He understood that people created in the image of this God would never be fully whole without a knowledge of his name and his work. We tell others who Jesus is because we so esteem his name that we want others to know it and praise it also. The work to bring people into the saving faith that leads to obedience is all for the sake of his name. In fact, that would be the biggest goal of his ministry, the name of God being praised. Paul seems most concerned with the name of God being praised among all nations. In addition, obedience has another purpose for Paul too, “his name.” Whose name? God’s name. But since obedience flows out of faith, we know that we are saved by Christ and Christ alone. If obedience precedes faith, salvation is not by grace. What he is referring here is to an obedience that comes from faith. He actually seems to believe that saving “faith” (a stronger word than belief) results in obedience. Isn’t that what the church in our age has emphasized most? Isn’t the goal of the church to get people to “just believe”? But Paul doesn’t speak of just belief here. Notice Paul is not merely concerned with belief. Paul is specifically defining his role as an apostle here, and in so doing gives us a glimpse of his biggest priorities. “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations” In our age of obsession over simple guiding statements of mission, vision, purpose we should be thrilled to see that one of the most influential early followers of Christ has left us such a clear statement. You may have missed it, I have for years, but it’s there. In Romans 1:5 Paul gives us a personal mission statement. There is beautiful gospel truth in every chapter, and yet many are intimidated because of the complexity.īeing intimidated by the complexity may cause us to miss one of the clearest statements of personal purpose given by Paul. There is so much weight to everything that is said within. Romans is one of the longest and most complex books of the Bible. God is not just concerned with what we think or believe, real saving faith results in obedience
God speaks through His word to bring understanding to those who believe in Him (1 Corinthians 2:14 and 2 Corinthians 4:6).īecause scripture is God-breathed, it is the authority, not my own understanding (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Bible tells us that without God intervening in our lives, in our falleness, we cannot understand God or the world He has created (Romans 3). This is the fourth part of a four-part series, the first three parts have shown us: 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. May the Lord bless us as we lean into a deeper relationship with Him. I will plan to add two videos a week to this page throughout April while adding additional thoughts to each video. So here is the first video, I hope the Lord will use it to take you deeper in your relationship to Him.
I am also giving you a prayer guide I developed at the time that leads you through how to pray the Lord's Prayer every day. I will be honest about the times I fall short of the life of prayer I long for, and I will clarify some things I did not say clearly the first time around. With each sermon, I will share with you what I wish I had remembered and applied. I'm watching every sermon again and releasing the videos with some additional comments.
I've had so many people comment on these sermons over the last fifteen months, that I have become convinced they may be helpful to us as a body again. In this time of desperation, I want to grow in prayer again. I realized that I had forgotten the joy I had received from praying this prayer every day and using it as an outline to guide my prayer life. Within a few months of finishing the series, my prayer life was growing stagnant again. I so enjoyed presenting to you every week out of what the Lord had taught me. This became a sweet season for me as I dove down deep into the Lord's Prayer from Matthew chapter 6 for the first few weeks of 2019. As 2018 was drawing to a close, I felt a clear conviction from the Holy Spirit to begin 2019 with an emphasis on prayer.