Let's turn together in God's word this morning to Romans 15. And we will be looking at verses 30 to 33 this morning. Romans 15 verses 30 to 33. Romans 15 beginning in verse 30 where God's word reads as follows. I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. So far the reading from God's word this morning. May he add its blessing to our hearts. Please be seated. So as we pick up again in the book of Romans, I want to remind us of the structure. It's good to review the overall picture so that you know where Paul is ending and where he's going. So as we think about where we've been in the book of Romans, we have labored long and hard to work through this major theological section. that God, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, laid on the heart of Paul to write down. And in that theological section, there were several major themes that worked together to do the work that Paul set out to do in chapter one, verse 16, which is to share the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And so that's where Paul started. And he began with this theological section so that what we know would form a foundation to how we live. So we understand God, we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then we love our neighbor as ourselves. And that's the order in scripture, helping us to understand who God is and the theology behind God so that we can then properly live out our lives as thankful people. And so he began pointing out for us in chapters 1 through 3 just how depraved man was. Maybe we would have preferred that he began telling us how much Jesus loves us, but that's not where he starts. He starts by telling us how undeserving we are, talking to us about the extent of the depravity of man, that there's none who seeks after God, that there is none who is righteous, that God can be known in creation, but that man suppresses that truth in unrighteousness. And so at the end of chapter three, we were pretty weighed down weighed down with a burden of that accounting of the guilt of man's sin. But then in that theological section, still, Paul set before us, reminded us of that hope that we have in chapter 4 and 5, that it is not through our action that we are reconciled to God. We are justified by faith alone, meaning that when we trust in God's promises, that he not only pardons our iniquity, so he doesn't only take what is negative and remove it from our ledger, our spiritual balance sheet, so to speak, but he takes the spiritual balance sheet and he fills it with the righteousness of Christ. So he takes what's evil in us, it's sinful in us, the guilt that we have, he removes that and he replaces it with the righteousness of Christ. And that certainly is glorious and great news. But Paul doesn't only deal with us in terms of where we've been and what Christ has done for us. Now, he set before us next in chapter six and seven, the impact that that should have in our lives. We should be holy. We should not continue in sin that grace may abound. We are to walk in newness of life. And so Paul set before us this holiness, which is the call of the Christian. But he did so realistically, if you remember with me. In chapter 7, he talked about how he failed. The very things that he wanted to do, he didn't do those. And the very things he hated, those are the things he kept on doing. And there was that cry at the end, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? That was the next section in theology. It's all theology still. And then chapter eight was all about the assurance of salvation, that even though we should be holy and even though we are not as holy as we ought to be, therefore, there is now no condemnation. for those who are in Christ Jesus. And chapter eight was all about the refreshing of fallen, sinful Christian church, that God will not abandon them, that God in Christ Jesus remains faithful to His promises. And then chapter 9 through 11, there was this extended treatment that gave, in some sense, legs to the assurance of salvation. Because God showed in chapters 9 through 11 how he had been faithful to his people Israel for all the years, all the years of his promises. Every single part of his promise was fulfilled in Israel. Those who were called Those who were foreordained in some, we use that word, predestined, we use that word. The plan of God to fulfill His promise in His people, and not a single one of those people fell away. God was faithful to all of them. That was the theological section, chapter 1 through 11. And then after that, we looked at all the different ways that the Christian has a renewed life. From chapter 12 on, it's a practical section. The theology, the framework of theology has been laid and there's a practical section. It began with his general sense of how the person who is saved by grace through faith, this renewed Christian, he is to offer up his body as a living sacrifice. He is to be renewed in his mind. by the working of God in him. That's where we started with this generic call that the Christian life is a thankful life. It's a renewed life. It is a life lived by the power of God in light of all of the things that God has done for us. And after that generic call for a Christian living in sacrifice before God, we learned about how we are to live in the church setting, how we're to use our gifts, each of us. We learned about how we should live in hardships. Chapter 13, we learned about what it means to live in society under authority. We learned the obligation of loving each other. We learned life of deference in the church, how we're not to think of ourselves first, but we're to do nothing that would cause our brother or sister to stumble. We spent a long, long time thinking about that. Chapter 14, the beginning of chapter 15. And starting in chapter 15, verse 14, the Apostle Paul has embarked on his conclusion. And the conclusion of the Apostle Paul feels a lot like a Dutch goodbye. You know those goodbyes when your friends are over and it's time to go home, and the husbands don't really understand what's going on, but the wives understand what's going on. And when they say it's time to go, they don't realize that that means 30 minutes at the front door saying goodbye to each other. And the Apostle Paul is engaged in that a little bit. going into this prolonged conclusion where he is telling us about his aims, his ministry dreams. He's telling us about this collection that he has for the church in Jerusalem from the churches in Greece. And we've learned about the unity of the church in this extended goodbye that the Apostle Paul has given to us here in this letter. And in some sense, our verses today are more of Paul's final appeal to the unity of the church. From the verses that are in front of us today, we see that the Christian church serves the Lord together through prayerful service and fellowship. To learn that lesson, we're gonna look at this text in four parts. First, we're gonna see how we are united together in Christ. Second, we're gonna see how we are united together in prayer. Thirdly, we're going to see that we are united together in service. And lastly, we're going to consider how we are united together in fellowship. So the Christian church serves the Lord together through prayerful service and fellowship. Let's think together first about how we are united in Christ. There's no question about it. The sections in chapters 1 through maybe chapter 15, verse 13, were much easier in terms of life as a preacher, because the apostle Paul is giving explicit instruction. He is saying, these things are true, and then you draw applications from that. Here, as you're in this prolonged conclusion, you're deriving truths from what Paul is saying. you're looking at what Paul says and you're pulling out from that truths that are applicable to the church today. It's more of a derived lesson than an explicit lesson. We have these explicit lessons in other places in Romans, but here as we come to the conclusion, there's more derived, more implicit. And the unity of the church certainly is on Paul's mind as he works through this conclusion starting in chapter 15 and verse 14. Well, how do we derive this sense of unity from this section of Scripture? How do we derive a sense that Paul is promoting the togetherness of the church, even as he has this prolonged goodbye. Well, we see it in several places in verse 30. First of all, you notice how Paul addresses this Roman body of believers. He appeals to them as Brothers, he says, I appeal to you, brothers. Now, brothers is a term that we use in family. It is also the default term that the Bible uses to addresses the relation to address the relationship between believers, the saints. They are brothers and sisters. That is the way that scripture describes the church. It's a familial relationship, and it's based on many places in Scripture, but one place where we can turn is we can go back to where we were previously in Romans 4, where we were learning about justification by faith alone, and it says in verse 11 of chapter 4, Speaking of Abraham, he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. Why? The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well. So what we have here, a promise from God to Abraham, to all his spiritual descendants. That's the order. There's a common father who has received promises from a heavenly father, and the acceptance of these promises are the spiritual familial bond of all Christians, all believers. The spiritual bonds of our spiritual family translate into the practical aspects of life. So the church theologically is one large family, but to speak of each other as brother and sister should be much more than just lingo for us. Sometimes you get into a group and you adopt the acronyms and the lingo. If you've ever hung around military people, you know this to be true. I remember one time as a church family with the young boys of the church, we went camping and at the end of the day, all the boys were sleeping and it was me, and a bunch of military men sitting around the campfire at the end of the day. And I thought they were speaking in tongues. I mean, it was acronyms and it was not anything that I could enter into this conversation. Sometimes we can be that way as Christians. And we use that term brother and sister because we feel like we should, because we're part of the group. But it's not that kind of term. It is a term that is meant to come from the heart. It is a term that is meant to reflect our understanding of the unity that we have as God's people, that we have one Heavenly Father. And the knowledge of that one Heavenly Father comes through a recognition that in Abraham, we are all heirs of the promises that God has given to him. That we, in some sense, have a spiritual unitedness through an earthly father who has received promises from a heavenly father. And that's the thinking behind this term family, this term brothers and sisters. It is a familial term. Well, there's something else in verse 30 that speaks to us about the unity that we have as believers. Second thing, you notice in our text that Paul appeals to the brothers by the Lord Jesus Christ, but he does that in a very specific way. What does Paul say when he makes his appeal to the Lord as he's appealing to the Roman church? He doesn't say, I appeal to the Lord Jesus Christ, even though He is. He says, I appeal to our Lord Jesus Christ. See, churches can gather around all sorts of causes. Maybe they gather around a personality, a charismatic leader. Maybe they gather around a celebrity pastor. Maybe they gather around a special ministry focus. They're trying to reach a certain demographic, or they have a specific emphasis that they love about a particular church. Or maybe they gather around friendships, human relationships. They enjoy being around these kinds of people. They're sharing the same kinds of life experience. Maybe they're all young families, or they're all older folks whose children are grown. Maybe something like that. but none of those things are the basis of Christian unity. Christian unity only comes as we together recognize that we serve our Lord Jesus Christ. Christian unity is the union that all Christians have in Him. The only church that will have any real and lasting and meaningful ministry is the one who proclaims its union in Christ. The love of the Father in sending His Son, recognized to be applied by the Spirit in all who are of the church. That is the union, the unity of the church. Now, that also includes a recognition that we see in ourselves and in those people around us, the first part of Romans, Romans 1-3. and recognize that when we look at ourselves, we look at the people around us, that we say, my confidence isn't in any of these people, even though I might be confident in people and their support and their care and so on. We recognize that we are all sinners and we have all fallen short of the glory of God. And none of us deserve to call on the name of the Lord. And yet we can call on our Lord Jesus Christ, recognizing that He fulfills all these promises for His people. The Christian unity is built around being made alive and then living for the glory of God. That is true of all true churches. Now, what am I saying? It's true that there are probably some people here today who know that gospel message by heart and who don't believe a word of it. It is possible that there are many people who don't know the Lord in his churches. But let me just assume for a moment based on the public profession of those who are here, that our union together must be built on a common confession that Jesus is our Lord. That's what unites us. There may be many other good things that we can get behind together, but at some level, all of that is peripheral. What has to be central for the Church of the Lord is that He is our Lord. We are united together. in a common family. Remember from Romans 8 and verse 15 how we talked about that we are adopted into the family of God. All who are united to Christ are adopted into the family of God. In our confession of faith in chapter 12 it talks about the adoption which is our brother and sisterhood. It says there, we together have access to the throne of grace with boldness. We are unable to cry out a father, we are pitied, we are protected, we're provided for, we're chastened by him. As by a father yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption, we inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation. And we have all of that in common. because He is our Lord Jesus Christ. So it is good for us to reflect on this truth because the unity of the church in brotherhood, sisterhood, adoption, isn't just something for theory. It is something that needs to be lived out every day. What is true spiritually will undoubtedly have a practical outworking. We are not of the same family biologically, we are of the same family spiritually. And so if you are a Christian, you believe that all who are in Christ are united to that same Lord by the same faith that His Holy Spirit has applied to you, that same blood of Jesus has covered you, and that should change how you look at His people. They're not simply those who are to be endured. There are those who are to be cared for. And oh, how our family has experienced that this past week. We have learned much from all of you about what it means to be united together as a family and to care for each other as a family. But be encouraged to hold fast even more to the Lord, to be even more closely knit together, to love His people, to serve His people together, because that is the only mission of the church. So we are united in Christ, this text shows us. But this text also shows us that the church is united in its activity. From the position of Christian unity, Paul urges a specific action, and that action, in verse 30, is prayer. He urges the church to strive together with him in your prayers to God on my behalf. He calls them brothers. He appeals to them on the basis of their common Lord, but he appeals to them that they would join him, that they would join him particularly in prayer to God. Well, what is prayer? Prayer is the verbal expression of the church's common worship. It is the act of laying your desires before the Lord. It is a work that is done in the church in common. In verse 30, the apostle Paul writes, strive together with me in your prayers. It's possible to think of prayer as a uniquely private thing. Oftentimes, we might even struggle with being comfortable in praying in a corporate setting. But here, the Apostle Paul is urging this kind of corporate prayer, prayer often in Scripture. is viewed as corporate. There are moments of private prayer. For example, you can think of Peter up on the roof before he has the vision with the sheet coming down. Peter is in private prayer in that moment. But there are also lots of moments where prayer is seen as corporate, something that we do together. Even when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he teaches them to address God as our Father, first person plural. It's seen as a corporate event. Now, how can the Christian be united in prayer? Well, the Christian is united in prayer with other Christians because we are united to Christ. And part of being united to Christ is that we desire God's will to be done. And God's will is not plural, but God's will in some aspects is singular. He has a unique will for each of us to be sure. But when it comes to the prayers of the church, we're praying for God's will, which is singular for His people. That's what Jesus prayed when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed, your kingdom come and what? Your will be done. And we imitate our Savior in that prayer. We desire the will of God to be done. So when we pray, When we pray specifically together as a church, we are not hoping to persuade God by our many voices, with many different prayers, that he would see that he's missed out on something in his plan, that his will was incomplete and that we're able to supply this information to him. No, we are praying that God's will would be done. And so in some sense, our prayer is offering up our petitions unto God, but it is also praying that He would make plain to us His will, which is singular. That is the prayer of the church, that we would understand the will of God. We desire, I hope, in our prayers, only to pray things according to the will of God. Those are the only prayers that will be heard. In 1 John 5, verse 14, it says, this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And so you see that work itself out in Paul's prayer. Here in verses 31 through to the end, Paul really asked for three things in his prayer. First, he asks that he would be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, Second, he asks that his service in Jerusalem would be acceptable to the saints. And third, in verse 32, he asks that he may come to the Roman church, that he would come to them with joy and be refreshed in their company. Paul is asking his spiritual family to join him in that threefold prayer. And the first one actually shows us that part of prayer is recognizing that we don't have all the information. that there are times when we pray, we're waiting for God's will to be made known to us. When Paul prays for the protection from the unbelievers in Judea. How did that work out for Paul? Well, you read about it in Acts 21. He goes back to Jerusalem. And in verse 30 to 31, you read about how Paul had to be rescued from a mob who was beating him senseless and trying to kill him. by a Roman legion of soldiers. That's how that prayer request worked out. He wanted to go to Rome to visit with the people in Rome. How did he end up getting there? As a prisoner on a Roman ship? Different than the Apostle Paul had thought it would work out. It's part of the process of discerning the Lord's perfect will. The common desire of Christians is to know the will of God. And as we offer up our prayers, we pray with an open hand, don't we? We should. Your will be done. And as God works in our lives, we see what His will is. but there is a corporate element to the prayers of God's people. Together, we are seeking to be united in understanding the will of God. And so maybe this is a thing that we wouldn't think, this is a derived application to be sure, but isn't this a good encouragement to be part of the prayers of the church? We pray together here on the Lord's day, And that is great. I hope we're praying in our homes with our children. We're praying by ourselves, but are we part of the prayers of the church? There is an opportunity to pray together in the middle of the week. It's good for the people of God to come and pray together, to offer up their petitions together. We don't do that because we think that the number of people who are praying will persuade God to adjust His eternal decree. Nothing is more ridiculous than that idea, that we have to get more people praying so that God will change His mind. God is not persuaded by the volume of prayers that come into His presence. God does use prayer to answer, to work His will in the world. but we pray together as brothers and sisters so that we would seek things according to God's will in unity. So we are united in prayer. There is another thing in these verses that we have together where we see the unity of the church. We are united together in our service. It's part of Paul's second prayer request, really, which shows the unity of the church in its mission. He prays that his service to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints. They have a common work. They're striving together in prayer, and Paul's praying that his service for Jerusalem would be acceptable to the saints. Have you ever thought about how self-forgetful the apostle Paul can be? He is an apostle, one of 12 people in all of the world who is called by God and set apart, sent out to help all the Christians who follow understand the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he came to do. And that apostle who is sent by God, he views his mission as service to the saints. He wants his ministry to be acceptable to the saints in Jerusalem. He's not saying, I hope the people in Jerusalem recognize that what I'm doing is important. He is praying that he might be able to serve the people in Jerusalem in such a way that they would be encouraged. That same theme comes out in Ephesians 4, verse 11 and 12. He gave the apostles, it says there, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. And if that is true of Paul, who is an apostle, how much more is that true of us? How much more is that our calling? Service in the church should never be for selfish gain. It should never be a quid pro quo. Right? It is easy. To look at the church and the people in the church and to find a reason why you shouldn't serve them is very easy, because people will fail you, and people will hurt you, and people will harm you. The saints do neglect and fail people, there's no question about it, but this text is, by example, urging us to ask a different kind of question. The first question should be, Not, are the saints acceptable to me? But the first question should be, is my service acceptable to the saints? The first question is, how am I serving those who I call brother and sister? It is foundational to the Christian life. If you are united to God in Christ Jesus, service to the people of God will be a natural outworking in your life. 1 John 4, 20 tells us that. This commandment we have from Him, whoever loves God, must also love his brother. Not should also, must also love his brother. So people of God, we are to use our gifts, our talents, to serve the church of the Lord. Included in the call to love God is the call to love his people. And these two affections, saying this on purpose, these two affections cannot be separated from each other. If you do not love God's people, you will not love God. If you love God, you will love his people. Paul's prayer is that his service would be acceptable to the saints. Is that your prayer today? Or is your prayer the opposite? That the saint's service would be acceptable to you? The service of the saints is that of the church, which belongs to Christ, and He equips us to build up His body. None of this church, or any church, belongs to any one man. All of the church belongs to Christ. And then lastly, in our text, we see that as Christians we are united together in fellowship. Notice the warmth of Paul's affections for the Roman church in verse 32 and 33. He wants to come to them with joy. He wants to be refreshed by their company. Remember, Paul has never met these people. Paul has never been to the Roman church. They don't know each other personally. But is there any mistaking the love of Paul for them here in this letter at the conclusion? If it be God's will, Paul is hopeful that he will be able to visit them. And when he comes to them, it will be with joy. And when he comes to them, it will be with the expectation that he will be refreshed. And then in verse 33, you have that closing desire of Paul's that the God of peace would be with them, but with who? With not just generically them, but with you all. Paul's desire, his affection is for all of the church. Is that how you think of the members of this church? Do you pray for the presence of the God of peace for them all? As I've said before, the Bible never argues that we will connect to everybody in the same way. The Bible never argues that we will have the same depth of relationship with every person in his church. You may not even like all Christians, but you must love all Christians. You must serve all Christians. You must desire the good of all Christians. You won't like all of the members at Cliffwood in the same way or even to the same degree. But what does this text teach us? These are your brothers and sisters. You are to pray with them with one voice. You are to rejoice in the work of God who saves, and you are to pray that that work would be advanced. There is no closer bond, no closer union than the union between God's people. The last long section in Romans has been a call for unity. It really started in chapter 14 in verse 1. But we also see, apart from the explicit calls for unity in this book, we also see it in the way that Paul speaks and writes about the church here in these closing verses of chapter 15. He looks at the church as his family. And with that family, he is united in prayer as he seeks to understand the will of God. He desires it for safety. He desires it for success in his ministry. He expects fellowship together. And that is what we as God's people are to desire for each other. That is what you have demonstrated to me and to my family in this past week. It's my prayer that we would continue to demonstrate that kind of Christian unity to each other for all the days that God gives us together. Let's pray.