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I ask you to take your Bibles
and turn to Romans chapter 15. The title of the message is Two
Great Concerns. It's taken from Romans 15 verses
20 to 29. Verse 20 says, I make it my ambition
to preach the gospel, not where Christ has been named, lest I
build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written. Those who
have never been told of him will see. Those who have never heard
will understand. This is the reason why I have
so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer
have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed
for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing
as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once
I've enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however,
I'm going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia
and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for
the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased
to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles
have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to
be of service to them in material blessings. When therefore I've
completed this and I've delivered to them what has been collected,
I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come
to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessings of Christ." Two great concerns of the Apostle
Paul. This message is really about
what can we learn from the Apostle Paul's approach to life? And
maybe a follow-up question to that would be, why do I care? Lamar talked about dead presidents
on money. There's some reason to care about
money. Why do I care about what the
Apostle Paul learned? Well, one of the reasons to care
is found in Ephesians 2, 19-22, where it says, you are no longer
strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the
saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together
grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you also are being
built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
So why do I care? If you are part of the church,
If you are part of this building that God is building, you need
to understand that the Apostle Paul was one of the foundations
that was laid, and so we better understand how he approached
life, what concerned him, because what concerned him should concern
us if we claim to be followers of Christ. If you don't claim
to be a follower of Christ, maybe you can zone out and say, well,
you know, I really don't care. I will say to you, it won't go
well with you in this life, and particularly in the next, if
that's the approach that you take. The apostles and the prophets,
they provide the foundation for our faith. When Pastor Eric was
doing the previous message, I asked him if he was going to unpack
things in verse 16, where it talks about Him being a minister
of Christ Jesus to Gentiles, the priestly service, and he
hit some parts of it, but one part that was skipped was, he's
a minister of Christ Jesus to Gentiles. And I expected when
I studied that the word would be servant. It's not. It's a word that's only used
two times in the New Testament, and it's talking about a public
servant or an officiant, being an official role. If you know
me at all, I don't love, oh, he's the pastor. I don't love
that at all. But some churches, they'll say,
oh, he's the minister. Well, here, that's actually accurate.
He's the official representative Like you might say, us as elders,
we're official representatives. We've been placed into a place
to officiate, right? It's a role, and it's a very
accountable role. And it's another reason that
you might wanna consider why the things that concern Paul
were important, because he was a public servant serving the
church. In that way, maybe I could say,
well, in doing this, I'm a public servant serving the church. I'm
not an apostle. The apostles were uniquely gifted
by God to build the foundation. I'm trying to build on top of
that foundation. Right? You with me so far? That's
just a little bit of introduction, but these two concerns. The first
concern is the expansion of the gospel, and verses 20 to 24 unpack
that. And you might say it this way,
it's ministry to the lost. This is one of the great concerns
the Apostle Paul had. And he quotes from Isaiah 52,
15, when he says, those who have never been told of Him will see,
and those who have never heard will understand. And it's talking
about Christ. And right after that, you have
Isaiah 53, and talking about all that Christ did on the cross
for us. I make it my ambition to preach
the gospel, not where Christ has been named. This calling
that the Apostle Paul had was to go to those regions beyond.
Some people are called to reach those areas that the name of
Christ had not been named. Missionaries in general are called
to keep reaching out. Don't settle down. When we lived in Haiti, we lived
literally at the end of the road. I mean, the road stopped there,
but then there was trails. And then there was this mountain
path that Chris and I and the two little kids would go up.
It took 45 minutes to get there, and it was six miles. I'll give
you a picture of what that was like. And a friend of mine came
from the States, and we were working on that church building
up there, and I was telling him about all of the mountain churches
we were working with all around, and he said, Do you never stop
reaching out? No, because that's the call of
a missionary. That's the call. Just keep reaching
out until everybody hears. That's the call. And some people
need to keep reaching out, and that's what the Apostle Paul
was doing. And it wasn't to negate the other ministries, because
in Ephesus, he's going to send Timothy back there, and he's
going to say, there's no more need for me in these regions.
I'm going over here. Right? That's part of the call. After the message, we're going
to spend some time praying for the unreached and understanding. Last night, I went and looked
through the Joshua Project, the 100 most unreached groups in
the world. By the way, if you have an interest
in that, you probably should learn either Arabic, Hindi, or
Japanese, because most of them are in one of those three language
groups, two billion people in the world today who still are
on reach, have no gospel witness. Well, the Apostle Paul, in this
time, he's writing the Book of Romans from Corinth. And the
map kind of gives you the idea of this third missionary journey
of Paul's. And he traveled all around and
currently, from everything we can tell, he's in Corinth. He's
planning to go to Jerusalem, but he's in Corinth when he writes
this, and we know this a little bit by who carries the letter.
Phoebe carries the letter, and she lived close to the port,
close to Corinth, and Gaius is his host, and so it seems that
he's in Corinth. He writes this letter to Rome,
And then he's going on to Jerusalem. But he says this, from Jerusalem
and all the way around to, I never can say this word right, Illyricum,
I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. It's
amazing to think about this. Yep, there's no more place for
me. I have fully preached. It's the only place the New Testament
is used. I've fully preached in that whole area. It doesn't
mean every person's heard the gospel. but churches are planted
and people can reach out. So his work is done and he's
moving on. We need to understand that to
accomplish the great concerns of God, this is one of the things
that has to happen. There's gotta be some people
that do that. David Livingston in Africa, if
you ever read a story like that, just kept moving, kept moving,
kept moving. Some people God calls to do that. Most people he doesn't, but some
people he does. The church needs both. But he
says, this mission is completed. And then he says, my next mission
is Spain. I hope to see you in passing
as I go to Spain, to be helped on my journey there by you, once
I've enjoyed your company for a while. There's conjecture as to whether
Paul ever got there or not. We have nothing recorded in scripture
that tells us he did. Some church traditions say he
did. We don't know for sure, but this was his plan. That other
mission, for me, that's done. He'll keep writing letters and
things, but he's not going to go back there anymore. And he's
planning to go on to Spain. And this is one of the reasons
he's writing this letter to the Romans. Think about it. He started
in Antioch. God sent him out. He went through
all of these regions. Now he believes God's calling
him to Spain. Well, Spain is too far from Antioch
He's starting a new base of operations in Rome, in the center of the
Roman Empire. Just think about what has happened
with the gospel in the 30 years recorded in the book of Acts. Starting as this little group
of people in Jerusalem, and then spreading to Antioch and then
to all of these regions. And now he's writing 20 to 30
years later and saying, OK, now that's done. Let's move on. Let's
keep moving. We need to understand the church
is built on the foundation of global outreach. A question for you, a question
for us. In what ways are you involved in contributing to the
global outreach of The Church of Jesus Christ? I'm part of the missions team.
We have to think about these kinds of things. As I said, we'll
be praying about some of the groups that we work among. We
need to understand that the majority of Christian work is done among
reached people, and rightly so. Rightly so, because you need
ministry among people. Most of the New Testament is
about that. The letters to the various churches, it's about
that, but we can't have just one concern. We need to have
two concerns. We need to have concerns for
reaching the lost, the least, and also then a care for the
saints. The next portion is about care
for the saints. Ministry among the found. We
have ministry among the lost, and we have ministry among the
found. When babies are born, anyone who's raised children
knows that's when the work starts. When people come to Christ, in
some ways, that's when the work starts. And that's what, as I
said, most of the New Testament is about, ministry, care for
the saints. He says, at present, however,
I'm going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints. He had this
big vision for reaching Spain, but he also had this vision for
caring for the saints. We need to unpack this word,
saints, because you might have a wrong understanding of what
that word means. In our culture, sainthood is
something that's given to dead people because they've lived
so well. But that's not what the Bible
says. It's used 19 times to describe living people. Romans 1-7 says,
to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be
saints, set apart, sacred, holy. If you are in Christ today, if
you've placed your faith and trust in Christ, God calls you
and me saints. I remember when I first grasped
this, and by the way, you know, the church at Corinth, I mean,
we see these terrible things in Corinth, and it says, the
church in Corinth, to those sanctified in Jesus Christ, called to be
saints together with all those who have ever placed Every place
called upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, called to be saints.
It's something God calls you to. He places you in Christ,
He sets you apart, and He sees you as a saint. So I could look
over at the Eichmanns and I could say, Saint James, you know. You
know, St. Amy, you know, I could look at
my wife, St. Chris, you know, this is legitimate
to say. I remember the first time I grasped
that, and we were in this church, and this one guy had just come
to Christ, and he was really struggling. His name was Charles,
and I wrote him a note, and I started out by saying, St. Charles. And
he brought it, he said, now wait a minute, I'm not that good.
I said, according to the Bible, you are, right? According to
the Bible, you are. That's how God sees you, as set
apart Do you see yourself as set apart, called to be holy? That's who Paul says, this is
a group of people that I'm getting ready to go to Jerusalem to help,
to bring aid to the saints. The care for the church. So you have to ask a question
if we're learning from Paul, in what ways did Paul care for
the saints? Well, it says in verse 24, I hope to see you in
passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there
by you, once I've enjoyed your company for a while. I love that. Once I've enjoyed your company
for a while. If you've ever been in situations
where you were alone, where you've been embattled, and you think
about what Paul went through, And now he gets to hang out with
like-minded, precious saints. There's an enjoyment there. These particular people, most
of them he has not yet met face-to-face, a few of them. One of the ways you care for
the saints is by enjoying being with them. Right? That's one of the ways. Enjoying
being with them. But if you go back to Romans
1, he gave some other ways he planned. He wanted to strengthen
the saints. For I long to see you that I
may impart to you some spiritual gifts to strengthen you. You
know, it's very easy to become beaten down, weakened, on this message. Hopefully this
message is part of strengthening you. It's funny, it strengthens
me when I work on it. It's kind of like what they say
about guys who build houses. Builders build houses and houses
build builders. The process of building the building
makes you stronger. The process of me studying makes
me stronger and thinking about, how in the world can I say this
in such a way that it's actually helpful to the people who are
listening? We need to be strengthening one
another by the Word of God, by spending time together, enjoying
fellowship. In verse 12, he says, mutual
encouragement among the saints, that we may be mutually encouraged
by each other's faith, both yours and mine. Now think about Paul,
whether he had ever been married and his wife died or whatever,
he's single, he's traveling, he's been beaten, he's been stoned,
he's been in prison, all of these things. Mutual encouragement. Don't ever
look at any of us, no matter what realm we have within the
body of Christ, and think that we don't need encouragement,
and that it's to be reciprocal. Last week at the Deacon Retreat,
Marshall led on Sunday, and he talked about, tell me stories
about when you've been encouraged. Yeah, it was really a neat time
just to listen and talk about ways other people have encouraged
us, and it caused me to reflect on a couple of really difficult
times in my life, and someone coming alongside and encouraging
me. That's part of what the body
of Christ is to be about. This is what it means to care
for the saints, to enjoy fellowship, to be strengthened, to have mutual
encouragement, but then also to meet pressing needs. The Apostle Paul, he's gathering
money to take to the poor believers in Jerusalem. That's what he's
doing. And there's kind of a history
of that and the church taking care of those who were struggling. But I want you to hear this for
all of us. The Apostle Paul wrote this to
Titus in setting up churches. He said, let our people learn
to devote themselves to good works. so as to help cases of
urgent need and not be unfruitful. One of the great cares and concerns
is we should be about meeting urgent needs. That should be
a priority for us as individuals, for us as a church. What are we about? It's not about
self-focus. It's about meeting pressing needs. Now, several times the believers
in Jerusalem faced difficult times, and the Apostle Paul took
up contributions and took them for the people in Jerusalem.
It was one of his meeting pressing needs. But listen to this from
2 Corinthians 9, 12 to 14, when he talks about the results of
meeting these pressing needs and these people giving. For
the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs
of the saints, but it's also overflowing in many thanksgivings
to God. By their approval of this service,
they will glorify God because of your submission that comes
from your confession of the gospel of Christ. And the generosity
of your contribution for them and for all others will they
long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace
of God upon you. The meeting of pressing needs. We have a sister church relationship
with a church called Mon Chretien in the northwest of Haiti. By
God's grace, hopefully in August, they'll be able to get into their
new building and get out of the heat and the dust and everything
that they've put up with for the last 20 years after their
building was destroyed. The UN built a road and destroyed
their building because of where it directed the water for the
last 20 years. I would call that a pressing
need. Those people pray for us regularly. And they know how
to live by faith and they know how to pray. Getting involved
in meeting pressing needs builds a reciprocal relationship that
we may not fully understand until eternity, right? Meeting pressing
needs, but pressing needs, they can be something as simple as,
okay, my neighbor's dying. How do I help them? That was
a conversation I had with a guy yesterday. I've got two neighbors
who are dying. Can you tell me how to talk to
them? Meeting pressing needs. They
come in many different ways. As I was preparing this message,
I was thinking about these two great concerns. If you look at
our core values, they're woven. These two great concerns are
woven through these core values, and they lead to the greatest
concern, greatest goal of all. To the only wise God be glory
forevermore through Christ Jesus. The celebrating and worship.
These two great concerns woven together in our core values lead
us to worshiping God through our Lord Jesus Christ, celebrating
Christ in worship. In what ways? Are you caring for the saints
of the church of Jesus Christ? The care of the saints is central
to the building up, right? It's absolutely central to the
building of the church of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, I will build
my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
And that includes outreach, but it definitely includes a lot
of ministry one to another. In what ways are you caring for
the saints of the church of Jesus Christ? Well, these are the two
great concerns that Paul had, and he had plans. When you look
at the latter part, he says, When therefore I've completed
this and delivered to them what has been collected, I'll leave
for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you,
I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. So he
had these plans. This next map, it's the map you
saw earlier. His plans are, okay, I'm over
here in Corinth, and I'm gonna travel back, and I'm gonna get
there, and I'm gonna get to Jerusalem. And the latter part of the book
of Acts records that. He has plans. Oh, it sounds all
nice and neat. The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps. What can you learn from
the Apostle Paul? You make your plans, but God's
going to establish your steps. This map shows you how his steps
were established. Oh, a couple years in prison. Oh, shipwrecked. Prisoner taken
to Rome. I'm pretty sure that's not how
he envisioned his plans going. But he was not upset by it long-term. I was thinking about this, what
is it about us making our plans and then God establishing our
steps that very often upsets us? Very often takes us into
downward spirals. What is it about that that often
impacts us in that way? I was talking to someone recently,
I said, you know, the character of God is clearly revealed in
Scripture. I mean, if you don't understand
the character of God, you're not reading your Bible, or you're
not believing it or something. I will never leave you, I will
never forsake you. All these verses about the character
of God, but God's direction in our lives, now we see in a mirror
dimly. We don't see God's direction
in our lives clearly like we see the character of God. You
know, Apostle Paul, he's trying to go into Bithynia and these
various places, and the Lord keeps him from going there in
Acts 16 and said, oh, I want you to go over here. Okay, you
know, these plans here, they aren't going to happen at all
like this. My wife and I were discussing
what we've experienced in that, and we kind of have this saying.
In Haiti, about 10% of what you plan actually happens. It's just
a really, really difficult place. You know what a key phrase we
learned in Haiti was? Lord willing. Lord willing. In Guyana, it was maybe 50%,
right? So we had a lot of years we kind
of were used to, yeah, we make our plans, but you know, there'll
be a change of plans, right? You know, the plans have changed. Okay, get over it. Get over it. I think one of our problems as
Americans is about 95% of what you plan happens. It's a very
well-ordered society and praise God for that, but you can start
to think like something terrible has happened if your plans change.
It didn't. God just redirected your steps. How long does it take you to
get there? When you think about the Apostle
Paul, he has this change of plans, several years of imprisonment.
You know what we got from that? The prison epistles. We got from
that what Pastor Eric finished with two weeks ago, double joy. That's what we got. That's the
kind of things he wrote when his plans changed. It probably
took him a bit of time to adjust, right? Probably took him a bit
of a time to adjust. But adjust he did. He didn't
go into, oh, poorest me, and oh, it's a terrible thing. He
didn't go in. You don't see any of that, which
you often see with American Christians. Not so much with Haitian Christians. Just to point that out. People who've lived with great
difficulty tend to be more joyful. What can we learn from the Apostle
Paul? What can we learn from Haitian
Christians? How long does it take you? Do you ever align your mindset
to align with the mind of Christ? What can you learn from the Apostle
Paul's approach to life?
Two Great Concerns
Series ROMANS (An Expository Study)
Paul has two great concerns in terms of his approach to life. He is concerned with the expansion of the gospel and the care of the saints. What can we learn from Paul's approach to life?
| Sermon ID | 417251711176125 |
| Duration | 30:51 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Romans 15:20-29 |
| Language | English |
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