24th May 2024

24th May 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Romans 1:7)


Message (Alan Burke)


First Posted 12th September 22


You may or may not know that Knighthoods can be stripped from their recipients. It’s not that a few hefty fellas are sent round from Buckingham Palace to pull it off from round your neck although that may happen, rather the title is stripped figuratively from the recipient. Normally this happens because you were a naughty boy as someone finds a skeleton or two hidden somewhere in your history. If the skeletons are found after you die then it is too late to strip you of your Knighthood, not that it would matter too much to you then. The reason is a simple one, a Knighthood expires when the holder dies, it cannot be posthumously revoked.


You may be sitting after reading this rolling your eyes because you knew all this already or you’re thinking would I just get to the point, or maybe you’re about to go down a rabbit hole reading about Knighthoods the rest of today, but as we spend this week thinking of this one verse there is something I want to draw out for you today. If you know and love the Lord Jesus, if you have repented and believed you have a new status and it is one that will never be revoked. So today know you are loved by God and I call you ‘saint’, you may not feel like it, you may think you’re doing a rubbish job at being a Christian, nonetheless how ever you are feeling today you are still a saint who is loved by God. 


Look now to what Paul writes, he says; ‘to those in Rome who are loved by God and called saints’. Now I know there is a lot of times that we can fall into the trap of misapplying scripture, taking it out of context, but as this is addressed to believers in Rome, what it says is for believers here today to! This can justifiably be said of all believers, for it is as applicable and as meaningful to us as it is to those whom it was first written to.


It is by the love of God that we are saved from our sin, that He has chosen to set His love on us. God loves us as His children through the blood that was shed for us in Christ, as we were bought with a price we have been redeemed, we are loved. This is the truth that we are now! This is our status! Believer, you are loved! The Creator and sustainer of all that is, the living and true God loves you! No matter how you are feeling about yourself the day you are loved by God in Christ Jesus and you are a saint, one who is sanctified, one who has been has been set apart by the Holy Spirit and called inwardly to Christ Himself.


This is such an incredible truth, that the reason why we believe, that we are Christians, is that God has set His love upon us, that we are loved by Him, that we have been redeemed from the kingdom of Satan. This is a wonderful theological truth that Paul was expressing to those in Rome and for us.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q47 What is forbidden in the first commandment?
The first commandment forbiddeth the denying, (Ps. 14:1) or not worshipping and glorifying the true God as God, (Rom. 1:21) and our God; (Ps. 81:10–11) and the giving of that worship and glory to any other, which is due to him alone. (Rom. 1:25–26)
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