The Gospel of God (Rom. 1:1-7) by Dr. Chuck Quarles

Sermon Transcript

Well, thank you for the opportunity to preach God’s word this morning. A little bit of background: my name’s Chuck. I grew up in Mississippi and have taught and pastored for years. We were missionaries in Bucharest, Romania, for three years until health issues forced us back to the United States. After that, I taught at New Orleans Seminary and then Louisiana College, which is where I met your pastor—he was a student of mine there for several years—and then continued his studies at Southeastern Seminary, where I am on faculty now. It is a privilege to know him, and I am very grateful for his ministry here in your fellowship.

I’m married to Julie. We’ve been married—oh, I hesitate to say—since 1989, so you do the math. We have three adult children and four beautiful, highly intelligent, and nearly perfect grandchildren.

Please take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 1; we’re going to read together verses 1–7. Romans 1:1–7, the Gospel according to God.

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 him 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 together. Father, I pray that you would bless the reading and the preaching of holy scripture. I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be acceptable in your sight, for you are my strength and my redeemer. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Now, America in the past has been known as a Christian nation, hasn’t it? But I’m not sure that’s an apt description any longer. I’m afraid that the average American adult doesn’t even understand the Christian faith or the essential truths of the Christian gospel.

This was confirmed for me back when I served as vice president for the integration of faith and learning at a Christian college in the Deep South. I was there for eight years. In that role, I surveyed all of our incoming freshmen to see how well they understood the essential truths of our faith. Now, 98% of those freshmen claimed to be Christians, and 60% had grown up in Southern Baptist churches and indicated on the survey that they had attended church, on average, at least one service a week. So these weren’t the Easter and Sunday folks; these were the consistent attenders.

But despite that, 65% of the students—almost two-thirds—said that faith in Jesus was not necessary for salvation. That as long as you believed in some God, regardless of what his name might be, and sincerely loved that God, your salvation was guaranteed. Now, how is it possible that people who are raised in church could have such an unbiblical view?

Well, I’m afraid we’ve reached the point in our culture where people’s religious views—even in the church—are more defined by the culture we live in, by the celebrities they’ve made heroes of, or by what their friends and teachers might say, rather than by what the Holy Scripture clearly teaches. We need to understand that the gospel that saves is not the gospel according to the average Joe on the street. The gospel that saves is the gospel according to God—what God says in Holy Scripture about the way of salvation. And that’s exactly how the Apostle Paul describes the gospel that he preaches here in Romans chapter 1. Did you see it in verse one? He’s a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Now, why does he call it the gospel of God? Because this is the one and only gospel that God revealed in the Holy Scriptures—both through the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament.

Paul’s whole letter to the church at Rome is a description of the gospel according to God. In the first four chapters, he explains our need for the gospel and God’s provision of salvation through the gospel. In chapters 5 through 8, he describes some of the benefits we enjoy through the gospel. In Romans 9–11, he explains Israel’s rejection of the gospel. Then, in chapters 12–15, he describes practical implications of the gospel.

Before Paul goes into this detailed discussion of the gospel, he summarizes it for us very succinctly here in these first few verses of the book. In his summary of the gospel message, he answers two of the most critical religious questions of our time. First, is there more than one gospel? In other words, are there multiple ways of salvation that you can pick and choose from? Our culture tells us that there are—quote—many paths to God, doesn’t it? There are many different gospels, and you can choose whichever you prefer. And that’s not only taught by our culture at large; even some of the most influential pastors of some of the largest churches in the United States teach that.

Years ago, Joel Osteen was interviewed by Larry King. Joel Osteen admitted that he was not sure whether people who didn’t believe the gospel were going to heaven or not. This is how the dialogue went: Larry King said, “What if you’re Jewish or Muslim and don’t accept Christ at all?” The pastor replied, “You know, I’m very careful about saying who would and wouldn’t go to heaven. I don’t know.” King said, “But if you believe that you have to believe in Christ, they’re just wrong, aren’t they?” The answer to that was yes. But Osteen said, “Well, I don’t know if I believe they’re wrong. I just think that only God will judge a person’s heart. I spent a lot of time in India with my father—in other words, among the Hindus—and I don’t know all about their religion, but I know they love God. So, I don’t know. I’ve seen their sincerity. I just don’t know.”

But the New Testament is very clear that there is one and only one way of salvation, and that is through the sacrificial death and the powerful resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and our faith in those saving events. In verse two, Paul describes the gospel as the gospel that God promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures. Now, he’s making an important point here because I think there were some people who attended the church at Rome who thought that there were two different plans of salvation. There was a plan of salvation for the Old Testament Jew, which was salvation by obedience to the law, and then a plan of salvation for the New Testament Christian, which was salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. But when Paul says that this gospel he’s going to explain in this letter was the very one God promised beforehand through the prophets in the holy scriptures, what he’s saying is the gospel of the New Testament was also the gospel of the Old Testament.

There has always been and will always be one and only one saving gospel. Paul explains that the gospel revealed in the New Testament was promised in the Old and that people in Old Testament times were saved by faith in the coming Messiah who would die on the cross for their sins, just as believers today are saved.

The Christian gospel is the fulfillment of Old Testament promises because the Old Testament prophets foresaw the sacrificial death and the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus, through which our sins would be forgiven and our lives changed. Paul establishes a powerful argument for this fact—that people were saved in Old Testament times as they are in New Testament times.

When the rabbis of Paul’s day wanted to make a really compelling argument, they would demonstrate that what they were teaching was found in all three major sections of the Old Testament: the Law (the five books of Moses), the Prophets (like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Malachi), and the Writings (which include Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes). The Law taught that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every testimony will be established. You couldn’t have any more powerful three witnesses than the Writings, the Prophets, and the Law.

The Apostle Paul uses this same style of argument when he shows that people were saved in Old Testament times just as they are in New Testament times. Notice that Paul is going to explain that one of the key elements of the gospel is justification by faith. Now, what does justification mean? It’s a legal term that speaks of a judge slamming his gavel and pronouncing the verdict, “Not guilty.” Paul explains in Romans that the heavenly judge has pronounced believers in Jesus Christ “not guilty,” not because of who we are and what we have done, but because of who Christ is and what Christ has done.

Christ lived the perfect life that we can’t possibly live and then went to the cross to be punished for our sins in our place so that we could escape the punishment we rightly deserve. He was punished for our sins so that we could be rewarded for his righteousness. Because of what Jesus did, when believers in Jesus Christ stand before him on Judgment Day—even though we are guilty, even though we are miserable sinners—he will pronounce us “not guilty” and judge us just as if we lived the perfect life of Jesus himself. That’s justification by faith—key to the gospel.

But Paul says this isn’t a message that Jesus preached out of thin air and the apostles have borrowed. This teaching was clear in the Old Testament all along—and not just here and there, but in all three major sections of the Old Testament: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. So look at what he does. Paul begins his argument in Romans 1:17 by defending the doctrine of justification by quoting from Habakkuk 2:4. What section of the Old Testament is Habakkuk part of? The Prophets. Habakkuk said, “The righteous by faith will live.”

We’re pronounced righteous because of our faith in Jesus Christ, and God grants us eternal life as a result. That’s the doctrine of justification. But Paul says that doctrine is not only in the Prophets, it’s also in the Law—the five books of Moses. So in Romans 4:3 and 4:9, Paul quotes from Genesis 15:6, which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Abraham was declared righteous in the sight of the heavenly judge because of his faith, not because of his deeds or his performance.

Then Paul goes on to say, we don’t only find this doctrine of justification in the Prophets and in the Law—we also find it in the Writings. In Romans 4:7–8, he quotes from Psalm 32: “How happy are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered. How happy is the person whom the Lord will never charge with sin.” When we as sinners stand before the heavenly judge and we are not charged with sin, we are being pronounced “not guilty.” That’s the doctrine of justification.

So Paul is arguing that this great doctrine—so critical to the gospel—is found in all three major sections of the Old Testament. It is beyond any doubt. Now obviously, if it had just appeared in one section, that should have been enough. But using the argument of the rabbis, Paul shows the evidence is even more compelling than that: at the mouth of two or three witnesses, every testimony is established. That’s surely true when those three witnesses are the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings—the combined testimony of the Old Testament scriptures.

So what Paul is saying is it should be clear to us: there have never been two gospels, much less three or twelve or a hundred. There has always been one and only one, and it is salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. But then Paul goes on to explain what that faith must entail. If we’re saved by faith, then it’s really important for us to know what kind of faith that is, right? What specifically we are to believe.

Paul goes on to tell us the three essential truths of the Christian gospel. If you boil everything down, this is what you must believe in order to have your sins forgiven and the promise of eternal life with God. In verse three, Paul introduces it by giving us a bird’s-eye view of the gospel message. He tells us this gospel according to God is concerning his Son. So who is the gospel primarily about? It’s about the Lord Jesus Christ, the very Son of God. We need to make sure that when we explain the gospel to others, Jesus is always front and center.

Sometimes when we explain the gospel, we focus so much on the person and their need—their sin, their guilt, their future punishment—that very little is actually said about Jesus himself. That’s a terrible mistake because Jesus is the heart of the gospel. He’s the most essential element.

Paul outlines the three truths about Jesus that we must believe. He begins by saying, “We must believe that the Son was descended from David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). Why does Jesus’ descent from the line of David matter so much that it’s one of the three essential truths of the Christian gospel? It’s because Jesus’ descent from the line of David qualifies him to be the promised Messiah of the Old Testament.

The New Testament really emphasizes that Jesus was born from the line of David, doesn’t it? We see that in Jesus’ genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew, in the genealogy in the Gospel of Luke, and in the statement that the Apostle Paul makes in 2 Timothy 2:8, where again Jesus is born of the seed of David. That’s important because of what’s known as the Davidic covenant. This is where the prophet Nathan, as God’s spokesman, appeared before King David and made a powerful promise.

He said, “You’re going to have a descendant born from your line who is going to reign from your throne forever and ever.” Unlike all of Israel’s other kings, he’s not just going to be king for a few decades; he’s going to be king for all eternity. Unlike the other kings of Israel, he’s not just going to reign over a little patch of ground on the western shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He is going to reign as king over all.

And from that time on, the prophets speak of the coming Messiah as a descendant of David. We see an example of that in Isaiah 9. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government will be upon his shoulders and his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace, and of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne. That is, he’s going to be a descendant from the line of David, continuing the Davidic dynasty. and over David’s kingdom, establishing it and upholding it with righteousness and justice from this time on and forever.

So my point is, when Paul describes Jesus as descended from David according to the flesh, he’s saying the circumstances of Jesus’ line and birth show that he was qualified to be the promised king who will reign over God’s people forever and ever and ever. So the first thing we must believe in the Christian gospel is that Jesus is king—and not just a king, but our king. In other words, salvation requires us to surrender ourselves to Jesus’ authority as king over us, so that the purpose of our life is to live for him and not for ourselves. We recognize that Jesus is king and we are his subjects, that Jesus is master and we are here to serve him.

It’s no accident that Paul will refer to the kingdom of Christ again in Romans 14, and when he does, he defines the kingdom of Christ as Christ’s people serving him with righteousness, peace, and joy through the Holy Spirit.

Since Jesus is king, our whole lives are to be dedicated to his service. What we want is really irrelevant; what Christ wants is what determines the direction of our lives. But not only does the gospel insist that Jesus is king, it also teaches that he is our one and only savior.

Paul continues in verse four and says, “He was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” That’s really important to know. Paul is not saying that Jesus became the Son of God at the time of his resurrection. That’s actually a heresy called adoptionism: Jesus as an ordinary man adopted as the Son of God either at his baptism or resurrection.

That is not what Paul is teaching, and we know that because he already described Jesus as Son of God at the time he was born from the line of David in verse three. In other words, he has been Son of God from all eternity—he didn’t become Son of God in time.

So, what is Paul saying here? Well, the key phrase is that phrase “in power.” Although Jesus has always been Son of God, he became Son of God in power at the time of his resurrection from the dead. Paul explains in Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus lived throughout eternity as God; but when he was born into the world as a human being, he gave up his prestige, he gave up that lofty position, and he lived like a slave—like a servant toward other human beings. But then Paul explains in Philippians chapter 2 that because Jesus obeyed the Father’s command to die on the cross—he was obedient unto death, even death on the cross—the Father highly exalted him. He was restored to that position of all power and all authority again.

So, what Paul is teaching here is that by his resurrection, Jesus is Son of God with power—that is, power to reign and, primarily, power to save. Now, why do I say “power to save”? Well, notice that Paul uses the word power here in verse four when he describes Jesus as Son of God in power. But he’s going to use that word power again in this very same chapter, Romans 1:16. What does the word power mean in Romans 1:16? “I’m not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” So, when Paul says Jesus became Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead, he’s saying it’s through Jesus’ resurrection that he received the power to be our Savior—to rescue us from our sins.

Now, you might be thinking that can’t be true because we all know that all it took for us to be saved was for Jesus to die on the cross. Well, Jesus’ death on the cross was necessary, but it was not sufficient without the resurrection. Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 15, doesn’t he? He says, “If Christ is not raised, your faith is vain, and you are still in your sins.” It’s not just the death of Jesus on the cross that saves us; it’s his death on the cross plus his resurrection from the dead.

Now, why is that so? Well, to put it simply, it’s through Jesus’ death on the cross that we are rescued from the penalty of our sins. But it’s through his resurrection from the dead that we are rescued from the power of our sin and are enabled to live life in a new and different way. Being saved is not just getting forgiven; being saved is having your life changed as well. If there is no life change, there is no forgiveness. Those two rise or fall together.

Paul is going to explain the importance of Jesus’ resurrection for changing our lives in Romans chapter 6. He says, “We are buried with him by baptism unto death, so that just as Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.” What Paul is saying is Christ gave us new life so that we live a new and different way—a life of obedience and righteousness and holiness through his resurrection.

It’s interesting that when Paul describes the believers in the church of Rome in verse 7, he says, “Not only are they loved by God, but they’re also called to be what? Saints.” And a saint isn’t just a person who was super spiritual, performed miracles, and has statues of them in cathedrals. The word “saint” in the New Testament means “holy person”—someone whose life is characterized by righteousness and obedience. How did these sinners become saints? It’s through the power of Jesus’ resurrection. He gives new life to them as he is raised from the dead.

So, when Paul says Jesus is born of the line of David, he’s saying Jesus Christ is the Messiah, our king. When he says he’s Son of God with power, he means Jesus has the power to save us—he is the one and only savior. Without his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, there would be no hope for any of us.

Now, some might think, well, that covers it, doesn’t it? All we have to do to be saved is believe in Jesus as our Savior and submit to his authority as our King. That covers it, doesn’t it? But Paul says, “No, there is a third essential truth which is actually the most important of all.” And that’s why Paul saves this third truth for the climax. He says verse four again that Jesus Christ is our Lord. Our Lord.

Now, the word “Lord” here doesn’t just mean person with authority. The word “Lord” is being used as a name for almighty God. Whenever you pray, do you ever say “Dear Lord”? Right? Who are you praying to? Well, God. Obviously, you wouldn’t pray to someone who’s not God. When you pray, “Dear Lord,” you’re using “Lord” as a name for God. And that’s very biblical. In fact, both our English translations and the old Greek translations of the Hebrew Old Testament consistently do that. They translate the Hebrew divine name Yahweh or Jehovah as “Lord.” And the Old Testament is typically written in all capital letters—big L, big O, big R, big D—to show that it is the divine name.

In the New Testament, it means the same thing, but translators don’t write it in all capital letters. I wish that they would. But when Paul says that Jesus Christ is our Lord, he’s saying that Jesus Christ is God. He is deity incarnate, almighty God in human form. Now, Paul’s going to emphasize that repeatedly in his letters. We’ll see another example of that in Romans 9:5 where he actually describes Jesus as God over all. We see another example of it in Colossians 1:16, where he describes Jesus as the creator who created everything for his own glory. We see it in Philippians 2:9 where he says Jesus bears the name that is above every other name—that’s the divine name, Lord or Jehovah. We see it in Philippians 2:6 where Jesus is described as one who eternally existed in the very form of God and is fully equal to God the Father. We see it in Colossians 2:9 where Paul says, “In Jesus dwelt all the fullness of deity in bodily form. Everything that makes God God made its home in the body of Jesus Christ while he was here on this earth.” We see it in Titus 2:13 where Paul describes Jesus as our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And Paul insists here in Romans that this isn’t just some interesting theological truth for seminary professors to discuss. This truth—that Jesus is God—is at the very heart of the Christian gospel. We must believe it to be truly Christian, to have our sins forgiven and our lives changed.

Now, most of us have known since childhood Romans 10:9: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” But what does it mean to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord? It means to confess that he is God—that he is Yahweh, Jehovah, the almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who created everything that exists in human form.

And we know that because Paul went on after writing Romans 10:9 to write Romans 10:13, which is his Old Testament proof text confirming what he said in Romans 10:9. In Romans 10:13, he quotes from Joel 2:32: “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Now, do you notice how Romans 10:9 and 10:13—that quotation from the Old Testament—match up? Confessing Jesus as Lord matches calling on the name of the Lord. And the promise “will be saved” matches “will be saved.”

So when Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, you will be saved,” he’s basing that on Joel 2:32. So, if you want to know what the word Lord means in Romans 10:9—if you want to know who you have to confess Jesus to be in Romans 10:9—you just need to look up Joel 2:32. Well, when you look up Joel 2:32, you’ll notice how the word Lord is spelled. Has anybody turned there yet? You might want to just write the verse down. If you turn there, you’ll find that the word Lord is written in all capital letters—all uppercase, big letters. And what does that mean again? It means that the Hebrew word being translated as Lord is the name of God, Yahweh or Jehovah.

So my point is, when Paul says you must confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord,” he’s saying you must confess with your mouth that Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God who created all that exists, who parted the waters of the Red Sea, who brought down the manna from heaven and brought up the water from the rock, and so forth. He is God Almighty. And the reality is, just accepting one or two of these three essential truths is not enough. We can’t be saved by just believing that Jesus is Savior but not surrendering to him as our King and worshiping him as our God. And we can’t be saved by just surrendering to Jesus as King and yet denying that he is Savior and denying that he is God, and so forth. We must affirm all three of these truths: Jesus is our God, he is our Savior, and he is our King in order to be saved.

That’s the gospel according to God. It’s also the gospel that was believed by the early Christian church. I’m sure everybody in the room is familiar with the fish symbol that represents Christianity. But do you know why it’s become the symbol of the Christian faith? It’s not because some of the apostles were fishing. It’s not because Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish in that miracle for the crowds. It’s because the word “fish” in Greek was an acronym. Now, what’s an acronym? It’s a name where every letter in the name represents the first letter of another word, and it spells out a message. An example of an acronym would be MADD—M-A-D-D. Does anybody know what it stands for? Think Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Well, the word for fish in Greek was like that. The word for fish in Greek is “ichthus.”

The first letter is iota, which was the first letter of the word “Iēsous”—Jesus. The next letter was the letter chi, which was the first letter of the word “Christos”—Christ, Messiah, King. The next letter was theta, which was the first letter of the word “Theou,” which means God’s, with an apostrophe s—belonging to God. The next letter was upsilon, which was the first letter of the word “huios,” which means Son. And the last letter was sigma, which was the first letter of the word “sōtēr,” which means Savior. And when you put it all together, it meant: Jesus is the Christ—that is, the eternal King of God’s people. He is God’s Son—that is, God in human form. And he is the Savior who died on the cross and rose from the dead so that we could be forgiven and our lives could be changed.

That fish symbol was a tool that early Christians used to explain the gospel to lost people. They said, “You want to know what you have to believe to have your sins forgiven? It’s pretty simple.” And they would write out the word for fish in Greek and go through it letter by letter: Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son, the Savior. He is God, Savior, and King.

Now, I’m about to shock you. I was baptized when I was five years old. And I do believe at that time that I gave all I knew of myself to all I knew of Christ. But I didn’t know much about Christ. I wanted Jesus to be in charge of my life, and I wanted to go to heaven when I died. But there was a lot I didn’t know about him. And in my late teens, I began to come to understand more and more of the truths of the gospel and came to genuine faith at that time. But I struggled in my adult life to try to remember what I actually knew and believed when I was five years old. I ultimately came to the conclusion that I did not believe in Jesus as God’s Savior and King when I was five—that I didn’t come to understand some of those essential truths until I was an adult.

And so, back in 1998, I went forward at my church and requested true believer’s baptism. I had been immersed at the age of five, but it wasn’t true believer’s baptism because I wasn’t a real believer then. Baptism is for disciples. The Great Commission teaches us: go and make disciples, and then baptize them. I was baptized before I was a disciple of Christ. So, I requested disciple’s baptism—or believer’s baptism.

It was a shock to many people because, by that time, I had already been a pastor for ten years and a Bible college professor for two. Some thought, “Charles has lost his mind, and he’s going to be embarrassed about all this one day. He’ll really regret being baptized again.” I have not regretted that for an instant, because Christ was worthy of an act of humble obedience from a true believer, from a real disciple.

Sadly, I found out there are a lot of people in our churches who were baptized when they believed a false gospel. They didn’t believe that Jesus is God, or they didn’t believe that Jesus is Savior, or they didn’t believe that Jesus is King. They might have believed one or two of those things, but not all three. And that’s not salvation. True salvation involves confession of faith in Jesus as God, Savior, and King. If you were not baptized after that kind of confession, the good news for you is it’s not too late.

You can take that act of humble obedience. Don’t worry about being embarrassed. Don’t worry about what people will think. Publicly confess your faith in Jesus for who he really is. Some people think, “Well, yeah, Jesus died on the cross, but I’ve got to help him out. If I’m not good enough, I’ll never make it in.” When they think that, who are they really trusting as their Savior? Is it Jesus Christ, or is it themselves? Some people think Jesus is a great man and religious teacher who died on the cross for their sins. But if they don’t believe that he is God, that is not salvation. Real salvation is confessing faith in Jesus as God, as Savior, and as King.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? If you haven’t before, you have an opportunity right now to confess your faith in Jesus as God. Acknowledge him as the one who created everything that exists and wrapped himself in human flesh so that he could come into this world and live the perfect life we can’t live and die on the cross for our sin. Confess right now your faith in Jesus as the Savior. Admit you can never be good enough to earn a place in heaven, that you can only be declared righteous—not guilty—by the heavenly judge, because Jesus took your guilt and the punishment for your sin in your place. And surrender to Jesus’s authority as the King of your life. Pledge your life to his control. Make the purpose of your life to live for him—and not for yourself.

If that’s not a commitment you’ve made in the past, then it is time to publicly confess your faith in Jesus as God, Savior, and King, and request true believer’s baptism as your first act of humble obedience to your King.

Dear Father, we thank you for the clarity of the gospel according to God, for Paul’s clear teaching that there is one—and only one—gospel through which we can be saved. Thank you for his clear call for us to repent of our sins and believe in Jesus as God’s Savior and King. If any who are hearing this message now or in the future have never made that commitment, move them by your Spirit to believe the truth and be saved. In Jesus’s name, amen.