So we're moving on this morning in Romans. We're going to look at Romans 1, verses 8 through 13. But I would like to read just a little bit beyond that to the end of the introduction, which is in verse 17. So if you'll please stand, if you're able. and follow while I read Romans 1, 8 through 17. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. For God, whom I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel of his Son, is my witness, as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now, at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you, for I long to see you, so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far, so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even 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 for my part, 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 to faith, as it is written, that the righteous man shall live by faith. Please be seated and pray with me. Father, we thank you for the gospel, for the good news that we have receive that you have brought to us, that you have used to bring us to faith and being in a state of righteousness before you. What marvelous good news that you would save sinners. Those who were estranged, those who were your enemies have now been brought near. And such great hope we have for the future when we will be with you forever. I pray that you would bless our time this morning as we consider these verses, what the Apostle Paul has modeled for us. Help us consider how these things apply to us, how we can also pray, rejoicing in all that you are doing in other places around the world, And I want to pray specifically this morning for Tony Dopke at Calvary Baptist Church in Elgin, for their elders as they consider new leaders within the church. Give them wisdom and discernment. Thank you for all of the good things that are happening there. And every place where your name is named, your word is preached, and believed and lived out. Help me to be clear and accurate in my declaration of your word, to your glory alone, in Jesus' name, amen. So, what causes you to give thanks to God? Is there something that just spontaneously causes you to say, praise God for that. And is that something that happens to you or something that happens somewhere else? And I think we experience a mixture of the two of those. I mean, certainly when we receive some blessing or benefit, We are likely to praise God for that, to thank God for that. But I think as we grow in our faith and mature in our understanding, as we see God at work all over the world, the success of the gospel, lives changed, then we say, praise God for that. And that is what the Apostle Paul is modeling for us as he expresses his desire for those at Rome. And in one sentence that even fits on one slide this morning, here's what I think is our lesson. Spiritual maturity involves heartfelt gratitude to God for his work in other believers. longing to be with them for their growth and mutual encouragement in submission to the Lord's will and timing. And let me just go through that one more time. As we work through the text, I hope this will nicely summarize it. Spiritual maturity involves heartfelt gratitude to God for His work in other believers. longing to be with them for their growth and mutual encouragement in submission to the Lord's will and timing. So let's position ourselves within this larger body of Romans. Where were we last week? We finished up Paul's extended greeting to the believers in Rome. And you may recall that I mentioned this idea of the epistolary sandwich. And maybe that will be part of our menu this afternoon at our meal together, an epistolary sandwich. But the idea of that was that the standard greeting in ancient letters had the name of the sender first, and then who it is to, and then some sort of well-wish after that. And we saw that Paul put a lot of things in between his name and who the letter is to. And if you recall, Paul said, by the way, I'm a slave. a bondservant in the language of New American Standard. I'm a slave of Jesus Christ, and I have been sent out, called as an apostle with this message of good news, and set apart for the gospel, which, by the way, was predicted by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and it concerns his son, Son of David, by the flesh and Son of God, proven by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ, our Lord, we saw last week, who has commissioned and equipped us, given us strength, grace, and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith. is the idea of people submitting to God's goodness. It almost seems like it doesn't go, like I'm ordering you to accept this gift, but that's what God has done. He said, I command you to repent and be blessed. And yet, so much of humanity still refuses. And Paul then reminded those believers in Rome, you're called as saints. Holy One, that is your role, that is your identity in Christ. And then His standard grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And this was our summary from last time. Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have been called into fellowship with Him. because of his love and are commissioned in the service of proclaiming the gospel, the good news of God, the son to all the nations, that all people may obey the command to turn from sin and trust in Christ by faith that his name may be glorified. We remember that phrase, for the sake of his name. So in the big picture, we're still in this introductory part, and it's interesting as we look at the text, we notice that Paul says first, and so it seems like, well perhaps a good case could be made that the letter really begins in verse 8. where we're looking at, but the traditional view is the introduction extends down to verse 17 and then the main body begins in verse 18. So this morning, we're considering this idea that faith encourages faith. And we'll see this in three parts. First, we'll look at Paul's response to God's work at Rome. And his response is one of gratitude. And then, we will see his request in prayer to travel there. It is his goal. He requests earnestly that God will allow him to go there. And then finally, we'll look at his reason for going to Rome. And that is to give a gift and to be encouraged by the believers at Rome, in addition to him being able to encourage them. So let's turn again to our text in Romans chapter one. Now in verse eight, and he says again, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. You all who are in Rome is the context because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. And it's interesting to just pause for a moment and consider Paul says first. And as you know, this is a long letter. There's a lot of content here. But he says, this is what I want to say first. The first point, somewhat important, is that I'm thanking God for you. I am so grateful not to you, nothing personal, but to God for you, what he's accomplished in you. And it is true of us as well that we are thankful for one another. There are different ways that we serve one another and it's appropriate to say thank you. And one of you, I won't mention, doesn't like to hear thank you. And so I try and think of really clever ways to say thank you without saying thank you. But it's a good reminder from Paul here that we should be saying thank you, Lord. for what you are doing in the life of each person. And as I've been praying for you this week, I've tried to have that in mind and seeing your growth and how you love God's word and love to study it, and that is encouraging for me. So Paul is saying again here, first, first of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ. And what a good reminder that it is through Jesus Christ that we approach God's throne. In Ephesians, Paul spoke of the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. It is through our Lord Jesus that we have a claim to access before God. And of course, in Hebrews 4.16, The author exhorts us, therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need, which is pretty often. And we have boldness, confident access. We can confidently come before God's throne because of how cool we are. No, wrong answer. because our Lord Jesus has made the way for us. He has opened the door through his sacrifice, through his own body for us, that we can be confident before God. So Paul says, I'm thanking God through Jesus Christ for you all, you all who are in Rome, because your faith is being proclaimed. And it seems almost trivial, but it is their faith that was becoming well known. They were famous for their faith. They were now famous for their excellently executed services, the cleanliness of their facilities, the quality of their printed materials. They didn't have any of that. But what they had was faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was an encouragement to Paul. And he recognized, even though it is your faith in one sense, you didn't create that. You got that from God. It was a gift of God. And of course, we recall familiar verse, you can probably quote it from Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that, not of yourselves, I believe it's pointing back to the faith, even the faith we have, we didn't muster that up ourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one may boast. Paul wasn't excited because they were part of the same club, the same political party, had the same affiliations. No, it was deeper than that. It was their confidence in God and his word. Similar thought, of course, in Titus chapter three. Paul says he saved us, the Lord saved us. not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy. By the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. And that was true of these believers in Rome as well. They were made heirs. And though we've never met them, we're separated by centuries of time and language and culture and history, we will share the inheritance of our Savior with them. I don't know exactly how that's gonna work out, We can kind of hobnob with believers from Rome in the first century when we're all together with the Lord. So Paul is saying, I'm so thankful to God and I'm thankful to God through Jesus Christ because your faith is being proclaimed and it's being proclaimed throughout the whole world. And there's something about their position even, being in the capital of the Roman Empire, that perhaps enabled them to have a magnified effect, that people would understand there's Christians, there's followers of Christ in Rome. I heard about it from a guy who traveled there. And there was interchange among all these cities. And the famous expression you probably heard is that all roads lead to Rome. And so they were able, not even purposely, but just by virtue of their circumstances, they were able to broadcast their faith in a very righteous way. A very similar thought in 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul begins, we give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers. So now he's writing to a different church in Thessalonia. We're giving thanks to God for you. And he says later in verse eight, for the word of God has sounded forth from you. Kaboom, it's gone out. Not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth so that we have no need to say anything. We don't even need to talk about you guys because everybody knows about you already and what they know about you is your faith, your trust in God and his word. For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. How fascinating that those believers in Thessalonica, they turn to God from idols. We have to turn to God from our idols of self and other things. And we also, like they were, we're waiting for his son from heaven. And he has promised. If I go, I will come again and receive you to myself. He will snatch us away out of the grave if necessary and off of this planet. They were famous for their faith both in Rome and in Thessalonica. And we should think for a minute What is our reputation? What are we famous for? But perhaps more importantly, what do we want our reputation to be? I think what we ought to want is that we be known for believing God's word and putting it into practice. Those people over there at Bethel Baptist, they are serious about the Bible. I mean, even if somebody says those people are nuts, they take God's word seriously. That's a great reputation to have. We want to be known that way. And spiritual maturity involves heartfelt gratitude to God for his work in other believers. We should be glad not only for what's happening here, but for what's happening other places. And Paul models that for us. And we're all those who are genuine believers in preaching and teaching God's word. We're all in some sense part of the same team. We're going for the same ultimate goal, the glory of God. And so we should be encouraged when we see God at work all over. And we've looked at Paul's response to God's work at Rome. And that was again a response of gratitude. And then we'll consider his request in prayer to travel there, his goal, if you will, his request. And he says, for God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of his son is my witness. Now this is another sandwich sort of thing. We'll take a look at that in a moment. God is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you. He's not ashamed to almost be annoying before God. God will tell you, you just ask him, how often I talk about you. Always in my prayers, he says, making requests. Perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you. And Paul says there, God is my witness. God is the one I serve in my spirit. And depending on your translation, you may notice that the words preaching of the, so the whole phrase, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of his son. Those words are in italics in some translations indicating they've been added. And in some ways, I like the text without the addition. And that's the way the Greek text reads, I serve in my spirit in the gospel. I'm serving this way in the gospel of his son. and he makes these requests. So, was Paul's prayer request answered? And of course, it's a trick question, because in one sense, Paul's requests were answered. Paul saw God answer his prayers for this church in Rome in terms of their growth, in terms of their maturity, their witness. Everything that Paul wanted for them, God granted, except for visiting them. Of course, we know more than Paul knew at this moment when he wrote this letter. Isn't that interesting to think about? Paul didn't know what lay in the future, but for us, it's past history. We know, yes, Paul, you can go to Rome, courtesy of the Roman Empire. You're being brought for trial before Caesar. But Paul's prayers for their welfare, for their witness, for their strength and maturity, those prayers were answered. And Paul submitted to God's will. We see this where he mentions, perhaps now at last by the will of God, I'm praying that it's God's will for me to be able to come to you. And if we peek at the end of the letter in Romans 15, down in verse 20, Paul speaks of his heart. Romans 15, verse 20. I aspired to preach the gospel not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man's foundation." Part of Paul's apostolic calling was to be a pioneer. He wanted to go where Christ had never been named. He wanted to be the first guy to bring the gospel message. And that was a special characteristic, special desire that he had. And so that goal, that aspiration caused him to travel around a lot, but it didn't include going to Rome. And if you just hop to verse 22 for this reason, I have often been prevented from coming to you. And he saw whatever hindrance or whatever was holding him back from being able to go to Rome. This is God's providence. This is something the Lord is orchestrating. He was not mad about it. He just acknowledged, I've been prevented. But notice then in verse 23, but now, with no further place for me in these regions, What he's saying is, I've gone everywhere I know of where Christ has not been named. And so maybe now it will work out. With no further place for me in these regions, and since I have had for many years a longing to come to you, whenever I go to Spain, oh, Paul wants to go even further. Whenever I go to Spain, for I hope to see you in passing and to be helped on my way there for you when I've enjoyed your company for a while. And Paul says, if we skip all the way down to verse 29, I know when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. And what a good attitude and mindset that he had. He submitted to God's will. And one of the other places we notice this is in Acts chapter 16. We'll just look at that for a moment. Acts chapter 16. And Luke is recounting Paul's journeys. And in Acts 16, verse 6, Luke records, they passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. What an interesting thing. Paul was submitted to God and somehow directed by the Holy Spirit, no, I need you to go somewhere else. I need you to move on. Then continuing in verse seven, and after they came to Mycenae, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. This is Trinitarian, right? Because in verse six, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, and here, the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. Paul had this ambition, this desire to keep proclaiming the gospel. And as a result of that, the Lord led him. And finally, verse eight, passing by Mycenae, they came down to Troas. And verse nine, a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia, was standing and appealing to him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. When he had seen the vision, verse 10, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So all those delays and, well, we want to go here, and no, and not permitted, and it doesn't work out. But then, here, it's clear. Here's where we should go, over to Macedonia. And that opened up the continent of Europe. And so, there in Acts 16, we saw how the Lord directed Paul and redirected Paul. He had plans, he had ambitions, but he was submitted to God's will. And then we looked at Romans 15 and how he explains I've gone everywhere and now maybe when I go to Spain and I know when I come it will be in the fullness of God's blessing, it will be in God's will, that's what I'm submitted to. And as I was thinking about this, just was remembering the difference between being content and being complacent. Paul was content to be guided by the Lord, but he wasn't complacent. He didn't say, well, I guess there's nothing to do. It didn't work out, so I don't know, maybe it's time for a little break, vacation, maybe I should go back to school. No, he wasn't complacent, but he was content to be led by the Lord. And what is that in your life that maybe you have a good and a godly desire, but it seems like it's not working out, it's not coming to fruition the way that I thought? You should be content. We need to learn to be content. Paul said, I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. Paul has something to teach us in that. We need to learn to be content, but not complacent, like, okay, fine, I won't do anything. No, no, no, no. Keep the fires of godly ambition going. Don't be complacent, but be content. Sometimes that's very difficult. And there were months and years, and for whatever reason, I remember on the treadmill, I used to read the scriptures out loud, and I was just, oh, I wanna preach. I wanna be a pastor. When is it gonna happen? But I needed to learn to be content and wait for the Lord's timing. And of course, sometimes it depends on external circumstances changing. Maybe you're waiting on someone else. But I think if we're honest, most of the time, what the Lord is waiting on and what we're waiting on is something changing in me. We need to change for the Lord to be able to use us. Paul was content. He was not complacent. And this desire to go to Rome and being submitted to God's will is also reflected in verse 13 at the end of our passage. Paul said, I do not want you to be unaware It's a lovely Greek word, like without knowledge, ignorant. I don't want you to be unaware of this, that often I've planned, really, and he would say earlier, God is my witness. I've planned to come to you and have been prevented so far. There's been some sort of difficulty so that I may obtain some fruit among you, even as among the rest of the Gentiles." So Paul's starting to hint there at his desire for fruit and that God would use him to minister to them. And we can be in a state where we just think, I've got to do this. It all depends on me. And Lord, would you please remove the obstacles so that we can get to it? But the reality is, it does not depend on me. It all depends on God. And that is what Paul had learned. I don't have to be the one who comes to Rome. Paul, I think, understood and realized, but he wanted to. He wanted to be a blessing. Spiritual maturity involves submission to the Lord's will and his timing. And in his prayers, it is expressed. that he's been praying to come, but he's submitted to God's will. And so just a thought, again, about the need to change what's on the inside. Prayer changes us to become the kind of people God can use to accomplish his purposes. As I've mentioned several times, when we're praying, And praying according to God's will, we're lining ourselves up. We're like getting a new wheel alignment, a soul alignment, so that our desires are in line with God's will. And prayer helps us change to be the kind of people that God is able to use and in his timing will use. So we've seen Paul's response of gratitude to God's work at Rome. We've seen his request in prayer to travel there, his goal, I want to get there, and then finally his reason for going to Rome. I have a gift. I'm not going as a tourist. I have a gift. And Paul says in verse 11, for I long to see you. This is a compound verb in Greek, strong emphasis. I have this intense urge, longing, I want to see you. So that I can give, so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, so that you may be established. Paul felt like I can be a blessing to these people. And then he refines that. It's not just so that I can give you something. There's something I want you to give to me. That is that I may be encouraged together with you while among you. Each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. See, Paul is acknowledging that the believers at Rome have something to give him. And perhaps you've done as a extended family what we have done where you draw names and you have a gift exchange. And that way you're not buying 48 different presents. You just trade names and you have this gift exchange and sometimes it's fun. But what Paul is saying is, let's have a spiritual gift exchange. and I'll give you some encouragement, and you give me some encouragement, and we'll help one another. I'll be encouraged together with you. I'm not just gonna come and bless you with a shower of Holy Spirit blessings. No, I need and I expect to receive something from you, each of us by the other's faith. And lest you be tempted to say, well, that's all well and good for the Apostle Paul because, I mean, he's got something to give. But perhaps you have this mindset, I don't have anything to give. I'm not an encouragement to anybody. And let me just encourage you to draw a red circle and put a line through that, because that is not true. That is not the way God has designed the body of Christ to function. You have uniquely a spiritual gift from the Lord that you can, must, obediently use to help and encourage others. Every person has that. And not every person wants to be up on the platform. It would get crowded eventually. But every person has some way to encourage, to help, to stimulate to love and good deeds. And I'm so fond of Quoting 1 Peter 4, I think I'll do it again. As each of you has received a special gift, employ it. I love this wording in New American Standard. Employ it, put it to work in serving one another as stewards of the manifold grace of God. And Peter goes on to explain there's There's ways you can serve by speaking. There's ways that you can bless others by serving. And we should all be doing that. You may not like speaking with a microphone, and that is A-okay. But you need to be speaking words of encouragement, words of truth to one another, blessing one another, because That is what God has enabled you to do, gifted you to do, wants you to do. And none of us should escape serving. It's not like we can say, well, I just talk. I don't move. folding chairs or carry stuff. No, we all serve and we all speak, but we're all gifted in unique ways and combinations. And this week, I had this marvelous encouragement, and I won't be able to even make it through the story, but I got a phone call for my oldest son." And we chatted for a bit, as we do from time to time. And he mentioned, you've been talking about in your sermons ways to memorize the Bible and email and so forth. And I wanted to share with you what I'm doing. And so he talked about an app that he's using that's helping him with the scripture. It's so encouraging to hear what he's doing. And you can do that with me and with one another. There's Just a huge blessing in hearing from you. I read this in God's Word, and it was a blessing. It was a help to me. Even if it's not something that came from my sermon, don't feel like you need to say, oh, well, I got this out of your sermon. No. Totally isolated from anything you've ever said, I got this out of God's word. That's very encouraging for me to hear. You have a role to play in helping and encouraging one another. Each of us has a gifting and an obligation to love and serve one another in that way. Spiritual maturity involves longing to be with other believers for their growth and mutual encouragement. And there's just something about being together that's enhanced when we're physically together. It's great that some are able to join us on Wednesday nights here in person and There's just something about being together. And I trust that's why you're even here right now. So this whole passage, again, we see Paul demonstrating that spiritual maturity involves heartfelt gratitude to God for his work in other believers. Longing to be with them for their growth and mutual encouragement. in submission to the Lord's will and timing. Please pray with me. Father, we thank you for the encouragement of this example from the Apostle Paul. Oh, make us thankful people who rejoice when we hear of others trusting in you, demonstrating their faith. May we long to help and encourage one another and use whatever gifts we have and abilities to encourage, to stimulate one another. For all that we hope and want to accomplish for your glory, help us to be submitted to your will, to your timing. May we be content but not complacent as we submit our desires, our godly wishes to you. In Jesus' name, amen.