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STUDIES IN ROMANS
BY GLENN PEASECONTENTS1. THE CALL IS FOR ALL Based on Rom. 1:1-72. VOLUNTARY SLAVERY based on Rom. 1:1-73. GOD'S HUMAN NATURE based on Rom. 1:1-74. THE GOSPEL OF GOD'S PROMISE Based on Rom. 1:1-75. CALLED TO OBEDIENCE based on Rom. 1:1-76. ESTABLISHED BY ENCOURAGEMENT Based on Rom. 1:11-137. THE DUTY OF BEING IN DEBT Based on Rom. 1:14-178. SHIPPING OUT SHAME Based on Rom. 1:14-179. AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE 2 Based on Rom. 6:1-1010. WITNESS WITH WATER Based on Rom. 6:3-411. THE ONLY WAY OUT Based on Rom. 7:18-8:212. LIBERTY IN THE LORD Based on Rom. 8:1-213. THE INDWELLING SPIRIT Based on Rom. 8:9-1314. BLESSED ASSURANCE Based on Rom. 8:14-1815. ABSOLUTELY PERSUADED Based on Rom. 8:28-3916. THE HARDEST CHAPTER IN THE BIBLE Based on Rom. 917. ANTI ANTI-SEMITISM Based on Rom. 9:1f 18. JEWS AND CHRISTIANS Based on Rom. 9:4-519. GOD HAS NOT FAILED Based on Rom. 9:6f 20. HOW TO KNOW GOD"S WILL Based on Rom. 12:1-221. THE CHRISTIAN MIND Based on Rom. 12:222. HOW HIGH CAN WE GO? Based on Rom. 12:323. DOING YOUR OWN THING Based on Rom. 12:3-824. UNITY IN DIVERSITY Based on Rom. 12:4-525. THE GIFT OF TEACHING Based on Rom. 12:7-826. THE GIFT OF EXHORTATION Based on Rom. 12:827. CONTROL IS THE GOAL Based on Rom. 12:9-2128. THE REVERSAL OF REVENGE Based on Rom. 12:1929. CHRISTIANS IN CONFLICT Based on Romans 14:130. STRONG AND WEAK CHRISTIANS Based on Rom. 14:2-331. A GOOD QUESTION Based on Rom. 14:4-532. PHOEBE THE DEACONESS Based on Rom. 16:1-16
1. THE CALL IS FOR ALL Based on Rom. 1:1-7
Dr. Paul Brand was called by God to become an expert in treating the deformed hands of lepers.This Christian doctor has done more for restoring the hands of lepers then anyone in history. It all
 
 began in 1947 in a leprosy sanitarium not far from Madras, India. He was being shown around thehospital by Dr. Robert Cockrone the renowned skin specialist. He noticed so many of the patientshad twisted, gnarled and ulcerated hands with some fingers missing. He asked how they got thatway and what they were doing for them. The answer was that they didn't know, and that nothingwas being done.Dr. Cockrone explained that not one orthopedic surgeon in the world had yet studied thedeformities of the 15 million leprosy victims. Dr. Brand was applauded. That was more peoplethan had been deformed by polio or in auto accidents world-wide. Yet there was not a singlesurgeon to serve this desperate need. He walked up to one of the patients and pride his fingers open.He put his hand in his own and asked the person to squeeze as hard as you can. He was shocked atthe power, and had to ask the patient to stop for he was hurting him. He realized that the muscles inthis deformed hand were still good, but the patient could not feel the force. At that instant he knewthe Spirit of God had called him to find the answer. With that hand shake his vocation for life wasdetermined. He went on to become the leading surgeon in the world for lepers hands.Dr. Brand's call was as clear to him as was the call of Moses at the burning bush, or the call of Paul on the road to Damascus. Dramatic calls like this are very personal, and they may mean littleto others. Paul's call was doubted, questioned, and fought by many. He had to defend his call all hislife. The same was true for Moses. A call from God does not mean that even godly people willrecognize it as God's call.One of the greatest missionaries to China was the little British lady named Gladys Aylward.She was converted at a Salvation Army street meeting, and as a cleaning lady she got to reading the books of her employer who had a large section of them on China. She felt God wanted her to go toChina to share the Gospel. When she applied to the Mission Board they gave her an intellectual testshe could not pass, and they said no. She did not measure up and could not go. She went anyway,and she became so successful that years later a motion picture called "In Of The Sixth Happiness,"was made about her ministry. God's call is above man's approval.We could go on endlessly telling stories of calls like this, for there are thousands of them. But because they are amazing and dramatic they are the only calls that we hear about. The result is thatthe greater call of God to all His people is obscured and terribly neglected. The very Greek wordthat Paul uses in verse 1 to describe himself as called to be an Apostle is the word he uses 2 moretimes in his introduction to the Romans to describe the call of all Christians. The word is kletos, andit is used in verse 6 of those called to belong to Jesus, and in verse 7 for those called to be saints.Every Christian is called to belong to Jesus and to be saints. This is a universal calling and one thatwould be more history changing than any other calls of God if God's people would heed the call.We have so exalted the special call to the few that we have ignored the general call to the many.This is so even though the calling of God to all His people is the primary emphasis of the NewTestament.This same word kletos is used by Paul again in Rom. 8:28 where he writes, "And we know thatin all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." All Christians are just as called as Paul. He does the same thing in I Cor. He uses theword called twice as often for all Christians as for himself. We tend to think of Paul as somewhatconceited because he is always telling people he is called to be an Apostle. But Paul exalts all
 
Christians, even the poor ones of Corinth, to the level of the called. He begins I Cor. with, "Paul,called to be an Apostle," but in the next verse he refers to the Corinthians as those called to be holy.They are just as called of God as he is.We do not have time to study all the related words that show that every child of God is a calledone. Let me just read the last use of this word in the New Testament from Rev. 17:14. "...the Lambwill overcome them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings-and with him will be his called,chosen and faithful followers." To be a Christian is to be called. There is no special class of Christians who are called and others who are not called. All Christians are called. They are not allcalled to be Apostles, or pastors, or surgeons, but every Christian is called into the ministry. AnyChristian not in the ministry is missing their calling.This Greek word also means invited, and some translations have it as, "You are the invited onesof Jesus Christ." The Gospel carries with it the invitation or calling to follow Jesus and be like Him.The goal of God is not just to save people for eternity, but to produce Christ-like people in time.The call of Gospel is two fold: Come unto me and be saved, and then come with me and besanctified. We are called to be saved and then called to be saints. This calling may not be asdramatic as a burning bush, or a blinding light and voice from heaven, but the fact is, it is just asauthentic. This universal calling means no Christian has to worry about his or her gifts and abilities,for regardless of their abundance or scarcity every Christian has a calling to be a saint.Paul makes it clear that anybody can be a saint. In I Cor. 1:26-29 he writes, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not manywere influential; not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world toshame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowlythings of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are,so that no one may boast before Him." Paul is saying that if you are a dime a dozen, no big deal,and a commonplace nobody, you qualify to be called t be a saint.The problem is that the Christian world has so copied the secular world that we have lost this biblical truth, and instead we have magnified the super-gifted and talented Christian to the level of stardom, and we assume that only these special people are called to reach the world and accomplishGod's purpose. This is why the will of God is not done on earth as it is in heaven. You don't haveten percent of the angels doing the will of God while the other ninety percent watch them do it. Allin heaven do the will of God, and when all of God's people on earth will recognize they are just ascalled as the super star Christians, then God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.One pastor asked another how many people in his church are willing people. He said that all of his people are willing. Ten percent are willing to work, and ninety percent are willing to let them.This is very common because Christians do not realize they are called. Paul was a super star whowas called of God to write this letter to the Romans that has changed the course of history. It has been the key influence in the conversion of other major super stars like Augustine, Luther, Wesley,and Bunyan. This is Paul's longest and most influential letter. Luther called it, "The truemasterpiece of the New Testament." It has been called, "The Cathedral of the Christian faith."Ray Stedman expresses the conviction of many when he says, "It is safe to say that Romans is probably the most powerful human document every written." Everyone agrees that to know the
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