Grace & Apostleship

The following post is written by Marisa F.

“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.”
-Romans 1:1-6

Paul is writing a letter to the church in Rome and he starts by introducing himself. Paul seems to be very confident in his identity, something we all seem to desire to find. Who am I? What is my purpose or calling? What is my identity in Christ? 

What Paul says might be a little different than what we think of when looking for answers to those questions above. He says he is a servant and an apostle. Paul seems to have quite the sense of purpose in his life. He has been set apart for the gospel and this is his purpose which has been foretold throughout a large fraction of the bible called the prophets. This purpose is for Jesus Christ who came from the line of King David in the flesh and from God in the Spirit. 

The reason I bring this scripture to notice is because of the following words. We have received two things from Jesus according to the passage. The first is grace. 

As a girl who was “raised in the church,” I believed I had a pretty good understanding of grace. I knew that God loves me, that he sent his son Jesus to die for me because I am a sinner and that he is merciful and always forgiving. This is all truth, but I very much misunderstood my role in that. My lifestyle stripped away the beauty and power of God’s grace in my life as I continued to have sex with my boyfriend, get drunk with the girls and gossip like it was my job. This and much more was all in the name of grace because I knew that God would still love me and forgive me which in turn excused me to continue living the way I desired to. 

As I came to know and desire Jesus, I learned the second thing we have received through him, apostleship. Apostle means ‘sent one’ for the purpose of something. We know from this scripture that Paul was set apart and sent for the sake of the gospel. So now this sounds a little more intentional and purposeful than choosing to believe in Jesus and then living however I want to. I quickly began to swing the pendulum from ‘grace’ to ‘apostleship.’ I have a job now, something I must go and do. I was taking advantage of God’s grace so now I need to work and prove myself and get others to work and prove themselves too. I know that obedience is Jesus’ “love language” from John 14 so I better obey, do, go, be. The more I do those things, the more frustrated I become with those who are not obeying, doing, going and being disciples of Jesus. Accompanying all this action, comes strong pride in myself, my work, my obedience. Now I have forgotten the first…grace.

Then I came across this passage in my quiet time recently and realized I cannot have one without the other. It had been a pattern through my quiet times for a few months leading up to this passage. I am learning to understand that we receive them together because grace is the fuel for apostleship. We have received grace upon grace (John 1:16) which is a powerful thing. If nothing comes out of that gifted grace, there is something wrong. Neither can we obey, go, do, and be all out of our own pride. Like a car not having the ability to do what it was created to do without gasoline, we do not have the ability to be what we were created to be without the grace upon grace.

Grace fuels apostleship which produces obedience of our faith not only in ourselves, but among all nations. We need to help each other know how to receive the Lord’s amazing grace, be fueled by it to GO and learn how to obey the commands of our King and then go and help others until there is no one else. 

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” -Ephesians 2:8-10

This post was written by Marisa F.