really wack. It's really weird. That was a real thing that people say. And Paul's words here address that say, "No, it's all tied together. All Testament, New Testament, it is all truth." And you need to know the Old Testament to fully understand the New Testament. So Paul, bringing it together. And verse five, Paul is bringing people's attention to the life that Jesus has called believers to. He also establishes his own authority, based on Christ's authority. He's saying, "God chose me. I'm an apostle." And he's sharing his purpose as an apostle is to be a messenger of the gospel, to spread the truth of Christ. Paul's whole life purpose at this point is to see people come into obedient relationship with God. And he's saying, "You need to do this. You people, all of you in Rome, come be in obedient relationships with God." So already, just in the introduction, We see themes of God's power to save and the life of righteousness that we are called to live, surfacing to the top. Paul's giving these little hints of like, I can't even help it. I'll bring it in here, but I'm gonna write about it in chapters to come, but like, this is important.
And in verse seven, Paul's audience, again, he's writing to a diverse church, Jews and Gentiles, believers and not yet believers. People who were maybe attending the church, but not yet committed their lives to God. And he's saying, this is the entire gospel message. I'm gonna lay it out for you. All right, so this is just the first seven verses. I imagine the leaders of Rome, like when they got this letter and they're reading it and they're like all circled around and the guys reading it to themselves. Like are you done yet? He's like, done yet. I just said seven verses. I had to think about it and unpack it so much. All right, Romans 8 through 13. We'll continue. It says, first, I think my God, through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his son, is my witness how constantly I remember you, in my prayers at all times, and I pray that now it lasts by God's will, the way may be open for me to come to you. I'd long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong, that is you and I may mutually, maybe mutually encouraged by each other's faith. I do not want you to be unaware of brothers and sisters that I plan many times to come to you but have been prevented from doing so until now in order that I might have a harvest among you just as I've had among other Gentiles. So as I shared in the introduction earlier, Paul has plans. He's been cultivating this missionary heart, growing heart for more and more people to hear the gospel and he's sharing that intention with the Roman church. I'm Paul. This is about what I am and I am very, very intentional in spreading the gospel message.
Verse 8, Paul writes about how God is moving in the Roman church. And I love that, and this is still true today, when God moves in a person's life or in a group of people's life, it makes waves. When God is moving in a people and in a place, that testimony of what's happening is an encouragement and a source of joy and hope for other believers. How many of you have heard of what's happening at Asbury's University? Yeah, a lot of you. For those of you haven't, over two weeks ago, there was a chapel, a weekly chapel. They have chapels at this Christian college. And two weeks ago, this chapel didn't stop. The praise songs kept going. Times of confession, reading scripture, prayer, and it's still going. The people have been flying out to go attend, and it's amazing. It's making news all over the country that the presence of God is at this place right now, and the people there are worshiping him with everything they have. And there's no reason to stop. Why stop praising God? One pastor commented in I agree, he says, "If this program or this work is merely human, It will fall apart. At some point in time, it will stop, it will fail. But if it is of God, there is nothing that you can do about it. And you better not be found fighting against God.” That was from Pastor Richard Viotis from New York, and I totally agree. We're not there. I don't know what it's like. It sounds amazing. And I hope in prayers that this is completely of God. And it's all to his glory. Now, wonder if it was something similar was happening in Rome.
Rome is this epicenter of culture. It's the center of the known world at that time. And God's stirring there is making waves. Rome is also thought of-- and Jewish people's mind, maybe it's the epicenter of everything pagan. This Roman culture is not a godly culture. Romans were thought of as very, very evil. Their obsession with war and victory to their rampant sinful lifestyles. Roman, the Roman world was not a godly one. And so the work that the spirit was doing in this place was becoming undeniable. And I love that God's transformation, it's not just undeniable, but it's also recognizable by other people who have experienced God's power. So other Christians hearing about what's happening in Asbury, what's happening in Rome at that time are saying, "Yep, that's God." There's no other answer besides that. That's how the Spirit works.
We moved to verses nine and 10, we see Paul's affection for the church. He shares his desire to visit soon, praying that God would make a way for it to happen. But even from afar, he's been supporting and praying and partnering with God about what's happening in the Roman church, praying for the continual spiritual transformation for these people. And I love, I think that's such a good reminder for us today to be mindful and intentional about supporting people who are not just in our church circle, our local church congregation. There's people all around the world in different environments, from different cultures, different circumstances that are praising God. And let's be mindful of them. But the church used to work out. We had missionaries that we supported come in and they would sometimes share on a Sunday. And I was always blown away that they would say, "Hey, by the way, we're praying for you. This church across the world is praying for your congregation." And I love that. And I'm sure you guys have here at Spring Valley have done the same. We have missionaries that we've supported. And to know that they're praying, they're thinking of us. We tend to think of it as like a one way, "Hey, we're your support. We're praying for what's God's doing over there, but they're also mindful of what God's doing here. So Paul sets a great example for us in caring for our Christian and brothers and sisters around the world. And then in verses 11 through 13 Paul shares his plan to be in contact for his future purpose. He's planting seeds for future ministry that the church may be called to be involved in. He's partnering, he wants to partner with them in the spread of the gospel.
And now you and I know that Paul is a theological stud. We think of Paul, he's a big boy in the Bible context. And the early church had to learn that. He still had this background of Saul. And so sometimes there was a little like, okay, you're sure, Paul? You're a good guy. You're going to kill me right now. But they learned that this is God's tool for helping the early church grow. Paul is still acknowledging that he can learn something from the church. And I think that's something that both churches and leaders today need to hear. Churches, church congregations, speaking to you, you need to understand and have an accurate view of church leaders. Your pastors, your leaders, speaking for Christ and I, we don't know everything. We are not experts in, well, we may be a little bit expert-ish, but so happens when you go off script, it wasn't planned saying the word expert. We don't know everything, we're not perfect. We are also believers in process being formed by the spirit just like you. And while we may have a different call on our lives as pastors, the position of pastor is still one that learns. It's still one that grows. And any pastor that thinks otherwise is gonna meet failure and a rude awakening at some point in their life and their church will suffer for it. And so leaders, talking to us and then also to you future leaders or you leaders, we need to be like Paul, lead with humility. Leaders are not the superman's, the heroes of the church, the end all be all of church communities. The world does not revolve around them. Leaders are meant to serve, to love, to shepherd. And as a church grows, not just in size, but in maturity and faith over time, hopefully, the maturity of the pastor and the leadership grows as well. They're learning as they're going, being encouraged and shaped and formed as they learn and experience what it means to be a part of God's people.
I love that Paul, who we know is this apostle, is still saying, "I hope that we can I'm usually learning from each other, Church of Rome. I want to learn from you, you learn from me. Paul models for us, that we are always learning and it really points us back to Christ's perfect humility. All right, one more section. We can do it, stay awake, move a lot to arms, whatever you gotta do. Romans 14 through 17. It says, "I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greek, spoke to the wise and the foolish, that is why I'm so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. All of a sudden, the table here for the rest of the letter, letting people know both Jews and Gentiles, they're equally welcome. Against striving, Paul is striving for the unification of the Church. His purpose is to share with everyone. And again, thinking of us today and being like Paul, it's a good gut check for us. We need to be like Paul. And do we really have a desire to share with everyone or just people who are conveniently in our lives? And I say that as one being guilty of one of the struggles with this. I think, God, do I share with that person? I don't even know if I get along with them. They're not really my kind of person. I don't know if that was the time. I'm busy. Whatever it is, they're not my kind of people. I wouldn't know how to talk to that kind of person. I love that Paul's like, no, everyone. I got the gospel. I'm ready. Let's go.
Verse 15, Paul's saying, Rome, you need to hear this. You need to figure out how to be in community for each other. You need to figure out how not to be a segregated church of Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians, but you need to be a church that is united in the gospel and that cause and that purpose excites Paul. Then we come to the first 16 and 17 and this is really the purpose of the letter. This is everything. He talks about the power of salvation for everyone. No matter how bad the sinner, Jesus' saving power is greater still. Now again, we wanna put it out there again. The Jews thought Romans were terrible. There may have been thought in a Jewish mind of like, is this really, this is gospel message really for the Romans because they're the worst. They're the absolute worst. And Paul is saying, "The power of God offered to you, Jews, is also powerful enough to overcome whatever the Gentiles have done, whatever their lifestyle. Whatever sin they have committed in life, no matter how bad they think it is, how unforgivable think it is, no matter how far gone, Jesus's power is greater still. And that is so true for us today. Any of you thinking that? Have any ever thought that or still think that? That when sin enters your life and you think, "Ah, that's just too much. That one, that's a big sin." And I don't know if God will welcome me anymore. I don't know if God's got the power to save me. That one was really bad. Paul will make it abundantly clear now and throughout the letter of Romans.
The power that was used for Jesus to raise back to life from dead, that power, that power that that Jesus did all of his miracles, the power that God has been working everything from Old Testament to New, that power is the power that reaches out to you. Jesus's power is greater still. Verse 17, Paul is saying that the gospel reveals the only way that we can become righteous is through Christ. From faith to faith, righteousness is a gift. It's not based on works. So it'll be something we cover a lot in this series. It's tempting thought for both Jews and Gentiles to think of faith in a workspace system. The Roman Empire was very much a tiered empire, social status, and you gotta do whatever it is to climb to the top. So their minds were structured in a way like, what do I have to do to get to the next level? And we may have similar thoughts too, and it's easy to bring that into the faith. This is how it works in the world. So this must be how it works in church and in my relationship with God. How do I contribute to my faith? What do I do to get better in the eyes of Jesus? And Paul will say, it's not based on any works that you do. He makes it clear that righteousness is found in Christ's alone and it requires faith. It's a gift from God and it requires belief and relationship with God.
All right. We did it. All right, we did it. We did 17 verses in Rome and Romans. I wanna share this as I close. One of the reasons that Pastor Chris and I are so excited about this series is that purpose of Paul to bring together people and have the church be united, touches on a point that I think it's lost in church today, especially in America. And that is the emphasis on communal faith. We are meant to be in community with each other. The church, the people in this room are meant to be a part of your spiritual journey. We often think of our spiritual journey as me and God, but everyone else is included in that journey. They are a part of our spiritual formation, and we need to be doing it with one another. Walking step by step, We are made in the body of Christ, meant to be partaking in God's word and all that God calls us to with each other. You cannot experience holistic spiritual formation apart from the body of Christ. We can easily lose sight of how spiritual transformation is not only for us in our hearts growing, but it brings us closer to God and with each other. Robert Mollhullen Jr., who passed away in 2015, he was a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary just across the street from the Asbury University that things are happening today. And he wrote this, which I think we have the quote, it says, “Our spiritual formation comes within a corporate and social context. Our growth toward wholeness in Christ is for the sake of others within the body of Christ, that we might nurture one another in the wholeness of Christ. When we don't feel like worshiping, the community should carry us along in its worship. When we can't seem to pray, community prayer should unfold us. And when the scripture seems close to us, the community should keep reading and affirming and incarnating it around us.”
I think it's a beautiful picture of the church and what Paul had in mind for the Romans. It's a goal that we should have and we should strive for here at Spring Valley Church that we're not just having a focus on, yes, our personal transformation, but how that incorporates into the larger church body.
There's a story of Dwight L Moody and you guys made the Moody Institute in the Midwest, and he used to have these conversations and weekly conversations. And he was approached one time by this guy who said, "Hey, I want you to come over "and I want to have theological conversation with you." So he said, "Sure." So he goes over to this guy's house and the guys are very welcoming and sit by the fire and they're drinking tea and their chairs. And after some pleasant small talk, the man goes into how he thinks that a Christian can be a Christian outside of the church. And he gives a very well thought out argument. I mean, this man clearly even scripture involved of saying this is why I think that a Christian doesn't have to be a part of a church body. Without saying a word, Moody takes the fire poker. and he gets an ember from the fire, and he scoots it off into the hearth away from the fire. And they sit there silently and watch it go from on fire and flaming and glowing to black charcoal. And the guy sitting there sighs and he says, "Proven your point.”
So as a church as we study and learn our way through Romans, let's have this in mind that it's not just about our individual process of sanctification of becoming more righteous and everything that Paul does. Yes, it's natural. We're going to think about how does this apply to me and we should. But then how do we fit into this church body? How do we do this together? And again, I think one of the ways we do that is not just gathering on Sunday mornings, but we want to be integrated in each other's lives throughout the week. That's not a plug necessarily for the midweek studies, but if you're feeling convicted, probably means to be there. But even outside of that, just we should be involved in each other's lives so that we can grow together in Christ. All right, more next week. Let me pray as we close and come up for the last song.
God, thank you. Thank you for sending Paul, for putting it on his heart to write to the Roman Church about being unified, for sharing a gospel message with them, and that we, thousands of years later, can still benefit, and learn, and grow. And some of us in this room of red Romans a hundred times. And some of us, this may be our first time really diving in deeply into Paul's words, but no matter what, I pray that your spirit would work in our hearts, that you would convict, that you would form us, that you would transform our hearts to be more like you. Open our eyes to see where we need to grow and change and also how we fit into the larger church body. The enemy loves to isolate us God. Love to get us one-on-one because he knows that that's where we're not a threat. But when we're together as a church, that's when your gospel can be used to its fullest effect. And so I just pray, God, keep working in us. Keep working in us individually and through us as a church as a whole. We pray that your Spirit now and through all the weeks to come in this series will continue to move. us. We trust you God. We know that you can do this and that you will do this. Pray this in your name. Amen.