Last week we began a study on Romans that I’m quite excited about.  It was both fun and a great challenge to preach the parables over the summer but now I’m finding it equally exhilarating to be in the Letters of Paul right now.  Paul writes a good portion of our New Testament, by the way.  No less than 13 of our books in the New Testament bear his authorship.  Further, we know the imprint Paul has on the development of the church of Jesus Christ.  It is hard to imagine the church today being as large and as universal as it is without the efforts of Paul in the first century AD.

  As we spoke about last week, Paul was born Saul and, until his Damascus Road experience, Paul would’ve very much been a faithful Jew.  His description of himself from Philippians that I read last week indicates his status among the Jews.  As Saul, Paul would’ve seen the world in an entirely different manner than he does as Paul.  To begin with Saul very much thought that the Christian movement underway after the resurrection of Jesus Christ was heretical.  Heretical and worthy of punishment, honestly.  And that’s what Saul, with the support of the Sanhedrin, the governing Jewish body, would’ve been doing.  We know that he was persecuting Christians because he’s there when Stephen, the first deacon, is stoned in Acts.  Yes, Saul would’ve seen the Christians as doing irreparable harm to Judaism and, for that reason, needed to be stomped out.  But, things change, as is said and we know that Paul believes that he was called into the gospel.

  What does he mean by called?  Well, Saul becomes Paul in a very distinct way.  Acts 9:  “But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.  Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.  And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’  And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’  And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’   The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.  Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing.  So, they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.  And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”

  So that’s how Saul is called into the Gospel.  How were you called?  Now that may seem like a strange question to some of us.  Some of us were raised in the church and can no sooner imagine a Sunday morning without church than a shake without whipped cream.  But that doesn’t mean you weren’t called, just like Paul was.  At a certain point, you took the Gospel message and made it part of your life.  Now, this would’ve been the work of the Holy Spirit but it sure would’ve felt like your work.  And then, just like Paul, you became part of the church of Jesus Christ.  You, just like Paul, were called.  To what were you called though.  Well, according to Romans, you were called and set apart for the Gospel.  But what is the Gospel?  Broadly speaking, the Gospel is the Bible.  More narrowly, the Gospel is simple good news.  That’s what the word means in the Greek.  Evangelion means good news.  And that’s exactly what it is.  The Gospel specifically is the Good News concerning Jesus Christ.  That God, in the fullness of time, has taken flesh through the Son and atoned for the sin of all humankind.  Through His death and resurrection, the power of evil has been broken and believers are promised eternity in the Kingdom of God.

  That’s the Good News.  That’s the Gospel.  Do we think of it as such?   Do we wake up every day and thank God for the Gospel?  Probably not, to be honest about it, but we should.  There isn’t a single one of us here that isn’t indebted just as much as Paul was.  And remember what Paul called himself – doulas, slave.  That’s what Paul considered himself.  So that Gospel is the good news of what Jesus Christ has done but that isn’t all Paul tells us, is it?  This Gospel that we celebrate this morning, it was announced.  The “gospel of God” was promised beforehand.  That means something.  It means it was prepared.  The Gospel isn’t some bailout plan God created when sin appeared there in the Garden.  One can rightly extrapolate that Jesus was the plan, even before the fall.  And we know that for a particular reason and it’s an important one – Jesus was promised beforehand in the Old Testament, or, as Paul writes, in the prophets.