WWUTT 1156 Mutually Encouraged by Each Other's Faith? (Romans 1:11-15)

We need one another in the body of Christ for building up one another's faith. You help to build up another Christian in their sanctification, and they help to build you up in yours when we understand the text.

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Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

Paul’s Desire to Reach the Roman Church

Thank you, Becky. We just started up a study in the book of Romans, and I'll pick up where we left off last week. But first, beginning with our reading, this is Romans 1, verses 8 through 17. The Apostle Paul wrote, First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow, by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you.

For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. 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 may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. So last week, Wednesday, would have been the last lesson that I did, and the verses that we looked at were verses 8, 9, and 10, and that was about as far as I got, and we stopped there.

Mutual Encouragement, Apostolic Ministry, and Perseverance in Faith

So we're really picking up in verse 11 today, and it's there that Paul says, for I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. One of the points that I made on the Wednesday lesson last week is that Paul had desired to come to Rome and preach there to the church that had started up there in this city, but he had been prevented from getting there.

And it wasn't that Satan had prevented him. Actually, as we look into the book of Acts, we see it was the Spirit of God, Christ himself had prevented Paul from getting to Rome. But one of the things providentially that we can see in God's plan is that had Paul not been prevented from getting to Rome, he wouldn't have written this letter.

He wrote this to them so that he might be able to teach them from afar until God would allow him an opportunity to be able to get there to the city. And this letter has been a blessing to the church for 2 ,000 years by the providence of God, by the hand of or through the hand of Paul, the Holy Spirit guiding him to say exactly what God wanted him to say.

And we have this this theologically deep, rich letter, perhaps the deepest letter that we have in the New Testament, expounding upon the doctrine of justification by faith. When it comes to understanding that we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone, the very place where you will begin as a foundation and building up that doctrine is going to be right here in the book of Romans.

Paul teaching the Jews and the Gentiles there in the church in Rome that we are justified by faith alone in Christ. Now there were some other things providentially that happened in this church that would even lead to Paul focusing on that doctrine in particular.

And one of the things regarding this church was a disagreement that existed between the Jews and the Gentiles. There was at one point where the church was only Jews, Jewish converts who would have been converted to Christianity when they were in Jerusalem at Pentecost.

And then leaving there and coming back to their homes in Rome, they would have started the church there. These Jews who are now Christians and followers of Christ, they started the church and then teaching the gospel to Gentiles.

They were Gentiles in Rome who became Christians and became part of this church as well. Well, then you had an emperor who expelled the Jews from Rome. So all you had left in the church there in Rome during this exile were the Gentiles.

It was Gentile Christians. That's all there were that were there. Then when Nero became emperor and the Jews were allowed to come back into Rome, you had the Jews coming back into a church that looked totally different than when they left it.

Now there were a whole lot more Gentiles. And there came to be disagreements between Jews and Gentiles on how certain things were to be understood, especially pertaining to the law, Jewish practices, and even an understanding of who the Jews were in the eyes of God versus who the Gentiles were in the eyes of God.

Because see, the Jews believed that they were the chosen people of God. So therefore God's favor is upon them. The Gentiles thought, well, the Jews rejected Christ and the gifts of his grace have now been extended to the Gentiles.

So really God's favor is upon the Gentiles. But Paul makes a point here, as we're going to see getting deeper into chapter one, that God shows no partiality. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, whether Jew or Greek, all have sinned.

And all are under the judgment of God until they come to faith in Christ by the grace of God as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And that point he really hammers home when we get to Romans chapter three.

But because of this disagreement that existed between the Jew and the Gentile there in the church in Rome, that was another motivating factor behind the apostle Paul writing what it is that he wrote here.

Now, once again, he's writing to a church that he's never been to before, and he shows his affection for them in this introduction to say, hey, just because you're a church that I didn't plant and I've never met you before, that doesn't mean that I love you any less than these churches that I have been personally associated with or I did plant.

So he says here, I earnestly pray for you always in my prayers without ceasing, asking that somehow by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. And then verse 11 again, for I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.

Now, that spiritual gifting in particular is going to be the gift of apostleship. That goes back to what we read in the introduction of the letter in Romans 1 5. Through Christ, we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

So the apostle Paul wants to be able to bring that gift to them, which they have not yet. They haven't yet had an apostle come to them to teach them. Paul wants to be the one to do that. And we would expect that Paul would be the one to do that, because even at Paul's conversion in Acts chapter nine, the Lord said to Ananias, I'm going to show him how much he how much he must suffer for my name.

He's going to come before kings and rulers. He's going to be my witness to Jew and Gentile. He's going to go to the Gentiles with the gospel of Christ. So it only makes sense that Paul would be the one to come to Rome, like the capital of the Gentiles, to preach the gospel to them.

So he mentions that it's through Christ we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name. So when Paul says here, I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.

That spiritual gift in particular is going to be the gift of apostleship. But notice then verse 12, that is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. So though he wants to come to them to share this gift of apostleship, this grace that Christ has bestowed upon him for the strengthening, strengthening and encouraging of these Christians in Rome who are under persecution, by the way, I mean, we've already seen that with the expulsion of the Jews.

That's persecution in and of itself. So these Christians being persecuted because they won't bow the knee to Caesar, they will proclaim only Christ is Lord, not Caesar is Lord. So they're being persecuted for that.

Paul wants to come to them to give them a spiritual gift to strengthen them, to use his apostleship that he might encourage, sanctify, grow them more in their faith. But then he says in this humility here, in the humility of this statement in verse 12, that is that we may be mutually encouraged, you and I, you can encourage me.

Remember earlier he said that I thank God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world, though they are being persecuted right there in the capital city of the world.

They're being persecuted for their faith, yet they remain steadfast and strong. And this witness in this testimony is being spoken about through all the world. But one of the fears that Paul surely had is that many of the Christians, the professing Christians there may get discouraged because of the persecution that they were undergoing and they may fall away.

So his eagerness to want to come to them to strengthen their faith all the more that they would not fall into despair and thus lose heart. And of course, I'm not speaking in the sense that a person can lose their faith.

You've heard me speak on this many times before. If you've been a regular listener to the broadcast, a person who is truly saved in Christ will be saved. They're never going to fall away from their faith.

But those who profess faith and yet it's not genuine, it hasn't taken root as Jesus illustrates in the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13. If that hasn't taken root in good soil, then they may show some sort of exuberance in the gospel for a time.

But then once things get hard, when they get persecuted, when the pressures of the world come upon them, they wither and fall away or die out really because they have no root in themselves. They need root in something sure, something more nourishing than themselves.

And that, of course, is going to be the good soil of the Holy Spirit that has been tilled up in their heart. So Paul, in this sense, would be speaking from that human perspective, not from the heavenly perspective of a person who's truly saved is always going to be saved.

But from the human perspective in that we can't know who is truly saved and who is not. I don't think that it is for us to be walking around judging whether or not a person is truly, genuinely, eternally saved just based on what we can perceive.

Like, is this person really a Christian or really not? I don't know, because we haven't gotten to the end yet. That would be very ungracious of us to actually interact with one another in that way, as if we can't really know who all the Christians are.

If they are professing faith in Christ, if they show a genuineness in wanting to repent of sin and be cleansed from all unrighteousness, a lover of Christ who desires God, who wants to grow in godliness and Christ likeness, then we have no reason to discount them or disregard them as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

But there are going to be those who had fooled us. We thought for a time that they were genuine in their faith, and then they ended up falling away because their faith was never truly genuine. They just had a passing opinion, and they were able to play the game and do it well because in their human heart, they probably did have a certain excitement for the word for a time, but then it wasn't genuine because they couldn't endure in it to the end.

So their heart was not truly transformed in Christ. So Paul's concern here is not in that heavenly sense. It's not from the heavenly perspective. It's strictly from the earthly perspective, that these who are Christians in Rome would not become weak in their faith because of the persecution that they're enduring.

He wants to be able to come and strengthen them. Remember something that Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, when he was talking about all the struggles that he endures, that he goes through as an apostle, as one who preaches the gospel and wins souls for the kingdom.

He says, on top of all the other persecutions that he goes through, 2 Corinthians 11, 28, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. So on top of all the persecutions, the bodily persecutions that he experiences, and even the emotional heartbreak that he might experience at the hands of those who pretended to be friends, but then they really were not, on top of all of that, there's that daily pressure on his anxiety for all the churches, that Paul is regularly praying for those churches that they would remain in the faith.

Lord, keep them steadfast in your word, is what Paul would pray for them. So God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers.

The church in Rome is included in that anxiety that Paul has for these Christians, that they would remain in the faith and that they would not fall away. So he wants to come to them to strengthen them, but also that they have an opportunity to strengthen him.

And that doesn't mean that Paul is concerned that he's going to be weak and fall away in the faith. He really has the assurance of Christ that that is not going to happen. A sealing of the Holy Spirit, that he is not going to fall away.

He will remain and endure to the end. The Lord has told him so. He will finish that good and faithful servant. So what does Paul mean here by you may impart some spiritual gift to me? We may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

Or remember, as he has that anxiety for other believers, that they would remain in the faith and finish strong to the end to see these Christians enduring persecution and yet remaining steadfast. Would that not be an encouragement to the Apostle Paul?

He's no doubt seen many places where Christians have been persecuted, been persecuted, and they have not endured. The Corinthians were barely being persecuted and they were falling away for all other kinds of reasons, trying to marry themselves to the world instead of pursuing holiness.

And so Paul had to sternly rebuke them for some of the things that were happening with that church, with the church in Rome. They were, of course, being persecuted by Rome and yet were remaining steadfast.

So there's going to be some encouragement there by these Christians that Paul would be able to get there and he would see these Christians who are pursuing holiness in the midst of a pagan city and that they are being uplifted and hopeful because of the promises that are in Christ, though they're being persecuted and some of them are being put to death.

Like they're coming to church on Sunday and there may be one or two persons less in that church than there was the week before because they had been put to death over the course of the week. They didn't bow the knee to Caesar and declare Caesar is Lord.

Rather, they declared that Christ is Lord and they were killed because of it. And even though this church witnesses their brothers and sisters being put to death, yet they remain and their numbers still grow, being added daily as they love the gospel and preach the gospel, even in a city that is very hostile to the gospel, to Christianity.

So Paul wants to have a strengthening among this people, the churches that are being persecuted for their faith. The Thessalonians, that was another church that was being persecuted for their faith. Not every church was persecuted to the degree that Christians were regularly being put to death, but the one in Rome certainly was.

So he wants to have this, this encouragement, this mutual building up of one another, both your faith and mine. In this way, Paul himself is even being sanctified by the encouragement of the saints that come to him.

And then there's just, I mean, it's just being encouraged by the fact that you're excited to see one another. You know, Paul comes into the city, the Christians are like an apostle is here and they're so rejoicing to see Paul and embracing him.

How could you not be encouraged by something like that? So of course, Paul desires that as well, that they may actually see one another. It wouldn't just be through letter, but they would enjoy one another's company and laugh and build each other up, even crying and weeping and mourning together.

And Paul, of course, having that opportunity to teach them in the word of Christ that was given to him. So then verse 13, I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented.

We've talked about that in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. That's Paul saying, I want to be able to come and preach the gospel there in Rome. I know you've done it.

There are Christians who've been made because of the gospel that you've proclaimed. But I want to be able to come as well and reap some harvest among the unconverted who are there in the capital city of the world.

What an encouragement that would be to see the Holy Spirit of God move in such a way. But Paul says in verse 14, this is kind of explaining why he has not been to them yet. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians and barbarians, not like some uneducated Neanderthal.

It was just the group of people that did not speak Greek, maybe because the Koine Greek was not pressed upon them to learn like it was in other areas. Other territories could have been because of a movement of people, whatever reason.

It wasn't like the barbarians were thought of as Ooga Booga guys who are still playing around in caves and trying to light fires by rubbing sticks together. That wasn't who the barbarians were. It was just a word that simply meant that they were not Greek speakers, just like the word Gentile is a non-Jew.

So a barbarian was a non-Greek speaker. But Paul is saying, I'm under obligation to the Greeks, those who are part of the Roman Empire and even the barbarians, those who may be outside the Roman Empire, both to the wise and to the foolish, those who know and have come to understand and are therefore being built up in their faith as they're growing in sanctification and to the foolish, those who do not yet know, those who might otherwise see the gospel as a stumbling block and a stone of offense.

I'm under obligation to preach to all. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. And that's that continued encouragement and building up of this church that he's never been to before.

He's never met this group of people, but he includes them as being just as instrumental to the advancement of the gospel, just as much a part of the building up of the church as any of these other places that Paul has been to and spoken with.

So I'm eager to come and preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Everyone needs the gospel. It doesn't matter whether you are a Christian or you are not a Christian. You need to hear the gospel.

Those who are not Christians need to hear the gospel so that they would turn from their sin and believe and so be saved. Those who are Christians need the gospel to continually be sanctified. And because we're weak in our flesh, we need to have constant reminders of the promises of God that are given to us in Christ Jesus.

So we would not be led astray by the world. So we would not fall into despair. So we would not stumble into hopelessness. But we would continually be reminded that God is good and he has shown his goodness through Jesus Christ who died for our sins, conquered the grave, rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life with God.

We will not fall into the hopelessness of just the crazy things that go on in this world. And who knows what the news is going to be like from one day to the next. The world's news is constantly bad news.

When you turn on the news, it's just bad news to keep you in despair or fear so you'll come back to the news again tomorrow hoping to hear some sort of resolution to the bad news that you heard the day before.

It's just a constant stream of bad news. But the gospel is good news. That's literally what the word means. And it's a continual stream of reminders that God is good. We are forgiven our sins in Christ alone.

And we are promised an entrance into his eternal kingdom if we believe by faith. We'll continue on with this understanding of being justified by faith. For the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith as we come back to our study of Romans tomorrow. For I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of salvation to everyone who believes. Amen.

Closing Exhortation and Ministry Sign-Off

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