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Romans 1: 1-6
(please turn there as we read together)
In the book of Romans is found the most complete diagnosis of the plague of man’s sin and also the most glorious setting forth of the simple remedy of justification by faith apart from the works of the law.
The reformation was set into motion and many great revivals through history are connected with the teachings in this letter from
Paul to the Romans.
Martin Luther was totally transformed as he read “The just shall live by faith”
John Wesley was “strangely warmed” in a little prayer meeting at Alders gate where the truths of Romans were being taught.
Luther wrote: “The epistle to the Romans is the true masterpiece of the New Testament and the purest gospel.” and it is to thei gospel that Paul, the servant of God is bound.
Paul introduces himself as a bond slave or servant of God. He patterns himself after the Master in Mark 10 in that. He came to serve not be served.
We are to be followers of Jesus and servants to one another as well.
A bond servant belongs to someone else entirely. Paul defines that in 1 Cor. 6:19 when he says “you are not your own, you are bought with a price.
A servant has no personal autonomy, no self determination, his will is completely subordinate to another. A bond slave has no personal freedom. He also cannot arrange his own life. Luke 17:7-10.
Dietrich Bonheoffer:
“Discipleship can tolerate no conditions that come between Jesus and our obedience to him, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,”
A servant must also seek to make his master successful. Matt. 6:33.
A servant, a bond slave, never retires. Look at the Hebrew model in Ex. 21:1-6.
Service of that sort is:
Willing. Isaiah 1:19 “If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat of the good of the land.” Ps. 40:8 “I delight to do thy will O my God, thy law is within my heart.”
So a bond slave of Paul’s description is one of CHOICE, God’s choice and Paul’s choice.
Not only is it willing service, it is also immediate.
Mark 1:8Simon and Andrew heard Jesus call them to be man catchers and immediately they left their nets and followed him.
In Luke 4 Jesus healed Peter’s Mom in law and immediately she got up and ministered to them.
Acts 9:20 speaks of Paul as soon as he received his sight after the Damascus road experience that left him blinded “Straightway he preached Christ in the Synagogues.” IN Acts 16:10 after he had a vision of a man from Macedonia immediately he tried to go.
We notice in Exodus that this sort of service is based on a love for the master. But there are also traces of reverential fear if we disobey. Luke 12:42-48
Also:
Hebrews 12:28-29 ( Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire. )
Ps. 2:11 “serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with thanksgiving.”
Today many have a Santa Claus picture of God and have tried to soften words that show us “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31). But direct willful disobedience to God OUGHT to make us fearful. Servants who willingly disobey will be taken to task.
Our great example, and Paul’s also, is Jesus. Paul told the church at Corinth to “follow me as I follow Christ.” and note Mark 10:43 (even the son of man…)
Phil. 2:7 Jesus took on him the form of a servant.”
(2Co 8:9 For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
John 13:13-17 It is a logical shift that as Christ served, so must we. As Christ gave himself for others, so must we.
Also look up Matt. 10:42
In John 12: Mary washed Jesus feet and dried them with her hair.
In Acts 20:18-20 You know how I acted, serving God with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations which befell me by the Jews lying in wait and I kept back nothing that was profitable to you.
Look up Gal. 6: 2- 10 and read it… Note also with me that we are to Serve Christ by serving others. (Matt 25:31-46 )
A servants lot is not an easy one, it is not a life of partying but of dedication to the Master. Romans 6:16 says it clearly, the one you yield to IS your master.
And Paul starts this letter by calling himself a simple bond slave.
Are you a bond slave to Jesus? Are you “not your own? Bought with a price? Do you willingly serve God or willfully serve yourself and sin? Have you left your nets to serve God? Are you living each day as if you are under orders?
AMY Carmichael of India :
From prayer that asks that I may be sheltered from winds that beat on thee, from fearing when I should aspire, from faltering when I should climb higher.
From silken self, O captain free, thy soldier who would follow thee
From subtle love of softening things, from easy choices, weakening.
Not thus was spirit fortified , not this way went the crucified
From all that dims thy Calvary, O lamb of God, deliver me.
Jim Eliot: God makes his ministers a flame of fire- am I ignitable?
God, deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things’, saturate me with the oil of thy Spirit that I may be a flame. Make me thy fuel, flame of God.”
We will continue this next time seeing that Paul isn’t only a servant, but sent on a mission.
Service from love is a thing of beauty. I have been privileged to see it in action. There are people in this assembly that model it well.
In this assembly I saw a woman, dreading to deal with open wounds, for LOVE overcome that dread to care for her husband at home rather than place him in a rehab hospital. I saw another wife drop all she had, focusing only her days and nights on getting her man well when lymphoma struck. She was his soldier, his nurse his defender, his confidant. WHY? Because service from love is the best service.
I see in the wheel chairs in front of me the tale of several families rearranging all else to serve from love.
Jesus wants us to love and serve him as well. I know this introduction to Romans got off on a tangent, but it is one prompted by the text. And it is a call to us as well.
We sing “Now I’ve given to Jesus everything, now I gladly own him as my king…” Have we? Have you come under the rule of a commanding officer and are you striving to walk each day with the best interests of Him in mind?
During the American Revolution a man in civilian clothes rode past a group of soldiers repairing a small defensive barrier. their leader was shouting instructions, but making no attempt to help them. Asked why by the rider, he retorted with great dignity, "Sir, I am a corporal!" The stranger apologized, dismounted, and proceeded to help the exhausted soldiers. The job done, he turned to the corporal and said, "Mr. Corporal, next time you have a job like this and not enough men to do it, go to your commander-in-chief, and I will come and help you again." It was none other than George Washington.
Today in the Word, March 6, 1991.
Another true story, then we close.
A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody’s Northfield Bible Conferences in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.
Walking the dormitory halls that night, Moody saw the shoes and determined not to embarrass his brothers. He mentioned the need to some ministerial students who were there, but met with only silence or pious excuses. Moody returned to the dorm, gathered up the shoes, and, alone in his room, the world’s only famous evangelist began to clean and polish the shoes. Only the unexpected arrival of a friend in the midst of the work revealed the secret.
When the foreign visitors opened their doors the next morning, their shoes were shined. They never know by whom. Moody told no one, but his friend told a few people, and during the rest of the conference, different men volunteered to shine the shoes in secret. Perhaps the episode is a vital insight into why God used D. L. Moody as He did. He was a man with a servant’s heart and that was the basis of his true greatness.
Gary Inrig, A Call to Excellence, (Victor Books, a division of SP Publ., Wheaton, Ill; 1985), p. 98
Now you think about that. Amen
