Romans 1:8-15

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Romans 1:8-15 Joshua Huggins Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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All right, Romans 1, verse 15.
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First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
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For God is my witness, whom I serve, and my spirit in the gospel of his Son. And without ceasing,
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I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow, by God's will,
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I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
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I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented, in order that I might reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the
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Gentiles. I am under obligation to both Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
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So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome.
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First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
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Paul starts this section, the word first, not necessarily because there is a second, but to draw our attention to the rest of the paragraph and what he's about to say.
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He's emphasizing the fact that he is unceasing in his thanksgivings for God and for the church.
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This is something that should distinguish us from unbelievers, thanksgiving.
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I know from my own past, I was incapable of giving thanks to God for anything in sincerity, you know.
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Might say it here, you might say it there, but with a sincere heart, you can't.
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But we should be marked out now, like the first century church was, for our faithfulness and for our thanksgiving to God.
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The church now, as it was then, should be a model to the world, and it still is.
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The issue in large part is that the church, the
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Catholic church, the universal church, is unfortunately in this country overshadowed
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It's hard to see and hear the true church when the worldly church is standing in front of it, and that is partly due to us.
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Do not believe that we have been loud enough. I think that there are a lot of us who are very loud and tell the truth enough that we get in trouble, which is to be expected.
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But as a whole, I think we can be a lot louder. I'd also like to point out the fact that Paul says he gives thanks through Christ, Jesus.
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Why does he say it like this? Why does he give thanks through Jesus? Well, it's because we are saved by faith in Christ.
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Not our own merit, but His. He is our mediator. Our king, our priest, making intercession for us always with the
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Father. No one can come to the
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Father except through Christ. This is the necessity for Him being fully man and fully
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God so that He can mediate between us and the
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Father. Representing both sides. Verse nine.
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Well, God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing,
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I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
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Paul says here, or sorry, Paul gives confirmation here of the previous verse and of the second clause of this sentence by saying that God is witness to the fact that He gives thanks.
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Also, that He serves in His spirit in the gospel of His Son, referring to the second person of the
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Trinity, to Christ. This is the second time in two verses that there's reference to the gospel.
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To point that out, that this is Romans. Romans drips with it. For I long to see you, that I may impart some spiritual gift to strengthen you.
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Paul is saying here that he wants to see them so that he can teach them and encourage them and that they, by their faith in God, might encourage him.
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Paul is saying that he is patiently waiting to see them so that he can impart a gift.
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The gift he wants to give them is most likely a teaching, an insight, not tongues or healing due to the context of the passage.
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It's made clear. But that it might strengthen them, most likely in their faith.
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Paul most definitely is not speaking of secret knowledge either, but his own personal insight into the gospel.
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Interestingly, this is the job of every minister. Every teacher, not to simply give truths and cold doctrine and hard facts, but to lay it out in such a way, especially in a sermon that it connects.
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It's pointed out and made definitely more personal.
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Like, if you've ever shared the gospel with someone, you inevitably come across this question.
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If God is so good, why is there so much evil in the world? This is made more clear with the knowledge of sin.
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The knowledge of sin and how it works in the world is made more clear within the doctrines of total depravity.
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People do the evil things that they do in their sin. Because they are evil from birth.
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Well, conception of a sin nature. It's the job of a teacher to add clarity.
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Verse 12, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
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Here, how the church is supposed, this is how the church is supposed to operate.
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Members of the body come together to strengthen one another. Iron sharpens iron, as it were.
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The communion of the saints is not just about coming together to listen to a sermon for 20 or 30 minutes.
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It's about coming together to encourage and to strengthen one another in our faith and in our obedience.
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Pointing this out, Calvin says, for there is no one so void of gifts in the church who is not able to contribute something to our benefit.
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But we are hindered by our envy and by our pride from gathering such fruits for one another.
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How many times has a brother or a sister pointed out something as anyone in your life pointed out a flaw or an error?
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And what is your instant reaction to it? Right? That's what we're here for.
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That's why we come in part, that's why we come together. Verse 13.
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I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented in order that I might reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the
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Gentiles. Here, he is literally pointing out the fact that he doesn't want them to be ignorant.
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He's like, I want you to know that he's been trying to come to them for quite some time, but he gives no reason.
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After all, Paul's a Roman. Talked about that last week.
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It's a very coveted position to have as a Roman citizen. Paul can literally go anywhere in the known world and no one can tell him no.
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So what hindered him?
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Was it the enemy, perhaps? It is very easy to point to 1
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Thessalonians 2 .18, because we wanted to come to you,
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I, Paul, again and again, but Satan hindered us. Here, he gives a flat reason as to why he couldn't make it to Thessalonica.
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He was hindered by the enemy. However, let's take a look, let's take a step back and look at everything.
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Thessalonians is written somewhere between AD 49 and AD 51.
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Romans is written in AD 57. It's quite a lot of time that has passed for Paul in between that letter, that epistle, and this one.
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If we look at Romans chapter 15, 17 and 23,
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Paul says this, In Christ Jesus then,
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I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what
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Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience. By word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the
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Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to,
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I mess this word up every time, I apologize. Illyricum, here we go.
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I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ, and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.
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This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer have any room to work in these regions, since I have longed for many years to come to you,
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I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while.
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There's a large break between chapter one and chapter 15, but Paul does give us a reason as to why he was hindered.
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Whether or not the enemy, Satan, was involved in keeping
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Paul from going to Rome, it was part of God's sovereign plan that Paul wouldn't until he was meant to.
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Paul had other work to do. He couldn't go there until he had finished sharing the
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Gospels in these places, but they had never heard it, because that was
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God's plan, not Paul's. God used
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Paul to proclaim the Gospel, so let us not forget that we serve an almighty, sovereign
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God. As your book pointed out, God does have a very wonderful plan for all of our lives.
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It's just not our plan. It is his. He had a wonderful plan for Paul's life, full of shipwrecks, and prison, and eventual martyrdom, but without Paul, we would not have the church that we have.
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God could have very well used someone else other than Paul, but he chose Paul to do it, and I'll sidebar here for a minute.
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I read an article some time ago that was talking about the,
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I'm gonna say invention of literature, but the arbiter, the person who was contributed to the most credit for Western literature that we have today.
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You know how that person is, Paul? The way our literature is is because of Paul.
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The first book that was printed, the first book ever that wasn't printed, first codex books as we know them today, not scrolls, was the
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Bible. First books that were printed, the Bibles, and in part, we have
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Paul to thank for that. But Paul, I'll get to that a little bit later, in verse 14.
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I'm under obligation to both Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
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Here, where it says obligation in some of our Bibles, the word in the
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Greek that's translated as obligation is ophiletes, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, it's more directly, it means debtor, he is in debt.
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On the one hand, he is saying that he is in debt to Christ, which he is, as we all are.
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And on the other, he is expressing this obligation to share the gospel with unbelievers because it was given to him.
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Greek and non -Greek, the educated and the uneducated, because Christ saved him, he must also go and share the same good news with everyone else, whether they are of high stature or low stature.
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Paul is compelled to take it to those who are in need of it, who are in need of hearing the name by which all men are saved.
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Jesus Christ, our Lord, lived for us, died for us, and rose again.
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Verse 15, I'm eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Why does
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Paul want to preach the gospel to those in Rome, in the church who have already been educated? The same reason we do it today.
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Do you not believe that you could pick up a rather profitable exegetical book on preaching and writing sermons that did not tell you somewhere in there needs to be the gospel?
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Not necessarily because they absolutely, because they weren't saved and needed to hear it again, but because we all always need to hear it again.
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We must be consistently reminded of the preeminence of the gospel.
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There is no news under the sun that is greater or more powerful than that of the gospel of God.
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The church exists for the communion of the saints and for the purpose of worship and glorification of God and for the propagation of the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We are sinners that deserve punishment for breaking God's law. There is no doubt about that.
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We have all lied and hated and lusted and stolen. We are all guilty of murder.
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In one way or another, the wages of sin is death, which is what we deserve.
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An eternity in the hell for offending an eternal God. But in the greatest display of love between the
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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, God has elected to save some out for himself.
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Father promised his Son, the people. And by grace, we are saved through faith, a trust in the work and person of Jesus Christ, God the
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Son on the cross and in the resurrection. We are saved from God's righteous wrath.
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And we will spend an eternity glorifying and worshiping him in a new creation.
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We once were enemies and now are grateful and joyful servants.
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I will argue until the end of my days that there is no miracle greater than that one.
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That God can take an evil, wretched human being who hates him, an enemy, and turn him into a servant.
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How can we not share this news, especially with the people we love? So we go out this week and we'd be reminded that we once were under God's wrath.
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And that a great major, or sorry, that a great majority of people we come into contact with still are, honestly, the vast majority of people.
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There should be more than enough reason to tell them there is a way of redemption, that the work has been done.
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That is the one unique thing if you've ever studied anything other than Christianity.
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There are all other religions, and then there is Christianity. Everywhere else, and I forgot who
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I heard this from, but it's perfect. Every other religion says do this, right?
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Every single one. Christianity says this has been done.
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The work's done already, to do for us. Now, that's not to say let's go all
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Antinomian and stone it. No, we still have to be obedient. The great thing is is that we have the
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Holy Spirit who's indwelt in us, and he makes us be obedient. There should be more than enough reason.
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The fact that you were saved should be more than enough reason to want to save others.
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This is what propels Paul. This is what he's talking about, his obligation. The purpose of the church is for the communion of the saints so that we can worship
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God and glorify him and educate one another for the propagation of the truth of the gospel in grace, and let us not forget love, because the gospel is already offensive.
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If you are a sinner and you hear the gospel, if you do not believe that it is offensive,
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I do not believe that you have heard it correctly, there is no need for us to add offense to it.
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We do not have to dress the gospel up in pretty clothes and lights.
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We do not have to soften it so that it's easier to the ears. We also do not need to add offense.
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I myself am guilty of that. Calvinists call it cage stage, where you want to walk around and shake people because they don't understand.
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I had a tendency to be less gracious as I should have been.
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I'm paraphrasing him, but Paul Washer did point out in listening to him.
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He mentioned how wonderful it was to be in a place. And he's been to Peru and China and all of these different places that were absolutely hostile to the gospel of God.
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But how wonderful it was to watch the gospel do its work, to share the gospel and not defend it.
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That sounds a little funny. But what he was talking about was going to a place, sharing the gospel and watching the gospel do what the gospel does.
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So let us go forth this week in truth and love and grace.
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And let us remember that we serve sovereign God. So even what we take first as failure or our own mistakes, which it might be, irregardless of the cause, it's his plan, not ours.