Oct. 16, 2016 To Serve God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

We'll preach in a moment from the Book of Romans, chapter 1, verses 8 through 15.

That'll be our text this morning, the second in this newly begun series in the

Book of Romans, which we began, of course, last week. Before I begin, by reading the

Scripture before I begin preaching, I do feel compelled to pray for our sister,

Mary Townes, who's not here this morning. She is one of those saints who comes here so joyfully, so cheerfully, with such an optimistic demeanor whenever she is here, that when she's not here,

I sort of stand up and take notice, as we all do. I was informed by Will Bird that she couldn't come here this morning.

Of course, Will goes and picks her up and brings her here, and he informed me that the chemo that she started,

I believe it was last week, is a stronger chemo than what she had gone through previously, and it's really got her down at this point and very weakened.

So before we seek to preach from God's Word and ask

Him to bless us with the hearing of God's Word, let's do pray for Mary Townes, Heavenly Father.

We again come before you, and now on behalf of our sister, Mary, and the Townes family, we think especially of she and her husband,

Bob, both going through cancer, but especially her at this point of time, Lord, that this is her hour of need as the chemo that is to cure her of the cancer is having such an effect upon her and has made her feel so weak and so tired.

I pray, Father, that these symptoms would soon abate, that you would see fit to take them away from her. But even more than this,

Father, we pray that you would take the cancer away, that you would work good through these chemicals that are going through her body,

Father, that you would work good in her body through them and bring her to a state of health that would bring the most honor and glory to your name.

And Father, I pray by your Spirit you would be comforting her both in the inner and outer man, that in the inner man,

Father, by your Spirit you would give her comfort as your word says, and in the outer man,

Lord, that you would bring healing to her. But encourage her now, Lord, remind her that she is well loved in this place by us, that she is a part of this body, that we miss her, and Father, just do all things that would bring the most glory to you.

For our own sake, we come before you selfishly, as it were, asking for her healing and for her return to us at the soonest possible time.

But watch over the Towns family, and especially Mary at this time, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Well, let us continue in the book of Romans, chapter 1, verses 8 through 15. The Apostle Paul, these are his words to the church in Rome, and now 2 ,000 years later,

Lord willing, to the church here at Providence in Sunnyvale. 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 want you to know, 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.

You know, I get a lot of letters here at the church, and a lot of these letters explain to me how we can improve things here at Providence Bible Church, and I've gotten in a habit where I give them only a passing glance anymore.

You get used to their format. You get used to the greeting. You can discern pretty quickly that it's junk mail, or may as well be junk mail.

The paper on which it was written is the waste of some poor tree's life. It's pretty worthless most of the time.

I get mail from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, and they send me these very long letters explaining that apparently that I and we have completely missed the gospel.

We don't know what we're talking about. We don't know what the Bible's about. We don't know who Jesus Christ is or anything about God, and it goes on and on, and that's the first couple paragraphs after which

I pretty much, what's the old expression? I 86 it, I think is how they used to say that.

I've gotten letters from some Catholic churches that just plead with me to bring us back to the mother church, and if we would only repent of our having left the true church where alone is salvation, that perhaps

Mary would see fit to bring our repentance to Jesus and plead with him on our behalf that he might forgive us.

I get those kind of letters, and I toss them pretty quick. We once got a letter, this was way back, right after the previous pastor had resigned, and as many of you have heard me say this before, thirteen old people were trying to keep this church going, seeing what

God would do here, and during that time when we were just kind of skipping along with a lot of false starts and just happy at the end of a

Sunday to be able to say amen with any real meaning, this gentleman showed up, he was a very fine looking gentleman with that macho kind of Latino look that's so attractive, and we were just dying when

I saw him come in. Boy, I just really wanted to meet this guy and shake his hand and see what he had to say because he had a very erudite look about him, and he left before we were done.

About 1215, I remember him leaving, but he didn't leave us without some deposit of his visit, and in the offering box he gave us a letter, a letter like these ones

I get from the Catholic Church asking us back to the church, or the Church, the Fundamentals Church of Latter Day Saints, and this letter, after having been here for all of an hour and ten minutes, one time visit, he left us twenty -seven recommendations, twenty -seven things that we're doing wrong, not any single compliment, no encouragement, just here's what you guys are messing up, and the preaching was terrible, the songs were wrong, the accompaniment was bad, the color of the walls was wrong, twenty -seven suggestions in this letter.

So he couldn't have been worshiping with us any more than those other letters that I was speaking of, and I get them in the mailbox,

I get them in email, like most churches, we get a lot of that.

I'm not the least bit grateful for those letters, and you might ask why. I mean, it's pretty clear by the tone of my voice and the way

I describe them, why is it? Well, one reason, one big reason, is not because I think we've arrived, because I think we've surpassed the possibility of needing any improvement at all, that our theology doesn't need to be double -checked, or our methods don't need to be looked at and possibly improved, that somebody couldn't walk in here and actually have an idea that we would benefit from.

That's not the reason I dismiss them, and Lord willing, we will never see ourselves as such a church that doesn't need to hear any suggestions or improvements.

No, I ignore them because the authors of these letters are strangers to us, maybe even to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

They want to tell us what to do, but they don't even know us. They have no history here. They have no idea of our peculiar strengths or our weaknesses.

Not one of them has spent a moment getting to know us. Not one of them has introduced themselves and given us the opportunity to see in them the fruit of the gospel, which they purport to improve in us.

Well, Paul's letter to the Romans is quite the opposite of any of that, any of those posures.

Paul's Roman, Paul's letter to the Romans is diametrically different than these ones

I've just described. He writes to a church with many members who he knew very well, as we can see in the final chapter where he names them, calls them by name, and gives a greeting to them.

He writes as one known in the community of faith as a committed follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one he proclaims, one whose life is given over as few others have ever been to the service of the

Lord Jesus Christ. He writes as an apostle whose special authority has been proven in signs and wonders and miracles.

He writes as one who, having never actually visited their church, has unceasingly prayed to God on their behalf.

And he has just as relentlessly beseeched God to pave the way for him to come there. When he writes, he doesn't list out all their problems and deficiencies.

He doesn't give a 27 -point critique as the gentleman did for us. Instead, he stays on point.

He stays on point to this church who he knew, a church who knew he was committed to the church at large.

As Steve read to you in 2 Corinthians, he put his life on the line, and everybody knew that.

This is the one who writes to that church. He stays on point in this letter, not just throwing out these general criticisms, saying you've got it all wrong, you could do things better, which of course all of us could.

No, he stays on point. He stays on task. He stays on the one thing that matters, which is the gospel.

The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is all this is about. And so he writes this letter to the

Romans as one known by the Romans, even if not personally by most of them, known by them by reputation.

He was known to them. Known as one who cared about the church, known as one whose life is given over to the expansion of the church for the sake of the glory of the

God whom he serves. So he doesn't just tell them what to do in this letter, which we are just getting started in.

Now, to be personally instructed by an apostle, it must have been a marvelous and a humbling experience, especially one of Paul's reputation.

But this epistle, this letter is not some mass mailer addressed to occupant or addressed to current resident.

It is Paul's soul -bearing explanation of the gospel itself, written to a church for whom he has prayed and for whom he thanks

God. He wants to both give and to receive benefit.

For Paul, the gospel works both ways. It works two ways, benefiting messenger and hearer alike with strengthening and with mutual encouragement.

So we learn from Romans 8, or excuse me, 1, 8 -15, what it means to serve

God in the gospel of his son, Jesus Christ. Paul, having not yet been to Rome, yet he serves them in the gospel, in his prayers for them, in his prayers.

And that's verses 8 -10. And these prayers have a purpose. They are purposeful prayers.

They have something behind them. That's verses 11 -13. And the purpose, of course, is that God would grant him the opportunity to visit them.

And that when he did visit them, this encouragement and strengthening would go both ways.

And finally, verses 14 -15, he wants to propagate the gospel once he gets there.

Now I do have to stop for a moment. You who have been under my preaching for many years, you know that I don't often come up with these acrostics, the ability to give the same letter to every major section of a sermon.

I don't think that way, and I'm not that imaginative, and I truly do find myself extremely impressed with men like John MacArthur, without any contrivance, can always seem to manage it.

So I have to admit that propagate the gospel is a little bit forced. I just had to get that final

P in there. But it is going to, I hope, Lord willing, show you something about the text, because that is what

Paul will do in this last section, or its purpose in this last section of the text before us.

So his prayers, his purpose, and the propagation of the gospel, and first, of course, verses 8 -10, his prayers.

At first he says, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ. First isn't sequential, as if we're waiting for number two, three, and four, something like that.

He starts with the matter of the highest importance, which is his prayers for them, his prayers for the church.

His prayer is one of thanks to God for their widespread fame, the widespread fame of their faith.

All the world hears, of course, that's hyperbole. It doesn't mean every single person, or every nation on earth, or anything like that, because many nations hadn't heard of him.

His goal here is actually to go from Rome to Spain, to Spain where the gospel hasn't been heard.

So he says, all the world knows of your faith, he's speaking of just the widespread broadcast of the fact that there in Rome, there was a bold and vital witness to the gospel.

Even with its residence in the capital of the world's rulers. It's a great encouragement, you see, for churches to hear how

God is working through them. If Paul says all the world has heard of their faith, I think he really means the church, this small growing church.

Jesus Christ is building up his church, then as now, and they had heard of him.

In Philippi, they had heard of what's going on in Rome. In Thessalonica, they knew that in Rome there was a vital church that held to the gospel of Jesus Christ in that pagan city.

That's what he meant. And we have to remember that this is a great strengthening and encouragement to the churches to see and to know how

God is working. Not all of us minister to big congregations that are centered in major cities, like Rome would have been.

We don't know how big the congregation actually was. But the fact that they're in a major city, the major city, is clear.

But in our day, there's only one Mark Dever who preaches to a huge Baptist congregation in the capital of our country and preaches there to those who carry the weight of legislation, the purveyors of power and influence.

Yet we are encouraged by his bold witness, no less than we are, no less than we are, when we hear of a backwater church in the bayous of Louisiana that holds to the gospel.

Or when we hear of a church in the jungles of the Philippines, in the face of all kinds of opposition and physical violence, that holds to the gospel.

And we are encouraged by that. We need to remember that we give thanks to God for the faith being displayed by all the churches throughout all the world, as Paul does here for the

Romans. I thank my God for your faith. I thank God that he's given faith to you.

And I thank God that he's given a witness of himself to himself in that place. We must all, with Paul, rejoice for what

God is doing wherever he is doing it. We must all rejoice, as Paul does, whenever we hear that God is truly working through his people, wherever that may be.

The one through whom he thanks God is, of course, Jesus Christ. And this is a matter of primary importance.

In Ephesians 5 .20, for example, we're told to be found giving thanks always and for everything to God the

Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. First Corinthians 6 .11

tells us that our washing, our sanctification, our justification, in a word, our conversion, are all in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. We end our prayers in Jesus' name because it is in his name, it is he who's representing us to the

Father. And we pray in Jesus' name. We're saying that this is based upon all that he is and what he has done in Jesus' name.

It's the name and no other that ushers us into God's presence. It is that name and no other that calls us

God's ear to regard our prayers. So Paul doesn't just toss it in here in a perfunctory way, that he thanks

God in the name of Jesus Christ for the faith of the Roman church.

If you look down at verse 9, look where he writes. God is my witness whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his son.

Now calling God to witness is no small thing. He's making a solemn vow here.

Paul is putting himself on record that if what he says is false, even if only slightly, if there's any boast, if there's any human, if there's anything untrue in what he's saying, any subterfuge, any equivocation, any slight insincerity, anything like that, then what has he done?

Well, then he has taken the Lord's name in vain. He's calling God to witness that what he's saying is absolutely, without the slightest exception, completely true.

Now Paul's whole life, his unchecked and unreserved commitment to the Lord, bears out that what he says is true. He has a life that would give credibility to it, and on top of that, on top of what

Steve read to you from 2 Corinthians, showing his commitment to the gospel, as well as all that, he calls

God to witness the consistency and the fervency of his prayers for them.

2 Corinthians 11, 24 -29, which was just read to you, and Paul speaks about what he has endured for the sake of the gospel.

This is his credibility. This is part of his resume. This is why he can write to the Roman church that he's never visited as a man who would be recognized as one of the gospel.

The five times he was beaten, with the 40 lashes less one, because in Deuteronomy it says that you cannot go over 40, so they used to stop at 39 to make sure if they miscounted, they wouldn't go over and violate the law.

Beaten with rods, either the lictor rods, shipwrecked, stoned, and all these things.

Here's a man who can claim constancy in prayer because he can prove constancy in the gospel.

That nothing was allowed to get in the way of his service to God, his service to the church, his service to us in that gospel.

Nothing could dissuade him. Nothing could stop him. Now he had times of discouragement, as the rest of us do.

He had times when he had to stop and pray to God, as even Jesus Christ did. At times when he needed his strengthening, as all of us do, and yet, by God's grace, through his power, he went back and went back and went back, always into the fray.

Here's a man who can say with credibility, my prayers for you have been unceasing, and just by reputation we would nod our heads and say, yes,

I believe what he says. You and I, though, I want to make something clear.

You and I don't need to have been beaten or stoned or any of the rest of the things that are in Paul's letter here, 2

Corinthians. We don't need these things to prove our credibility. But we do need, when we say

I'll pray for you, to pray to God for the person we promised to pray for in Jesus' name.

We do need to do that when we say we will. When we say we will pray, brothers and sisters, let us be sure to pray.

And how great it would be if when I say I'll pray for you, you knew as certainly as I believe the

Romans did that Paul did pray for them. Say yes, Joe or Frank, whoever it is,

I know this to be a man of prayer, I know him or even her to be a man or a woman of their word.

And so it's not just, well, be warm and well fed, I will pray for you, and off on about my business, but someone who will indeed pray so that we can make a statement like Paul did about my unceasing prayers and simply be believed because of the reputation and the fruit of the gospel that is always evident in our life.

Prayer is service. Paul says he serves God in my spirit.

This means something like God whom I serve with all my heart or with great fervency. He say he's serving

God in this way. Serve comes from a Greek word, it's latro, latro, my pronunciation

I don't think is too good on that, but it's close enough. And what it relates to, what it brings to mind is formal service.

It's the word that was used of the priests and their service in the Old Testament. It could be translated as to serve, it could also be translated as to worship, depends on the context.

His service, at the end of verse 9, without ceasing I mention you. Verse 10, always in my prayers.

We have an example of this, I'll only name one.

The elderly woman, Anna, in Luke chapter 2, it says that she served

God with her prayer and her fasting. She served her, she worshiped God in the temple with her prayer and her fasting.

She's the one who with Simeon was looking ahead to the coming of the Messiah, who was looking for the hope of Israel to come soon.

And what

Paul's asking for in this service to God is to be granted a way to visit them.

And then he offers his thanks to God that there is even a church in Rome with such a well -known faith. As far as getting there, what does he say?

It's up to the will of God. Without ceasing, always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will

I may soon find a way to come to you. It's good to remember when we pray that the best thing to ask

God for is what Jesus teaches us. Your will be done. Oh Lord, grant that I might be able to do this or that.

Father, give healing to our dear sister. Dear God, be merciful to me. Lord, open the eyes of this person.

And then what must we say? Your will be done. We all have different idioms we use in prayer.

One of the brothers here has a way of praying when he says, and Lord, do that which would please you most.

Others say, that which brings the most glory to your name. I know I have my own idioms. I repeat them. I catch myself doing that.

I really like that. What would please you most? Would you very much what Jesus says, pray your will be done.

As Jesus said at Gethsemane, not my will but yours. As Paul says here, I want to go to Rome according to the will of God.

What was keeping him away from Rome at the time was obviously the service to the other churches he had founded.

And he couldn't just walk away from the small backwater church of Philippi or Corinth or wherever it is, backwater compared to Rome, of course, and say, well,

I've got bigger fish to fry. You know, we've done well here. You guys are on your own now.

I've given you enough. I've got to go. That wouldn't be Paul. It would be wrong to his commitment to the churches he had founded.

It would be dishonoring to God to be such a respecter of persons. Praise here that he would find a way according to the will of God.

We must always pray that way. Brothers and sisters, if you're in Christ Jesus, Peter says in chapter one of his first letter that you are a priest.

And one thing a priest does is to serve others by going to God on their behalf. It is a service to we who are the subject of your prayers, and it is a service to God who is the hope of our prayers.

Now, of course, you and I have not the faith of someone like a Paul, do we? I mean, everywhere

I look, there are people who seem to have greater faith, closer to Paul's but not quite Paul's faith. Everywhere I look, there are people whose prayers are more eloquent than mine, who cite more verses from the

Bible in their proper context. There are people who don't forget a detail, who remember which foot had the sore toe and which toe it is.

Was it the one just inside the big toe or the one just inside the little toe? They remember the name of the doctor who's going to look at Aunt Mary's toe, and when she's got her appointment and which hospital she's going to.

And I feel so inadequate compared to people who can pray with that kind of detail and that kind of memory.

Makes it seem as if they care about the person and I don't. But praise

God, none of that really matters. Praise God that what matters is the God whom we serve and that we come to him by faith in his

Son, Jesus, and that we are serving him as a spiritual act of worship. Remember that our God is bigger than our stumbling prayers.

Remember brethren, that Paul says that by praying, he is serving God in the gospel of his

Son. That when we pray in the Spirit, in our spirit, and I, again,

I think what Paul means here is with great fervency, with all my heart, I pour out my prayers on your behalf.

Let us remember, we begin our prayers with some address to the

Father whom we come to. Our Heavenly Father is very common, that's what Jesus would have in what we call the disciples or the model prayer.

And then Paul tells us we end in Jesus' name. This is service enough because Jesus Christ who did the service that makes our prayers acceptable and brings us to God.

Remember brethren, that if you pray truly to God the Father by faith in his

Son, Jesus Christ, that you are serving God. And if we forget a detail, if you forget which foot was the sore foot and which hospital she's going to on which day,

God knows. God knows. And it's God that matters.

What matters in our prayers is the God to whom we pray. Let's look second at the purpose of Paul's prayer.

That starts at verse 11 and goes to the first part of verse 13. He's got a two -fold purpose here.

One is to impart something and two, to receive something from them. Now that he says he wants to impart some spiritual gift, what he has in mind is really of a different sort than the gifts of the

Spirit in, for example, 1 Corinthians chapters 12 to 14. That doesn't mean it's a mundane or an ordinary gift that he has in mind.

He wants to strengthen them by bringing them a greater depth of understanding of God to understand better and deeper the work of his

Son Jesus and the operation of the Holy Spirit. All of which, Lord willing, we will unpack and unfold as we go through this book of Romans.

Now this may not be what we usually think of when we think of spiritual gifts, but consider for a moment that Paul was a deeply spiritual man who more than any other apostle set down the church's core doctrines and theology.

Consider that whenever a man is proclaiming God's truth in his word, he is speaking of spiritual matters.

Consider for a moment that whatever level of clarity or competence, if you're hearing

God's word, you are by that being given a spiritual gift.

Consider that Paul, like any true servant of God, is representing the God of the universe.

And so if he leaves behind some spiritual gift, we say, oh, well, it's not one of the big ones. He didn't do a big healing right here, or I'm not speaking in a different way than I did before or anything like that.

Consider that nothing that we do that is gospel -based, that comes from the foundation of God's word, that flows from us because God's spirit is in us and working in us and our concern for the church or the person we are speaking to, none of that is ordinary or everyday or in any way mundane.

We should never say, well, this one was okay, but it was no big deal. All he did was teach me more about my

Savior and God his Father. May we never be so enamored with flashiness that we miss the wonderful everyday encouragements that strengthen us in the inner man.

You see, a shot of entertainment is no substitute for encouragement towards the hard work of putting on the new man each and every day and putting off the old.

Let's remember that any time we are given a basis for doing just that, for growing in sanctification and holiness, for knowing

God better through his Son, Jesus Christ, we've received a great gift.

It's not a gift that I can actually give to you in that way, it's a gift of the Spirit of God through the mundane, through the foolishness, as Paul says later, of preaching.

If this was all that Paul brought them, would it be enough?

I mean, would that be enough if he came and all he brought them was encouragement by a greater depth of knowledge of God, by explaining to them more of the gospel on which their church was founded?

Would that be enough? Nothing exciting, no fireworks, no huge choir, just the gospel.

Would that be enough for them? We need to ask ourselves, would that be enough for us?

Is that enough for you? Just the gospel. Brethren, if a man stands here preaching a sermon or teaching

Sunday school, if all he leaves you is more about Jesus, if all you get is a reinforcement to persevere for just one more day, then he has discharged a great duty and you have cause for gratitude to man and to God because you've then received a great gift.

Paul had been given a vision of the third heaven where he heard things that were too marvelous even to repeat.

He spoke in tongues more than any other. His resume sparkled. His experience of God's power was like no others.

In Galatians 1 .12, he tells how he learned the gospel personally from Jesus Christ. Yet he, with humility, with all sincerity, he looked forward to what?

He said, I want to receive from you. I want to be blessed and encourage myself from you all.

This apostle, this apostle whose book sparked the whole

Reformation and changed the course of human history. One might argue more than anything since the cross, which of course is the greatest change in all history.

Now what does he say? That I might receive encouragement from you. I want to impart strengthening and I want to receive encouragement.

He also hopes to receive from them. Not just some platitude or contrived or some insincere way of pretending that he was on their level.

And we've all heard that. We've all heard the man who says, well, you know, by the way, if you didn't know already, this applies to me.

And there's a way of saying that, it's like, well, it doesn't really because I'm way up here and you're not, but that's not

Paul. Paul means what he says. Paul is being completely sincere.

He wants, I would even argue he needs to receive that encouragement as he goes.

He and the church at Rome, he and the church at Providence Bible Church, I and the church here in Sunnyvale, there's a shared common faith in one true

God and the one time work of his son, Jesus Christ. And God is no respecter of persons.

Anywhere a man goes, as much as he is in company with true believers, he's able to be blessed by them as much as he blesses them.

First part of verse 13 there, it explains that he has long wanted to come to Rome, but only recently found opportunity.

Now, many commentators think he's addressing here a presumed question that they in Rome might have had, that they might have even been offended by his failure to come to them earlier.

It's sort of like this, why hasn't the great apostle seen fit to come to us who are at the very heart of the world's premier empire?

Everywhere else was a sort of backwater compared to them. Theirs was the capital city. Theirs was where the emperor kept his home.

I mean, shouldn't their church have been the top priority? And so when Paul says this, some commentators think he's sort of not apologizing.

That's the wrong word. But he's explaining to them and he's trying to set down such a thought process.

Towards the end of the letter, Paul says that he had wanted for years to come there, but had been prevented.

He couldn't just leave those churches he had founded who still needed his help. That'd be the worst sort of man -pleasing, man -fearing dereliction to say to the small church in Philippi, well, off to the bigger fish that needs frying.

One might even say that had he done so, he'd have been disqualified to continue as an apostle. That would be such a dereliction of his duty and his calling.

So his purpose in Rome, very simple, is to leave them strengthened and to leave himself encouraged.

And let us never forget, brethren, whether it's preaching from this pulpit, or standing at the small lectern for Sunday school, or to lead

Wednesday night prayers, or whatever ministry this church is in where God's word is first declared, that the declarer of the word, be he a teacher or a preacher, needs the encouragement of those he is trying to strengthen.

It's never just a one -way street, and it's not, as I was alluding to before, a greater sanctified man than the rest of you all saying, oh, by the way, this applies to me.

No, not by the way, absolutely, from the beginning, without fail, this word applies to the preacher, whether it's me or anyone else who stands here, as much as to you.

And never forget, dear ones, never forget that the man standing here at every moment needs the spirit of God to hold him up and to give power to any word he speaks as long as he's speaking

God's word truly. But from you at the human level, what do we need?

What do I need? This moment is your encouragement, your prayers, you going to God.

But even now as I'm speaking, on my behalf, that my words will have gospel strength behind them.

This is Paul's purpose, let it be ours, that the preacher strengthens and receives back encouragement as he goes.

And third and last, my very proud final third

P, the propagation of the gospel. It's the last two verses, the end of verse 13 through verse 15.

That I might reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, so I'm eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Obligation comes up three more times. In verse 13 to 8, he says, Oh, no one anything except the debt, except the obligation of love.

Chapter 8 and verse 12, so then we are debtors, we are obligated not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.

In verse 15, chapter 15 verse 1, we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak.

And then twice in chapter 15 verse 27, of the obligation to share with material blessings.

Obligation or debt is not like a commercial one, like when we owe the bank our mortgage or the credit company a monthly payment.

What Paul has in mind is distinctly an ethical obligation. We'll see this when we get to those passages

I just scanned by for you really quickly, that this is just what he's arguing for, that Christians, because of the gospel, are obligated to live in a particular manner, one consistent with that gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What he means here is that he is obligated, because of the charter from Jesus Christ, to be an apostle to the

Gentiles. His debt is to him, to Jesus. And this frees us up a bit,

I think. I think this should free us up some. Paul said earlier that he served God.

Peter and John said to the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 4 verses 19 to 20, he said, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

Or as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 9, 16, for necessity is laid upon me, woe to me if I do not preach.

Of course, he meant preach the gospel. You see, we preach to men, and when we do, we take into account things like the culture in which we serve, and the worldview that we must overcome, things like that.

We try to make the gospel understandable. We try to make it applicable. If we remember who it is who obligated us to that task, we are well -guarded against compromise.

Who's my obligation to? To Jesus. First and foremost.

Now, I'm committed to you because I am your pastor to be here on Sunday and give you the gospel.

That's a commitment too. But the real obligation, the first obligation, the obligation which if I don't have first and primary and overarching everything else, if that's not there, then the second one makes no difference, that one is to Jesus Christ.

That's the obligation Paul says he has to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and to the foolish.

It's the obligation to preach to you because he is committed by Jesus Christ to do that. If we remember it's

Jesus Christ who we're obligated to, I think we have a very good guardrail of protection against compromise, against slipping over into this idea of entertainment.

It's Jesus we're obligated to to preach the gospel to the good of men's souls, to the good of souls, but for the glory of God.

Paul leaves no doubt, he leaves no one out when he says he is obligated for Christ's sake to preach to the

Greeks. What he meant by the Greeks is the cultured, the civilized.

And then he says barbarians, which means the uncouth, the uncivilized, the uncultured, the people who couldn't really even speak right.

Barbarian was a word that is onomatopoeic. I kind of dreaded having that word in my notes.

I think I got through it pretty good there. Onomatopoeic. I should have stayed with it the first time.

A word that sounds like its definition. Barbarians were those people who spoke, instead of cultured, erudite sounding

Greek, it was kind of a like ba -ba -bra -ba -ba -bar type of a sound, like a babbling sort of sound is what it was meant.

So the Greeks and the barbarians, then the wise and the foolish, which is really just another way of saying Greek or barbarian, he meant he was committed by Christ to preach to all men.

He's obligated not to the men themselves, but to Jesus Christ, as I was saying a moment ago. But whatever the case,

Paul has just stated the magnitude of his obligation in the gospel. It is to all men, without distinction or class, without social status being taken into account or anything else.

God is no respecter, nor can his servants be. So he's going to the great church in Rome, in this great city, the capital city of the empire, and he's saying,

I'm obligated by Christ as we understand. To the Romans?

Sure. And who are the Romans gathered into with? Greeks. That must sound pretty good to them.

Not Greeks or barbarians, though. Greeks and barbarians. Such are some of you.

Wise. Oh yes, he's obligated to me because I'm wise. Wise and foolish.

And such are some of you. Now even the church in Rome has no special place compared to any other.

Paul's making it very clear that this gospel, that he's going to explicate as he goes through this letter, for roughly 15 and a half more chapters from where we're at now, this gospel that he's going to try to get to Rome to explain to them in person, this gospel is all that matters.

And finally, verse 15, he says he wants to preach to them. Does that sound pretty obvious?

This just sound repetitive, like, yeah, we understand you're a preacher, you're coming, you must want to preach.

But he makes it very clear. And the lesson from here is pretty clear to us.

He's preaching to believers, is he not? Has he not said that I'm preaching to the church of Jesus Christ here in Rome?

Those who are sanctified and being sanctified, to the saints in Rome? Understand, dear ones, understand, church, that the gospel doesn't end when we jump up and say,

I believe. When all of a sudden you say, okay, Jesus Christ is my

Lord and Savior, the gospel's just gotten started. There's not a day that will go by if you truly believe in Jesus Christ, if you understand this gospel and what it means in terms of your transformation, the inner man, and growing to be more and more like Jesus Christ every day.

If we understand that aspect of the gospel, then you understand that the gospel never ends.

There's not a day goes by when you don't need the gospel. There's not a moment goes by, there's not an incident that can happen in your homes or in traffic or at work where the gospel doesn't relate to how you're going to respond.

Paul wants to preach the gospel to believers. He wants to preach those who had already committed themselves.

They probably got converted at Pentecost, at least the ones who founded the church probably came from that great

Pentecostal sermon. What did they need? They came back believing in Jesus Christ, right? What did they need to hear?

The gospel. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Have you repented of your sins, put all your faith, your hope, your trust in Him, and put all your confidence in what

He did on the cross? Are you one of those? Have you fallen to the gospel in that way?

Then what do you need? What do you need this moment? The gospel. The gospel which has saved you, the gospel which will save you, the gospel which is saving you.

We need the gospel. Paul is going to preach the gospel to those who already know the gospel.

And brethren, we never know the gospel well enough. Some of us know it better than others.

None of us knows it well enough. Not one of us. Paul served

God in the gospel of his son, and he served God by praying for this church.

That was a service to God. In this, more common

Christians like you and me are no different than the great church -planting apostle. God was served by his prayers, and he is served by your prayers.

God was served by his obedience to the gospel, and he is served by yours. God was served when he imparted to them strength to stay the course, as God is when you or I do the same for a struggling brother or sister.

God was served when Paul and the assembly in Rome encouraged one another, as he is when we do the same for each other here in this place.

May we be found serving God in the spirit, with all our hearts, in the gospel of his son

Jesus. Amen? Heavenly Father, we again thank you for bringing us together.

We thank you, Father, for this word that you have given us, and ask, Lord, that we be faithful to it and that we be found, as was the apostle, serving you as we serve one another,

Lord, in this gospel, that we be found a church praying and giving all the glory to you and thanking you,

Father, for the work that you do in all places everywhere. Thank you, Father, for Jesus Christ, for the redemption that we have in him, for the gospel you have opened our eyes to, and for the word that always shows us more and more of him.