Set Apart Before the First Whistle

In 2019, sixteen-year-old Marcus Freeman Jr. sat in his father's office at Purdue, watching game film he didn't fully understand. His dad pointed at the screen and said, "See that linebacker? He was set apart before he ever took the field. The coaches had already chosen him — he just hadn't stepped into it yet."

That phrase stuck. Set apart before stepping into it.

Paul opens his letter to Rome with a staggering claim: he was "set apart for the gospel of God" — not when he started preaching, not on the Damascus road, but in the purposes of the Almighty long before. The gospel itself was "promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures." Everything was prepared in advance. The call preceded the response.

This is how God works. A promise moves through centuries of prophets, lands in a manger in Bethlehem, and arrives fully revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then that same ancient, cosmic gospel reaches down to ordinary people in Rome — tentmakers, slaves, merchants — and names them "loved by God" and "called to be saints."

Not because they earned it. Because they were set apart for it.

You walked into this sanctuary today carrying your own doubts about whether you belong in God's story. Paul's opening lines answer that question before you even ask it. The God who planned the gospel across millennia planned a place in it for you. You were called before you ever answered.