Sermon by Dr. Jeffrey Jeremiah
February 26, 2006

"Loved and Called"
Romans 1:1-7

Paul does something unusual as he begins his letter to the Roman Christians. He follows the standard letter-writing procedure of his day by identifying himself. But he identifies himself not in terms of what he has accomplished, but in terms of what God has accomplished in his life. He says in verse one that he is a servant of Jesus Christ, God has called him to be an apostle. It is not what he did, but what God had done to him. At the end of that verse, Paul says that he has been "set apart for the gospel of God." Again, the focus is not on Paul, but on God.

As I said when we began this series, God is in the business of changing people’s lives. No one knew that better than Paul. It was God who had intervened in his life to change him and give him his identity and his mission in life. When he addresses the recipients of his letter, the Roman believers, it should come as no surprise that Paul’s focus is on what God has done in their lives as well. It’s all about God, Who He is, what He has done to us and for us and in us. He uses two words that are incredibly important in this book and in the Christian vision of God and salvation. These words are keys to our own identity, essential to what it means to be a Christian. Those two words are called, "called to belong to Jesus Christ" and "called to be saints," and loved, "loved by God." They’re important because the Christian who is not sure that God loves him and has called him to salvation is a radically insecure person. Fear, frustration, guilt, and defensiveness drive his life. That’s no way to live! But the Christian who knows in a radical way, to the root of his being, his heart, mind, and soul, that he is called by God and loved by God is a person of confidence, boldness, freedom, and joy!

First, called. In God’s Word, there are two kinds of calling. The first is the general calling, which means that all who hear are called to turn from their selfish, sinful ways to God. Examples of this general call would include Isaiah 45:22: "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other." Or Jesus’ words in John 7:37: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." The general call is the call that goes to everyone. The bad news is that no one responds to God’s general call. The reason is that no one is able to respond. I think you’ll agree with me that if a person is dead, he’s not able to respond to or do or decide anything. He’s dead. While we might be very much alive physically, Ephesians 2 tells us that spiritually we’re dead, "dead in our transgressions and sins." We’re not able to respond to this general call. If that was God’s only call, no one would be saved, because we’re all spiritually dead.

But God isn’t finished with us. He adds to the general call a specific call, a personal call. Through it, those whom He’s chosen are enabled to hear the call and respond to it. The situation is similar to Jesus’ call to His friend Lazarus in John 11. Lazarus had been dead for four days, but when Jesus called, "Lazarus, come out" (John 11:43), Jesus’ friend was raised to life. Left to ourselves, we’re like Lazarus in that tomb, a corpse, spiritually dead. When Jesus calls us, we’re raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, we’re "made alive with Christ." This is the specific call, the saving call of Jesus, described in two ways in our passage. First, in verse 6, we’re "called to belong to Jesus Christ." To be a Christian is to belong to Jesus Christ, to be in relationship with Him in which He calls you His prized possession; the Son of God claims you as one of His own! Second, in verse 7 we’re "called to be saints." I know there are some who view saints as people who have attained a certain level of holiness and are worthy of special veneration, but that’s not biblical thinking. In God’s Word, being a saint always means being separated. Separated from sin and evil, separated to God and His work. This is exactly what Paul said about himself in verse one when he said he had been "set apart for the gospel of God." Jesus said, "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (John 15:16). Called by God is a statement of His initiative, it’s His act of reaching out and choosing, calling you to belong to His Son Jesus Christ, calling you to a life distinctively different from that which you observe in a world full of lost and frustrated and hopeless people.

The second key word to your identity is loved. It’s out of His love that He calls you to Himself. But that’s not the end of His love, because the relationship that He calls you into is a love relationship, a love unlike any you could ever know. I realize that for many people, the only way they have ever conceived of God’s love is that He loves the world, and therefore He loves everyone in the same way. And indeed He does love the world. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44-45, "Love your enemies…so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." In other words, God’s love is as broad and as general as the rising sun and the falling rain. In John 3:16 Jesus says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." In other words, we may offer eternal life to every person on this planet who will put their faith in Jesus, the Son of God. And it was the love of God that sent His Son so that that offer could be made to the whole world. In at least two ways, God’s love is broad and general. He sustains the unbelieving world with sunshine and with rain, and He offers eternal life, at the cost of His Son, to any and all who will believe.

But that is not what Paul is writing about in verse 7: "To all in Rome who are loved by God." He’s writing to those who are called by God in Jesus Christ. The love he has in mind here must be different from the love that God has for everybody in Rome. I’m thinking about a different kind of love when I say, "I love Cindy." To say "I love Cindy," doesn’t mean I have no love for other people. It means I have a special love for my wife. I chose Cindy to be my wife. The love I enjoy now with Cindy is utterly different from the love I have for you, for anyone else. That contrast is a picture of God’s love. He holds out love to the whole world, but He chooses His wife, "the called," and loves her with a special, saving, precious, unbreakable love. Of course, His wife is you, me, all who are believers in Jesus Christ. How is this love, God’s love, unlike any you could ever know? Let me answer that question by directing your attention to the last part of Romans chapter eight. In verse 35 Paul asks, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ?" In other words, is there any way that those loved by God could lose this love? He asks in Romans 8:35, "Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" And he answers in verse 37: "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Notice what keeps us from being separated from the love of Christ: we are kept from separation "through Him who loved us." The point is this: the love of God keeps us from being separated from the love of Christ. Will those who are "called to belong to Jesus Christ" be separated from Him? No! Why? Because God loves us! The love of God triumphs in keeping and preserving those He loves in Jesus Christ. Then to confirm it again, Romans 8:38-39 attributes total triumph to the keeping power of the love of God in our lives: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." In other words, the special, saving, unbreakable love of God for us will triumph over everything that tries to destroy our faith and pull us away from God. This is not the broad and general love that God offers to the world. It is not the sustaining love that gives sun and rain, it is not even the love that offers eternal life. This is the love of God for His bride, His chosen people, those who belong to Jesus Christ. He calls us from death to life, and He keeps us safe and secure. This is what Paul means in Romans 1:7 when he writes, "To all in Rome who are loved by God." And it’s what God means when He says to you today: "You are the called of Jesus Christ; you are my loved ones. I have chosen you for my own; I have called you, I have saved you, I will keep you. I will work in you what is pleasing in my sight. Nothing will separate you from Me, because I love you with an everlasting love. I love you." Why? Why does God love us? Is it because we’re lovable, good people? Is it because we’re moral and upright? We all know the answer to these questions. Why does God love you? The answer is, He loves you because He loves you. There’s nothing more to be said beyond that. David Martyn-Lloyd Jones wrote, "We are Christians for one reason only and that is because God has set His love upon us. That is the thing that brings us out of the world and out of the dominion of Satan…Christians are loved by God, they are in Christ and God loves them in the same way He loves Christ."