Title: Gospel/ Romans 1:3-7
Last time we started the book of Romans and talked about servants and the gospel. A servant is one who preaches the gospel as it is. However, the gospel is not good news for all, but good news only for his chosen people. For those who are not chosen, that is, those who do not understand the meaning of the Gospel through the Holy Spirit, the Gospel serves only as a stumbling block against human nature. God sends the Holy Spirit to overcome human nature. In other words, He made us understand the secrets that humans cannot understand. That is why I said that the gospel contains the function of distinction. But here a very embarrassing thing happens from the point of view of a servant who preaches the gospel. Because the gospel is opposed to human nature, persecution and reproach will come back to the servant who only preaches the gospel. Because the gospel is accepted not as the word of God, but as the word of a servant, it is regarded as a man's stubbornness and thought and persecuted. Nevertheless, you should know that the person who should not give up on preaching the Gospel as it is is the servant, and that slave includes all those who are entrusted with the mystery of the Gospel today.
So what is the gospel? Verse 2 says that the gospel is a promise to the Son, but who is the Son? Verses 3 and 4 say, “As for this Son, who was born of the line of David according to the flesh, and was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ.” The son was born of the blood of David according to the flesh. This does not mean that the son is of royal descent. Jesus died in a physical body. The death of the body that came from David's lineage ultimately declares the death of all human beings included in David's lineage. The body, which is the lineage of human beings, is only born on this earth with death. Born and growing up, they keep their own aspirations and ambitions and run hard to achieve them, but in the end they are a body that must die. What do you do when your ambitions come true? Does anything exist in the face of death? This is the conclusion of life in the world.
However, it is said that Jesus was recognized as the Son by resurrecting from the dead through the Spirit of holiness. He died in the flesh and rose again with the Holy Spirit to show that he was recognized as a son in order to show that all who are recognized as the Son of God in the future also have no choice but to live the life that Jesus Christ, the true Son, lived. But how can you say that you have become a son with just one word, 'I believe'? You must know that you cannot say that you are a son without committing yourself to the way of the dead and risen Lord. In conclusion, the gospel is to share in eternal life like the risen Lord by committing ourselves to and obedience to the Lord's way.
To become the Son of God means to be resurrected with the Spirit of holiness and to receive eternal life just like Jesus, the true Son. But it also includes physical death. It does not mean actual physical death, but it is a declaration of my death at the foot of the cross. And it is not living as a person bound to the flesh. Because we cannot live like this, our lives are always filled with frustration and worry.
But from verse 5, he mentions an important issue about the gospel. Verses 5 and 6 say, "Through him we have received grace and apostleship, for the sake of his name's sake of believing and obedience among all the Gentiles, among whom you also are the called to belong to Jesus Christ." If you look here, you will find the words 'to make obedient' and 'the one who is called'. All of these words mean the work of the Lord. In other words, it is not that we obeyed, but that the Lord made us obey, and that we did not go to the Lord, but that the Lord called us. However, we should not think that when the Lord called, I said 'yes' and ran away. It should be noted that it is not 'called', but 'called out'. To be called means to come from us in response to the call, and to be called means to be called by the Lord, even in obedience to the calling.
After all, these words mean that we cannot intervene as far as the gospel is concerned. All of the things we came to understand, believe, and obey the gospel were made possible by the coming of the Holy Spirit to us. All the events that led us to accept and submit to Jesus as our Savior were the work of the Holy Spirit. That is why, as I have always said, the only thing a believer has to do is to thank, rejoice, and praise the Lord for what He has done.
A believer must give up the idea that I have to do it. And even if I don't do it, I have to live with the thought that the Lord will do it. If you hear these words and think, 'I can't do anything because the Lord is doing it', you should know that it is because you are still living centered on yourself. If you hear that the Lord does everything, why can't you think, 'Aha, what I've done so far was not what I did, but what the Lord did through me'?
Whether you believed 30 years or 40 years, it was all the work of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit made us believe in us, we should never do foolish things to brag about ourselves through the years of faith. In the eyes of the Lord, you must know that the number of years of faith is the same for those who believe today or those who have believed for 40 years. The reason is that I have never believed it before. If you have believed in your own strength for 40 years, you can boast of your years by saying, 'I believed in 40 years' to the person who opened the door of the church today. But how do we boast of our years of faith when we do not have the years of faith? If there is a number of years of faith, the only thing that the Lord has been working on for 40 years is asserting me. In other words, there is only the Lord's work, not mine.
If we put everything we have in this way of belief, you will realize that what I did is nothing without washing my eyes. Would such a believer really insist on works and insist on the law? Since I think I can do something, wouldn't it be the cry of 'Let's do it' and 'I have to do it'?
We were strangers who had nothing to do with salvation in the first place. They had nothing to do with the promise. It is the amazing grace of the Lord that we received grace and the office of apostles, believed and obeyed because of the Son. If faith is grace, we must know that we have no merit in everything that appears as believers. So, believers who know the gospel will know that I am being held in the hands of great grace. Knowing God and knowing the Son are the gospel and eternal life. Knowing God and knowing the Son are not separate knowledges. To know God is to know Jesus, and to know Jesus is to know God.
However, since the Korean church emphasizes all faith in connection with the church, the situation is that they are cultivating a lot of pseudo-believers who have absolutely nothing to do with Christ. Don't berate yourself for blaming people who are working hard in their own way. Even if you are working hard in your own way, it is not for the Lord, but for the church, so even if you sell your house and donate, it becomes an offering that has nothing to do with the Lord.
Don't even think that you have been saved. Of course, we were not saved, but because we were just Gentiles who had nothing to do with God, we received the grace of the Lord and were called to receive salvation. We gather in the church to worship God, but we are ignoring this grace too much. You are well aware that worship without grace cannot be worship. Today, we once again learn about the gospel, come to know the Son of God, have faith, and obey all things, do not forget that it is a miracle that the Holy Spirit came to us. It should be a life of gratitude and joy.