How You View Yourself

 

I did a memorial service this past week for an old friend who was part of the faith family that I pastored in another community. He was a very unique individual. But the one thing that always impressed me about him was that he had a servant heart and he served others without desiring recognition. So, how do the writers of the letters in the New Testament describe themselves in the introduction to their letters?

 

Romans 1:1-7

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 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, 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, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

What Paul Says About Himself:

 

He is a servant.

 

The word that Paul uses translated servant is the word doulos which means bondservant. This is a person who has a debt to pay and is serving another person because of that debt. Paul owed a sin debt and Jesus paid it, so Paul is committed to Jesus to serve Him.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is, because of the debt Jesus paid for us, serving Him with all of life.

 

He is an apostle.

 

Now we are not apostles in the same way that Paul or Peter or John or James were apostles. But we are called to be apostles because that word means one sent with a message. We as followers of Jesus are called to go with the gospel. We have the message that, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can experience salvation.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is going out into the world and sharing the gospel that, in Jesus, people can experience salvation.

 

He had received grace from Jesus.

 

Grace is God’s undeserved and unearned favor on us and love for us. Grace means that it is not because we are good, but because God is good that we can have a love relationship with Him. Grace means that I am saved, and my sins are forgiven because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is living based on the grace of God and not our resources or our credentials.

 

Notice also in Paul’s introduction that he spends part of one verse talking about who he is and about four to five verses talking about who Jesus is.

 

In 1 Corinthians 1:31 Paul writes, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

 

Our lives are to boast about Jesus, not ourselves.

Our lives are to proclaim the goodness of God, not our goodness.

Our lives are to demonstrate God’s sufficiency, not our sufficiency.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is focusing our lives on Jesus and showing forth His greatness.

 

Paul ends his introduction by pointing out to the believers in Rome that they are loved by God and called to be saints, disciples of Jesus, and praying that they will experience God’s grace and peace.

 

We must know all the time that God loves us and that He has called us into a relationship with Jesus and that, through our relationship with Jesus, we will experience first God’s grace, and through God’s grace we will experience God’s peace.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing God’s love and through God’s love experiencing God’s grace and through experiencing God’s grace experiencing God’s peace.

 

Because of Who We Are in Jesus

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe