As we come to our fourth installment in our study of Romans 1:1 – 7, I want to remind you of the reason we are studying so slowly; the reason why we are examining these verses, word for word or phrase by phrase. The main reason we are studying this way – wringing each word and phrase out for every ounce of meaning – is because in these opening verses, in these words, in these phrases, we find a great theology of identity.

1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and 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, 5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations, 6including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, 7To 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.

PAUL REALLY DOES THINK THAT IDENTITY MATTERS

It is clear from the start that Paul is concerned with identifying himself – his credentials if you will – so that his listeners will know that they can trust his authority. But he also uses some words to describe the identity of Jesus as well as the identity of his listeners. So, yes, Paul wants to earn the trust of his listeners. But Paul also wants his listeners to trust in Jesus – to become obedient to the faith (1:5). And I also believe that he desperately wants his audience to understand their identity in Christ Jesus, just as Paul had come to understand his own identity in Christ Jesus as well.

I really do believe that Paul understood this basic principle, that all of our behavior flows out of our understanding of our own identity in Christ. This fact that our understanding of who and whose we are drives all of the living out of our lives, is something that I believe was not lost with this great apostle. He knew that God created us to be human beings not human doings.

REMEMBER PAUL’S OWN TRANSFORMATION IN IDENTITY

At one time, Paul’s treacherous and murderous, misplaced, holy pursuit of Christians, flowed out of his own self-righteous identity as a Pharisee. But now, his self-sacrificing proclamation of the gospel – for which he will die very soon – flows out of his new identity as a blood bought child of God. And I believe that Paul wants this same transformation to mark the identity of every believer in Christ Jesus; he wants us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2).

We have to remember too, that when God saved Paul on the road to Damascus, his identity – his core understanding of who he was in relation to whom he now belonged to – was radically changed. Paul, in his own words, was transformed in an instant, from being a murderer of Christians, into “a chosen instrument”, someone who had been “set apart” by God before he was even born, to belong to God and to be an ambassador for God on this earth (Acts 9:15; Gal. 1:11-17).

What we need to remember is that Paul’s identity was transformed before he ever began to be used as an instrument for the advancement of the gospel. Our identity is absolutely critical to our ability to walk in obedience. I would even say that it is impossible to obey God if we do not comprehend who we are in Christ Jesus.

IT IS FOOLISH TO IGNORE IDENTITY IN FAVOR OF ACTIVITY

Just as it would be foolish to take a kid off the street and instruct him to live as a prince (to do the things that a prince should do) without helping him to identify as the newly adopted son of a king (this new identity that transformed him from being a street kid to a prince), it would also be ridiculous for Paul to begin instructing the Roman believers how to live as blood bought children of the King of kings without laying the foundation of their identity as children of the King.

WE ARE LAYING THE FOUNDATION OF OUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST

So, you see… everything Paul says here about his identity, and about the identities of his listeners, along with the identity of Christ himself, are meant to work together, to build a foundation of our identity in Christ Jesus… even as we attempt to lay hold of these identifying characteristics apart from their accompanying behaviors.

Simply stated, I want to belabor, for many weeks, the ways in which Paul’s words in these opening verses, are meant to transform your image of who and whose you are, before we ever begin to think about what it means to become obedient to the gospel in the activity of our lives.

REMEMBERING WHERE WE HAVE BEEN

With that said, we have spent the last few weeks thinking about what it means to be a servant of Christ Jesus, and what it means to be a called child of God; bondservants and sons and daughters of the Father who gave everything to make us his own, despite our tendencies to live like prodigal sons and daughters. What a beautiful picture we have begun to paint over the last few weeks!

TO BE SET APART IS CONNECTED TO THE WORD “APOSTLE”

Now, our aim this week, is to sketch out what it means to be “set apart” as we examine Paul’s words at the very end of verse one, where he says that he has been “set apart for the gospel of God”. But, this is such an easy phrase to pass right on by, because we are inclined to once again, join what Paul is saying here about being “set apart for the gospel” with his prior statement of being “called as an apostle” which is something that seems foreign to us.

Again, I would stress, that upon the closing of the writing of Scriptures and upon the original founding of the church in the book of Acts, that there is no need for “capital A apostles”. The original “capital ‘A’ Apostles – the twelves whom Jesus physically discipled – along with the replacement for Judas in the book of Acts, as well as the Apostle Paul, were uniquely chosen and ordained by God for the work of establishing the church as well as the written Word of God that we hold in our hands.

Apostles in that original sense are no longer needed. But, as I said last week, an apostle in the “lower case a” sense, are completely appropriate for our time and day, because the word “apostle” simply means “sent one” and is typically used to describe the identity of missionaries and ordinary disciple-makers like you and I as we seek to obey the Great Commission and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.

This acknowledgement that the words Paul uses to describe himself – even in the secondary or implied meanings – have great application for every one of us, should give us great hope and expectation, that God will use this study to set us free to live out of the identity of who we truly are in Christ Jesus as God’s servants and called children of God through the work of Christ at the cross of Calvary.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SET APART?

With that said, what does it mean to be “set apart for the gospel of God”? Well, the word for the phrase “set apart” in the original language connects and overlaps with other words such as sanctified, separated, consecrated, holy, saint, special, and chosen. There is a sense in which each of these other words can be taken on their own and wrung out for all of the meaning that they have them. But for our time today, we will just kind of lump them together to see if we can make sense of what it means to be set apart, to be made holy, to be a saint, to be sanctified, to be consecrated, to be special, or to be chosen.

One other note before we dive into the Scriptures together. If you do a Google search for the meaning of the phrase “set apart” along with the meaning of those other words that I just mentioned, you will find some interesting descriptions. Hear this description and see how it lands with you:

To be set apart means to be sanctified or made holy as our being is changed or transformed so that we are now consecrated or devoted to belonging to God. It means that we have been made into saints who are now completely holy and sacred or separated to belong to God alone. It means to be delivered, or to be plucked out and rescued for the specific purpose of belonging to God.

Isn’t that description fantastic? But the question remains, how does this phrase apply to us and the picture of our own identity in Christ? What false images do we need to replace with the true image of who we are as being set apart for the gospel of God?

To try to answer those questions, we will follow our three circles of context method of studying the Bible, that we have been using over the last few weeks, and we will see where we end up at the end of our study today! We will begin by searching out what it means to be set apart in the book of Romans and then we will move on to Paul’s other letters, and then we will see what we can find in the rest of the Bible.

#1: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE “SET APART” IN ROMANS?

As we begin to search out some passages in the book of Romans, regarding what it means to be set apart, I think it is important to be as brief and concise as possible. So, I have chosen six passages to look at with you, and I will try to keep my commentary brief and just summarize at the end of each circle as the Lord allows! Let’s look at Romans 1:6 – 7first.

In Romans 1:6 – 7, Paul says that we are set apart or “called to belong to Jesus Christ”and that we are “loved by God and called to be saints”. Now, we covered in great detail what it means to be called, last week. But it also stands that to be “set apart” means that we are set apart, devoted, consecrated, or chosen to belong to Jesus, to be the objects of his affection and love, and to be saints – or holy and sanctified – perfectly washed clean.

In Romans 5:6 – 11, and specifically verse eight, we learn that we were set apart by God who “shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. The rest of the surrounding text teaches us that as God set us apart – as he pulled us out of darkness and into the marvelous of his son – he reconciled us to himself, justified us as he washed pour sins away, removing the barrio between us and himself, so that we are transformed from being his enemies into his blood bought children. We now belong to him as blood bought children!

In Romans 6:5 – 11 & 22, specifically verse 22 in context with 5 – 11, we learn that our being “set apart” means that we are fully united to Christ – in his perfect life, death, and resurrection – so that “now you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of [owned by] God, [and] the fruit you get [from this being set apart union with Christ] leads to sanctification [embodied set apartness]”. What does this mean? Because God set you apart as his blood bought child, he owns you. Sin does not own you any longer. Even when you do sin, it does not own you; you do not belong to sin.

In Romans 8, there are so many verses that can be tied into our theme of being “set apart”that we could honestly live in that chapter for the rest of our time together! But I do want to examine the other circles of context, so let me try to summarize a few of the verses from chapter 8 for us, that I think are absolutely non-negotiable when thinking about this identity of being “set apart”.

In Romans 8:9 – 11, specifically verse 9, we learn that those who have been “set apart”blood bought children of God “are not in the flesh [we do not belong to the flesh] but [we are] in the Spirit [we belong to the Spirit of the living God] if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you”. Being set apart means that we have a new belonging. We belong to the One who owns us. All other slave owners are frauds and pretenders.

In verses 14 – 17, we see that we are “set apart” as sons and daughters of God as verse 14says “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” who can cry out “Abba! Father!” as we look forward to the day where we inherit all that is ours in Christ Jesus. We are sons and daughters. Special. Treasured. Cherished. Valued beyond explanation. Priceless in the sight of our Good Father. No matter your failures… this is who you are because of whose you are.

In verses 29 – 30, we are taught that God set us apart, he devoted us, declared us, and consecrated us in his own intimate foreknowledge of us – he knew us intimately before we were even born – as he preplanned our belonging to him, so that we could be formed into the image of Christ who saved us, as he called us to himself, and justified us so that we can, again, look forward to sharing in the glory of our inheritance in Christ Jesus. You cannot tell me that what I just said is boring, of you are a Christian! The depths of richness of the truths that these verses lay out, could be swum around in for all of eternity.

This is who you are my friends! You have never been alone, even in your darkest, most shameful or embarrassing or painful moments. God was intimately with you and he knows every detail about you. You were not an afterthought or a mistake or a surprise to your Good Father who reached down and pulled you out of your shackles and set your feet on the solid ground of the work of Christ crucified, risen, and returning. God called out to you. He did not wait for you to call out to him – he called you and made you his own. God made you right. He took the active role in remaking you and continuing to remake you into the perfect image of Christ Jesus! This is who you are my friends!

Furthermore, Romans 8:38 – 39 teaches us that nothing can ever separate us (or set us apart) from the love of God in Christ Jesus, we have been “grafted in” to God’s family according to chapter 11 and we have been “transformed by the renewal” of our minds, by the mercy of God, extended to us in Christ Jesus according to chapter 12 and verses 1 – 2.

In Christ, you and I are holy and acceptable and pleasing in the sight of God the Father, who adopted us as he set us apart, and made us his own. Do you really think that your sin, your shame, your guilt, your worry, your doubt, your fear, your… whatever, owns you any longer?

Your performance was never factored into the price tag of your belonging my friends! God set you apart to belong to him despite your sinful performance issues, so that your performance could be transformed – sanctified – by your belonging! Let that sink in as we turn to our next circle of context.

#2: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE “SET APART” IN PAUL’S LETTERS?

There are five key passages in the rest of Paul’s letters that create our second circle of context regarding what it means to be “set apart” or separated, and devoted or consecrated and sanctified as God’s possessions in Christ Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9 – 11, specifically in verse 11, we learn that though we were once “unrighteous” in all of the ways we lived under the ownership of Satan, Sin, and Death, once God snatched us up out of that darkness, and set us apart as his blood-bought children, we “were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”. You and I were set apart to be totally clean, totally right, totally set apart. Your old life – the one that rears its ugly head at times – is not who you are because it no longer owns you.

Ephesians 1:4 – 5 says that when God set us apart, when he rescued us out of darkness, that he actually “chose us in him [in Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy [set apart] and blameless before him” and that God “in love… predestined us [planned beforehand] for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ”. Again, you were chosen by God. You were not an afterthought. Not a mistake. Not a surprise. God chose you. You! He chose you amidst your filth and despite your brokenness and in spite of your sin.

He set you apart, separated you from all of the unholy things that once owned you. God cleansed you. You have no guilt and no shame – you are blameless. Being set apart means that you have been adopted by the lover of your soul, who gave everything to pay the price of your ransom and adoption. Your adoption papers have been signed, sealed, and delivered by the blood of the Lamb and the hand of the Spirit in the presence of your Heavenly Father. Let that sink in!

We could probably stop right there! But we will not, because Colossians 1:21 – 22 reminds us that “you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he [Christ] has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him”.

All of the distance (alienation) between you and God, and all of your hostility towards God when you were owned by the darkness, has been destroyed by the very one you use to wage war against when you were enslaved to the darkness. You are now holy, set apart, special, chosen, blameless, and without blemish in the presence of your Heavenly Father who set you apart as his special child in the first place!!

1 Thessalonians 5:23 – 24 says, “may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you in faithful; he will surely do it”. Did you catch that? Because God has set you apart as his own, because he owns you as a father owns his children, he himself will do the work of sanctifying you – continuing to make you into an object that is holy and blameless through the shed blood and broken body of his Son.

And God does not just fix one or two broken pieces of you. He fixes you completely. You actually are already completely fixed in his sight under the blood. Your entire being is fixed. Your broken spirit is fixed. Your wounded soul is healed. Your aging body is completely fixed. You are blameless. Spotless. He is faithful… he will surely do it! This is who you are – set apart to belong to God.

Lastly, 2 Timothy 2:21 says that you and I have been “set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work”. The only reason we become unusable or unworthy – in our minds – is because we failed to see ourselves as set apart. We believe the lie that says we are unworthy, that we are too filthy, too broken, too guilty, too shameful, for God to set aside as his perfect belongings and instruments for righteousness.

Instead of living out of the identity that God has given us Christ Jesus – to be “vessels of gold and silver” (2 Tim. 2:20) – I think we try to hide the dishonorable pieces of us that we fixate upon. We sit and snuggle with the very image of the filthy thing we want nothing to do with: our shame, our guilt, our worthlessness, our sin, our fears, etc. instead of facing that image down and asking the father to reconstruct that new image as his special instruments – children – of righteousness.

Maybe we all need to do is spend some time digesting what it means to be set apart as God’s special instruments that have been washed totally clean in the blood of Jesus Christ. Maybe if we snuggled with the image of who we are in Christ Jesus… maybe if we cuddled up with the picture of the Father who gave everything to make us his own… maybe… maybe our lives would look more than a little different. Amen?

#3: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE “SET APART” IN THE O.T. & N.T.?

Now, when you survey the rest of the New Testament and the Old Testament, you will find tons of passages about this theological truth of being set apart. I want to just highlight five passages that I will not spend a lot of time on, but I would encourage you to study more on your own, just for the sake of time and space. Let us start with two from the Old Testament.

Leviticus 11:44 – 45 says “I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves [devote yourselves or set yourselves apart] therefore, and be holy, [not do holy] for I am holy… For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, [you are holy or set apart] for I am holy [set apart]”. Because God is the one who redeemed Israel from Egypt and redeems us in the blood of Jesus, Israel and we, are holy and set apart. Our set apartness is directly tied in relationship to our redemption. Redemption equals set apart as Leviticus 20:26 also confirms.

Deuteronomy 7:6 says that we “are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you [set you apart] to be a people for his treasured possession”. God does not sit in the basement in silence waiting for you to be holy enough to be with him. God himself sets you apart as his holy possession – treasured above every other living creature – to be his and his alone (Deut. 14:2).

In the New Testament, Hebrews 10:10 says that we have been set apart or “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all”. There are no do overs. What Christ did on your behalf, so that you could be set apart as new creations in Christ, has been accomplished once and for all. Your identity is completely set. Your identity is not in jeopardy. Your identity does not change because you fail. You fail because you fail to live in your true identity that has been established once and for all.

1 Peter 1:14 – 16 reinforces the “be holy as I am holy” theme we saw in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and then in chapter two and verse nine we read that as holy, set apart people, we “are a chosen race, a people for his [God’s] own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”. We do have a mandate to proclaim the glory of God’s redeeming work. But that proclamation will only flow authentically out of a deep understanding of our set apartness.

Lastly, in John 17 Jesus is praying what is commonly called his high priestly prayer for his disciples. In verses 9 – 10 he prays, “I am praying… for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine”. The language Jesus is using here is possessive language. Just in case you have missed that language all along in our study. To be set apart is to belong to the one who sets you apart. That One who owns you is the only One who has the authority over your eternal destiny.

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion, I really want to leave you on that point of truth: that and I belong to the One who set apart in the first place. If you have trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior, you belong to God. He treasures you. You are most valuable to him. He chose you. You are not a mistake. He made you his own, to be holy as he holy – perfect as he is perfect.

The problem for us if that we do not see ourselves as God sees us. We see the broken little boy or the ugly little girl we have kept locked in the dirty dark basement for so many years. The problem is that we believe that that broken little boy or that ugly little girl owns us.

The truth is, if you are a follower of Jesus, then Jesus owns you and so does your heavenly father. Your performance will never change that. On the contrary, your identity as a child of the Father is meant to change your performance. It is meant to heal you and to set you free to be who you already are.

As I sat with these truths this week, I was reminded of a song by a band named Disciple, entitled “Dear X”. I commend it to you for your ride home today. But along with that song, I took some time to try to put legs of application on this sermon for my own life. I wrote a letter that maybe some of you need to write too as you try to process everything we have learned here. Let me read it to you in hopes that the Lord will use it to set you free from whatever chains have held you for far too long.

Dear Anxiety – 

You do not own me anymore. I will not be your slave. I refuse to serve you any longer.

You got ahold of my heart and mind for a brief moment this morning as you reminded me of the pain of those closest to me, their unfaithfulness, their rejection and their murderous threats.

That is what you do though, you are a thieving, murderous, destroyer. You captivate my heart and mind with memories of past hurts and wounds, and you direct me to worry about what the future holds for me.

For 44 years you have taught me that no one can be trusted, even as you wooed me to trust you. You lurked around in the darkness of my soul, waiting for every opportunity to confirm my suspicions about not trusting anyone. You waited patiently, quietly, and deceptively, for someone to hurt me so that you could reinforce your demonic message: no one can be trusted… except you, of course… strangely, your voice always sounded like my own… so easy to hear and so easy to believe.

You constantly scream in my ear, reminding me that when I was hurt in the past, I was helpless. I could not control the pain others caused me. I had no way to stop them from doing what they did. I felt small, used, forgotten, beaten, betrayed. I felt crippled and unable to escape. I felt defenseless and unable to fight back. I felt weak and pushed aside… dismissed as a useless, unlovable, like a piece of trash.

I don’t want to feel those things. They feel unbearable, and crushing, and leave me believing that I am alone, which causes me to panic even more.

You linked arms (like links in a chain that held me as a prisoner) with the desires for relief, escape, power, acceptance, pleasure, release, and connection. You created this inner turmoil between the emotions of my experiences and the godly desires within me.

At the ages of 5 and 7yrs old, you opened a doorway in my soul to find momentary satisfaction for my unresolved fears and desires. You linked arms (again, like chain links of bandage) with an external doorway into all kinds of insidious sins.

It felt immediately exhilarating. A high so high that it far surpassed the pain and turmoil I was living with. You created this hunger. You set the bait. You clicked the shackles together.

You lied to me. You deceived me. You promised power, connection, acceptance, escape, pleasure, and relief. Your only goal was to steal my freedom, to kill my ability to heal, and to destroy my ability to fight.

On top of stealing, killing, and destroying, you added more links in the chains that held me in captivity. You unleashed shame. You poured on guilt. You force fed me worthlessness, doubt, despair, self-hatred, and defeat on top of the unresolved feelings and desires I started with.

You lied! You are a liar, Anxiety. You created the hunger. You held the plate of relief in front of me. You made promises and when the trap snapped shut, you heaped on more hurt. I was trapped by your lies for nearly forty-four years.

But, the joke’s on you sucker!!!!! 

Someone set me apart before I was even knit together in my mother’s womb.

Someone who causes even you to fear… you, Anxiety, you shake in fear at the mention of his name, because he, Jesus, made a plan to rescue me long before you got your hooks into me.

You, Anxiety, are a fraud and a deceiver.

Deep down inside, you know that your days are numbered.

You know that you are powerless to control me or harass me, because Jesus died on that cross for my sin and for my healing. Jesus set me free from your control.

Pretty soon, Anxiety, you will be remembered no longer, because Jesus left the tomb empty.

Jesus is in full control over your eternal destiny and mine.

You won’t even be a blip on the screen of my memory or my dreams.

You will get choke slammed into hell, all alone, tormented for eternity.

The defeat you tried to shackle me with, will be your eternal reality.

Me in the other hand… I have been fully known and fully loved since before the dawn of time.

I was never alone.

The truth – embodied in Christ Jesus – has and is permeating my soul; my identity.

I have been and am being set free.

I do not belong to you anymore, Anxiety. I belong to the Crucified, Risen, & Returning King!

I am locking you in a coffin by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is alive inside of me.

While darkness has been my only friend for 44+ years, today, the light of Christ has shined his spotlight on you, Anxiety.

You have nowhere to run, Anxiety! You are a pathetic, worthless, lying, little, worm. I hope the rest of your pathetic existence is spent shaking in the fear that you once controlled me with. – Goodbye, forever, Anxiety.

Here is the thing y’all, at the end of the day, being set apart means that you belong to the One who set you free. God owns you as his treasured possession – you are his wanted, chosen, adopted, perfect son or daughter. Everything else that tries to own you… needs to hear this constantly: DEAR XYZ, YOU DON’T OWN ME! – Amen!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).