Good morning, church, family. I want you to know on this first Sunday that I have the privilege of launching into ministry as the new lead teaching pastor here at Cedar Heights Baptist, that you have made Peggy and I feel so warmly welcomed. You have been so gracious and so loving. So many of you have said, we're so excited that you're here and we embrace that. and we're so grateful for your hearts, your tender hearts towards us and your love towards us that you've expressed. You know, I think the ministry of glue, you heard that right, the ministry of glue is underrated. I would like you to join me in just expressing some appreciation as you've shown it to Peggy and I, I know that you want to do this because of your hearts, to two men in particular that God has used in the ministry of glue, of holding things together in an interim period and teaching the Word of God so faithfully. Would you just join me in saying thank you to Pastor Dan and Pastor Carter and their service here. That's right Linda, love. That's right. Thank you. I love these two men and grateful for God knitting our hearts together. First thing I want to say to you is hello. Hello. In one store in Cedar Falls a couple weeks ago, I saw this one word four times. So when I walked in, this was on the door, right here. You can see my shadow, real professional there, right? And then when I walked in, I saw it again, some random display with bicycles. for some reason, can you pick it out there on the bicycles there, hello. And then I saw that you could put some other words with it, like the one, like how you might say it to your wife after you let her sleep in on Saturday morning, hello sunshine. Or like you might hear it at a Brad Paisley concert, hello darling, right. But when that's all said and done, hello is simply a word that we use to greet one another. It's an introduction word, especially when hello is followed by those four words, my name is, which is the name tag that many of you are wearing today as a totally hip fashion accessory, of course. Thank you for doing that. Well, since I'm new here at Cedar Heights, I thought it would be good to introduce myself, first by saying, hello, my name is Jeff. Hello, her name is Peggy. But I'd like to take some time to go further than hello. I want to try and let you know where I'm coming from, what I'm about, what my priorities and perspectives are as your new lead teaching pastor. And I want to talk a little bit about the fact that you had me at hello. You had me at hello because I resonate so much with the priorities and perspectives that you have as a church family to reflect the glory of God in all things carried out through these four pillars of community and of corporate worship and discipleship and mission. So in pursuit of unveiling, as it were, my heart for ministry and connecting our hearts together in purpose as a church family, I'd like to unpack Romans chapter 1, verses 1 through 7 over the next three weeks. I chose these particular verses because this is the Apostle Paul's hello to a church that he hadn't founded. These verses are his introduction to some people, most of whom he'd never met. It was his way of saying hello to a group of people that he hadn't had much spiritual impact on yet, kind of like me with you all, right? But as perhaps you've already seen, as the scripture was read earlier, when Paul says hello to this group of Christians, he ain't just whistling Dixie, right? This isn't trivial, this is no skimpy salutation. There are riches to be mined here and there are doctrines to discover and wonder to be experienced in this hello. So if you're not there already, turn in your copy of God's Word to Romans chapter one. Or if you didn't bring your own copy, you can find the text on page 1,746. 1,746, that's a big number. In the Bible, that's provided there in front of you. And I'm going to ask you again to stand in honor of God's word as I read this passage again. 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, let's pray. Holy Spirit, show us Christ today. Show us Christ, oh God, Reveal your glory in the preaching of your word until every tongue confesses that Christ is Lord. And the people of God agreed and said, Amen. And you can be seated. I was at a conference several years ago, and I remember one of the speakers telling about a particularly memorable sermon he had preached a couple years before. He had his text all lined up and all his points all prepared, five points, and the last point, his fifth one, was gonna be the zinger. That was gonna be the important one. That's when he was gonna talk about Jesus. But on this Sunday, before he got to point five, The fire alarm went off, and all the people left. And they didn't come back. His point, start with Jesus. Start with the important part. And so for several reasons, as we walk through Romans 1, 1 through 7 over the next three weeks, I'm gonna take his advice. The first reason, and perhaps most obviously, is in case I get hit by a car this week, God forbid, and I can't come back. I'm going to preach about Jesus. Or if I get laryngitis and I can't talk, I'm going to start with Jesus this week. The second reason is because it's true theologically and it's true galactically. Jesus is the center of it all. And it happens to be true spatially and actually in these seven verses. Jesus is at the center spatially in these verses. The two verses that reveal the most about Jesus are smack dab in the middle of this passage. Verses three and four are the climax. They're the top of the mountains. So we're gonna start there. But most significantly, I wanna start this three-week series with Jesus because of the weight of the three words at the beginning of verse three. See them there? Concerning his son. referring in the context to God's Son, Jesus. So verses 1 and 2 answer the question, you'll notice, who? Who's writing this letter? Paul. But verses 3 and 4 answer the question, what? As in, what is Paul going to write about for 16 chapters? Answer, God's Son, Jesus Christ. Now, if you know anything about this towering, magisterial treatise we call the Book of Romans, you might object at such simplicity, right? Wouldn't the theme of the book be the righteous judgment of sinners by a righteous God on sinners like you and me in chapters 1 and 2? No. The theme is God's Son, Jesus. Surely justification by faith, as Paul unpacks it in chapters 3-5, that's the heart of the letter. Paul says, no. The heart of the letter and the heart of justification by faith is God's Son. Jesus. What about the freeing reality of there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? Or that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose? What about the stunning reality that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? What about those? Those are huge. Yes, they are. But no, that's not the theme of Romans. God's electing grace in chapter nine, or our response to God's mercy in Romans 12, one and two of giving ourselves completely to him, or maybe the uber practical list of do's and don'ts that later on in chapter 12, surely the Bible is supposed to be practical and relevant for our lives, right? Of course. That's not the main point. That's not the theme. Paul is writing, he says, concerning God's son. In short, If this letter to Roman Christians was an email, the subject line would read, concerning God's Son. If this was an inner office email, after the capital R and the capital E and the colon signifying what this memo is in regard to, it would say, Jesus, God's Son. And we shouldn't be surprised. that for Paul it all boils down to his Savior, Jesus, because to the Christians in the city of Corinth, he says earlier, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nothing? Really, Paul? Nothing? Nothing. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And to the Colossian believers, he was speaking of Jesus when he wrote, Him we proclaim. Him, we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone. And to the Galatians, he said that he wouldn't boast in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's all about Jesus always, first to last. And this is my heart, too. This is what you can expect to hear out of my mouth Sunday after Sunday. Yes, there will be doctrinal considerations. Theological richness will be pursued. Yes, yes, yes. Practical matters for our lives will be addressed. And yes, we'll consider how the scriptures are contextualized and applied to our culture and our time. But mostly what I hope to do every Sunday is to get us beloved to Jesus. to see him in his glory, and beauty, and majesty, and sovereignty, and suffering, and resurrection, and his reign, and his return, Christ, and him crucified, him, him, him, we proclaim concerning God's son. Now, back to verses three and four. The two verses in this passage that we're gonna focus on this morning, Paul says, hello, in these seven verses, and he goes on in these middle verses of the section to reveal three specific truths about our Savior Jesus. Here they are, and this is my outline if you care, or if you wanna keep track, or if you wanna write down. Here's the three points. Jesus is, number one, the Son of David. Number two, Son of God. Number three, Lord of all. Son of David, Son of God, Lord of all. It's kind of rhythmic. It's kind of like a song lyric, right? You could say it. Go ahead. Son of David, Son of God, Lord of all. One more time. You got it. Son of David, Son of God, Lord of all. Let's unpack it. The Holy Spirit says it this way in verse 3. Jesus was descended from David. according to the flesh." Now this is significant because in mentioning this Jewish king, King David, who lived a thousand years before Jesus did, Paul places Jesus of Nazareth in the context of a bigger story. In fact, it's a gargantuan story of how God purposed to redeem a people for himself, long before Paul came on the scene, long before Jesus was born and lived on the earth and died on a cross, long before Isaiah, before David, even before the earth was created. You see, the story of Jesus doesn't just start in a stable in some backwater town in Judea. It's bigger than that. So it's worth, I think, taking some time to trace this out through the Scriptures. And interestingly, as we do, this will give you some insight into who I am, because this is how I read my Bible. So we could actually start in the very first chapter of the Bible to tease this out about Jesus being the son of David, a king, but for our purposes today, we'll start with 1 Chronicles chapter 17. You can turn in your Bibles if you want to do these, but it's gonna be about 10 places. So they'll be on the screens and you'll be able to see them. So King David is sitting around one day thinking about how good God has been to him, and he said, I'm gonna do something good for God. I'm gonna do something for him. I think I'll build them a worship center. I'm going to build them a sanctuary, a temple. As God often does when people talk like this, he turns it on his ear. And he says this to David in verse 11. When your days, David, are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne. How long? Forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And we say, great, David's next son, Solomon, is surely the fulfillment of that promise. after David died. Yes, God established the kingdom of Solomon. Yes, Solomon built a house, a temple, a worship center for Yahweh. But hold the phone. His kingdom wasn't established forever. In fact, it fell apart one generation later. And so, there's this longing, there's this yearning, there's this incompleteness of this covenant that God made with King David. And that longing and that yearning is hopefully expressed by the prophet Isaiah. These are verses here that we're gonna share that we rightly associate with Christmas, thanks in large part to George Frederick Hundle and his oratorio, Messiah. Look at this in Isaiah 9, 6 and 7. You can hear it, right? For unto us a child is born, got it? To us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And we usually shut it up and say, great. But don't stop there. There's more. Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end on, catch this, the throne of David. And over His kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth. And how long? Forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. 700 years after Isaiah wrote this, a child was born, a son was given, and the gospel writers are careful to connect the dots for us so there's no mistaking it. Jesus is the one who fulfills God's promise to David. So right from the first verse, of the New Testament, Matthew 1, verse 1, see it? The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, who is he? The son of David. And then to Mary, Gabriel comes, the angel of God's right hand, and comes and announces this, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of David. Remember the promise to David? He will be a son to me, called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob, how long? Forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. 30 years after this, Jesus begins pushing back the curse. by performing miracles, defying the laws of nature. And look what happens in Matthew chapter 12. Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him and he healed him so that the man spoke and saw and all the people were amazed and said, isn't this a great magician? Look at the tricks that he just did. Isn't this some prophet? No. Can this be who? the Son of David. Yes, it could be the Son of David, and Jesus is this powerful, miracle-working, kingdom-bringing, forever reigning Son of David. And the recognition of this fact grew so that when Jesus, at age 33, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey the Sunday before the Jewish Passover, a multitude of people are shouting, Hosanna to the what? Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. And even in his death that Friday, Jesus was proclaiming that he was Israel's Messiah, the anointed king, the promised king of the Jews who would reign forever. And God validated that claim by raising him three days later. But the story of the son of David doesn't end there because it's forever, right? Because Jesus' followers began to proclaim the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection all over the known world such that several decades after these events of Jesus' death and resurrection took place, one of those followers named Paul stands up in a Jewish synagogue in the country that we know now as Turkey and he starts to talk about David's son. He talks first about Israel's first king, Saul, and how God removed him from his throne. And Saul gets replaced by King David, a man after God's own heart. And then the apostle Paul says this, of this man's offspring, of David's offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised. And this same Jesus will one day be worshiped as the lamb-like lion And the lion-like lamb, a scene that Pastor Carter unpacked for us last week from Revelation chapter 5. There's a connection to that, to this week. Watch for it. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals. And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, weep no more. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root, the son, the descendant of David has conquered so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals. And I put this in here too because I just love it. Would you just say this last part with me? Can you see it? And they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God. and they shall reign on the earth. Now, if there weren't enough exclamation points already, the ultimate and final exclamation point is provided from the mouth of Jesus himself in the final chapter, in the final verses of the Bible. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of David, says this, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. So could we just stop and be amazed for a moment? If you're not feeling the wonder right now, would you just preach to your soul, bless the Lord, oh my soul, come on soul. Bless the Lord. Bless his holy name. Minds blown. by the amazing specificity with which God fulfills his promises. Jesus is the son of David. And secondly, he's the son of God. Look at how Paul says this in verse four. This Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead. Now if you've got your thinking cap on today, at first blush, this creates a problem. Declared to be the Son of God? Like He wasn't and then He was? God declared Him? God observed Jesus' life, and he said, this guy will do. I was really waiting a couple thousand years for Dan Green to come along, but Jesus of Nazareth maybe would fulfill it. Or that Jesus finished the race of life in first place, and so he was declared the champ. He did the best, and so he was like we declared the Philadelphia Eagles, boo, champs a couple weeks ago when they won the Super Bowl. or even more skeptically and even more dangerously, there's the not so modern assertion that Jesus' followers declared him to be the Son of God about 300 years after he died. But that Jesus never really claimed to be the Son of God himself and that the men who wrote the Gospels right after Jesus died never claimed this either. This dangerous assertion is exactly the assertion that a historian by the name of Bart Ehrman makes in a book that came out about four years ago called How Jesus Became God Declared the Son of God it says in Romans 4 more how Jesus became like he wasn't and then and then he was and Maybe you're here this morning and based on what you've heard or read or what you've been taught in school this seems like a plausible argument like he was just this guy was a great teacher and And there was this myth about him rising from the dead, but no one really thought he was the son of God until 300 years later, and then they announced it. Maybe that seems plausible. You're not convinced that Jesus is the son of God, as Romans 1.4 says he is. You're not so sure that Jesus is really God in the flesh. So can I just say, first, if that's where you are, I'm really glad you're here today. And second, can we talk? Actually, can I talk, because I have the mic right now. So in response to this perspective, it would be important, first of all, to establish that the writers of two of the gospel accounts, Matthew and John, were eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry. They walked with him and heard him and watched his miracles for three years. They were eyewitnesses. The other, Mark, was a close companion to Peter, who himself was an eyewitness, and Mark wrote down accurately what Peter conveyed to him about the life and miracles and death and resurrection of Jesus. And Luke gets his apostolic authority from the apostle Paul, whom he traveled with for years. So all four of these writers, actually as eyewitnesses or close to eyewitnesses, all of these teach in their historical accounts that Jesus is God's Son. So we just read a few minutes ago, right? In the angel coming to Mary, do you remember what Luke records the angel as saying? He will be great and will be called the Son of God. of the Most High. There's no other way to understand that except that Luke is saying Jesus claims to be Son of God. I'm going to write it down. Or take for instance Matthew's account of when Jesus heals a man who's paralyzed. You can find it in chapter 9 of the Gospels of Matthew. When Jesus sees the man, he doesn't just say, stand up and walk, and heals him. Instead he says, your sins are forgiven. You remember this story? The religious leaders have a conniption fit when he says this. They understand in this statement, Jesus is claiming to be God. He's putting himself in the place of God because after all, only God can forgive sin. So they say, this man is blaspheming. And Jesus' response? that you may know that the Son of Man has authority, God's authority on earth to forgive sins. In other words, to prove to you that I am God in the flesh, that all the fullness of deity dwells in me. He says, rise, pick up your bed, and go home. The man does, Jesus drops the mic, and Matthew writes it down. Now that's not only example of two of the eyewitness historians writing that Jesus is God, it's an example of Jesus himself saying, I am God. Like he does, for instance, in John chapter 8, verse 58, in yet another tussle with your religious elite of his day, Jesus makes the stunning announcement, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, catch this, I am. Now never mind for a moment that Jesus insists here on his existence in eternity past, an attribute that only God possesses. Never mind for a moment that he uses the name I am to define himself, the name God uses of himself in the Old Testament. The real proof of what Jesus is saying here is seen in the response of the Pharisees. They picked up stones to throw at him. They knew what Jesus was saying. They knew he was claiming to be God and throwing rocks at him until he was dead is what they were supposed to do to anyone who made that claim that wasn't actually God. But of course, Jesus was God, and is God, and rightly claimed to be God. The religious leaders just didn't recognize it. So in Romans 1-4 when Paul writes that Jesus was declared to be the son of God in power according to the power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, it's not that he's saying Jesus became that like he wasn't this and then God declared him to be. What Paul is saying here is that the resurrection powerfully evidenced the claim that Jesus had already made. The resurrection powerfully evidenced the claim that Jesus had already made. God raised him from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit to confirm that Jesus indeed was and is the one and only Son of God. Do you believe this? Jesus is the Son of David, Jesus is the Son of God, and lastly, Jesus is the Lord of all. Early in his kindergarten career, my grandson Levi was out on the playground at recess time. And he was with some of his new friends in the little kind of makeshift pretend spaceship that they had on their playground. And actually they were having a really deep theological discussion at age five. And so one of the boys, and they're kind of, you know, like five-year-old boys do, they're bragging on their dad, like, my dad knows better than you, and my dad could beat up your dad, and all this kind of good five-year-old kind of stuff. And one boy says, my dad says there are lots of gods and it doesn't matter which one you worship. Well, that didn't sound right to my grandson Levi, who heard the word of God and whose dad teaches him the truth. And he said, actually, there's only one true God, but he has lots of names. There's only one true God, but he has lots of names. That's true. That's true. But of all the names of God in the Old Testament, there are two that are used the most. The name Yahweh, the name God gave to himself when he spoke with Moses at the burning bush, refers to God's self-existence. We talked about it a moment ago. I am that I am, Yahweh. And the second most used Hebrew name is Adonai, which means sovereign one, ruler. Master, sovereign. So the name Adonai speaks to God's absolute authority and unrivaled power. In the third century BC, stay with me here, 72 Jewish rabbis were given the task of translating the Old Testament from its original Hebrew language into Greek. And what they came up with is a version of the Old Testament that we call the Septuagint. It's the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures. And some of the writers of the New Testament, which, as you know, was originally written in the Greek language, actually quote that particular version of the Old Testament. They quote the Septuagint. They quote the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures. It was around. They knew it. They had read it. They had studied it. So, word usage in the New Testament is often informed by how those same words are used in the Septuagint. They're connected. We can learn a lot about what a New Testament writer was thinking by comparing words he uses to how those same words are used in the Septuagint. Are you with me? Now, let me try to bring this together. A five-year-old kid on a playground in Detroit. Names of God in the Old Testament and 72 Jewish scholars 300 years before Jesus. No problem. When the 72 Jewish rabbis were searching for which word to use for Adonai, the name of God denoting his sovereign authority, his unrivaled power, They're looking for a word to translate into Greek, adonai. They chose the Greek word kurios. And that is precisely the word that the Apostle Paul reaches for at the end of Romans 1, 4. Jesus Christ, our kurios. Jesus Christ, our Lord. Jesus Christ, our Sovereign. Jesus Christ, our Authority. Jesus Christ, our Master. Jesus Christ, our Kurios. We'll have time in weeks and months and years to come to talk about how Jesus Christ Lordship is personal. But right here, in Romans 1-4, Paul says that Jesus Christ is our Lord. It's corporate. That's an us word. That's a family word. Remember, Paul is writing to a church here. Our Lord, meaning Jesus Christ is the head of the blood bought redeemed. He's the head of the church, which means that He's the Master, the Lord, the Sovereign of this local church. So it's not Pastor Jeff's agenda. It's not Pastor Dan's priorities. It's not Pastor Carter's vision. Not the elders. Not the servant leaders. Not the strong givers. Jesus is Lord of this church. We build His kingdom. We embrace His priorities. We express His heart. We seek His agenda. We are His hands and His feet. Jesus Christ is our Lord. It's corporate. And it's colossal. His sovereign authority will one day be recognized by every created thing in the universe. Precisely because Jesus suffered, and precisely because Jesus died for the sins of the world, precisely because He humbled Himself to His Father's will, God has now highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name. so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is kurios. Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. One question for you and then I'm done. On that day when every knee will bow to His Lordship there will be two kinds of people, only two. Those who recognize and embrace and trust in the beauty and the glory of Jesus Christ crucified and they want to bow. And those who don't recognize and embrace his beauty and his glory and his authority and will be made to bow. No one gets a pass. No one gets to abstain on the vote. No one's out to lunch during this and they don't have to decide. Only two camps. those who want to bow and those who will be made to bow. Every knee will bow to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. My question is, on that day, will you want to bow or will you be made to bow? And so Lord Jesus Christ, sovereign Lord of the universe, Great Master, the blessed and only sovereign, would you find in us, please, Holy Spirit, hearts that recognize the beauty and the glory of Christ crucified? the majesty of Christ risen again for our justification. And would you find in us hearts that submit to your Lordship, embrace you as Savior, and see you for the eternal treasure and delight that you are. Do that work in our hearts more and more. I pray that you would do it for the first time Holy Spirit by the Word of God in people's hearts this morning for your glory and for our eternal good. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Kurios our Lord. Amen.