…concerning his Son,...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 1:3-6)

When I make a proclamation in my house, I expect results. “Thus saith Dad, ‘Unload the dishwasher.’” I then wait with hopeful expectation. Later, I will open the dishwasher.  My hopes will be either fulfilled or dashed.

At the heart of his call to be an apostle (1:1) is his role as a preacher or proclaimer of the gospel of God. He points people to the promises of God in the Old Testament and how those have been fulfilled in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. But Paul is not interested in the simple passing on of information. He expects there to be fruit from his ministry of the gospel.

What does he tell us about this fruit?

• He reminds us that any fruit will be the result of the work of the Son. The ability to produce gospel fruit rests not in Paul, but in our Lord. He is the one who empowers us (grace) in our particular callings (for Paul that is apostleship) to bring about gospel results. As Paul says in another epistle, we have callings to plant and to water but God is the one who gives the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6)
• The gospel call is to obey and trust Christ - the obedience of faith. This phrase has been misunderstood by some to mean that there are two grounds of salvation. So, you need to have faith in Jesus but also do the works of the law to be right with God. The epistle to the Galatians addresses that error. What Paul intends is that faith is the ground of our salvation out of which flows obedience. This means that true faith will be demonstrated in our lives by obedience to the commands of King Jesus. Faith and obedience are connected but the order matters and they cannot be separated (the error James deals with in his epistle).
• This faith-fueled obedience is not an end in itself. Instead, it promotes the glory of God (for the sake of his name).
• The hope is to see the fruit of the gospel being produced not just in the Jews or one group of people but among all the nations. This includes the Christians in Rome (including you who are called)
• Another way of describing this fruit is that we now belong to Jesus Christ.

Saints, this speaks to us in several ways. First, it leads us to praise and thanksgiving that God has produced this gospel fruit in us. Second, it should cause us to soberly evaluate whether we see this obedience of faith growing in us. And, finally, it should free us to evangelize, knowing that our call, similar to Paul’s, is to proclaim and point people to Jesus and then leave the results to God, the only one who can bring about actual transformation. And it helps us to remember that the Great Commission is not simply to make converts (people who give some type of assent to the gospel) but to make disciples, people of faith that overflows in obedience to Jesus Christ, our Lord.