So let's take our Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 1. And we're going to read from verse 8 through to verse 15, Romans chapter 1. First, I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request, if by some means now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you, but was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. I'm a debtor both to the Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So as much as in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. Amen. Let's begin with prayer. Thank you, O Lord, that we have this, your most holy word before us, and that we can have time to apply our minds to its truths. We ask now, most gracious God, that you draw near and that you would give help, that your Holy Spirit would come and attend upon the word, that you would open the eyes of our understanding and enable us to understand this truth to be able to apply it to our lives, that we would be changed as we hear your word. Please, O Lord, bless us now as we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. I remember reading in one of Peter Masters' books or articles his recollection of a time that William Hendrickson, the great pastor and Bible commentator of the last century, came to London to speak at the London School of Theology. And one afternoon, I think they had some spare time, and during that time, Dr. Masters gave William Hendrickson a tour by car around London to show him some of the sites. some of the great historic buildings I would imagine, places like Tower of London, St Paul's Cathedral, House of Parliament, places like that. And as he did so, he said, he was talking to him about these things as they went along, and Professor Hendrickson listened carefully and would nod from time to time, but he said very little during the whole tour. But when the subject came around to the Bible and the things of God and the gospel, then he would begin to talk animatedly and excitedly. It was as if it was the gospel that was the drive and the energy and the passion within the man. And I wonder if that wasn't something very much like unto the spirit of the apostle Paul and this desire that we read of that Paul has to go to Rome. Why was it Paul wanted to go to Rome? To see some of the great buildings, the Senate, the Colosseum, that kind of thing. Now the reason primarily Paul wanted to go to Rome was the Gospel, to see the impact of the Gospel, to meet those who had themselves been saved by the Gospel, those who are now themselves seeking to make known and publish abroad the Gospel. That's why Paul wanted to go, that's what really drove and animated this man, the Apostle Paul, it was that he might be able to go to Rome and be involved in this work of preaching and teaching and spreading abroad the glorious, saving gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's something we see coming through in these opening verses. These are sometimes referred to as the quiet verses of the epistle, verses 8 through 15, before we get to the deep, profound doctrinal content that really takes off from verse 16. Sometimes people can come to these verses here and just rush on rather too quickly past these but there's actually a tremendous amount that can be learnt from these verses as we get a glimpse here into the Apostle's heart and we see in these verses what it is that really makes this man tick, his love for the people of God and his excitement at the growth of the church, his desire to come and to encourage them and to be encouraged by them And of course, this burden, this longing that he has to come and preach the gospel of Christ to those who are in the great city of Rome. All of these things we find packed into verses 8 through 15. So we're going to look at these verses today under the title, The Spiritual Qualities of a Gospel Servant. And we've got four things to note. And the first is his thankfulness for God's work, his thankfulness for God's work. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. So here is Paul, and he's writing this letter around 56 to 57 AD. He's writing from Corinth, that's the city that he's about to leave to go to Jerusalem in order to hand over that special collection that he'd received from the Gentile churches for the poor and suffering saints in Jerusalem. And his hope is that after that, he'll then be able to travel on from there to Rome, and maybe even after that to go on to Spain. And so he's writing this letter here to the Romans to introduce himself to them. He's never been there. They don't know him. He knows some of them by name, but he hasn't seen them face to face. And so he's writing here to introduce himself to them, to tell them who he is. We saw that, didn't we, in verse one. He's a servant. He's an apostle. That means he's a sent one. personally authorised and commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ himself and set apart for the gospel. That's the message that he brings. We were thinking about this last time. It's what Paul preaches. It's the gospel of God, the gospel, the good news that comes from God. Based on a promise, we said, didn't we? Many promises woven through the Old Testament, right from the beginning, from Genesis all the way through to Malachi. And then it's centered on a person, the glorious person of God's son. And then also it's given for a purpose to produce obedience to the faith and separation unto God and also for witness that they might make known this gospel in Rome. Because that's what God does. He calls us to be saints, that's separated ones, set apart ones, set apart unto God. But that doesn't mean that we're shut away from the world. No, these believers were called to be saints in... Rome, called to shine the light of the gospel into the murky spiritual darkness of Rome. And that was something which, it seems from what we read here, they had been very successful in doing. As we see there in verse 8, having given these opening greetings, Paul expresses his gratitude to God. Verse 8, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. So the church in Rome has become famous, we could say. They have famous faith. There were people now all over the Roman Empire talking about the faith of these Roman Christians. And the word you have there, the word translated reported or spoken of is a word which means to announce or to proclaim something publicly and loudly, and it's in the present tense as well, which means that this is ongoing. Even at the time of Paul's writing here, there were people throughout the empire talking about this. throughout the whole world. And when he says the whole world, he's not referring to Eskimos in the Antarctic or tribesmen in the Amazon, that kind of thing. It's the Roman Empire that he's referring to right across it from Rome all the way to the furthest most point. It was the Christians in Rome that were the talking point. The fact that there were these little churches springing up all around Roman, these groups of believers, Paul names almost two dozen of them at the end of this letter, as well as many more from different backgrounds and walks of life, not just beggars and slaves, but even those who were part of the imperial household were being saved. Roman soldiers, hard men who lived in tough, coarse environments. hostile environments, difficult place to be a Christian, yet numbers of them have come to faith. It's an amazing thing. In a city like that, Rome, notorious for its immorality, its depravity, its perversions, and its idolatry, was a center for the cult of emperor worship as well. In fact, it wouldn't be much longer after this, seven years after this letter was written, the emperor Nero would give orders to his soldiers to go and set fire to parts of Rome, and he would place the blame for that on the Christians, leading to a whole wave of persecution that would break out upon Christians in Rome. They'd be fed to wild animals. Some of them would be hung up on lampposts and set fire to make human torches. That kind of thing wasn't very far away. And yet it's in this environment that the gospel now is taking root. Men and women from all walks of life are getting saved and they're becoming bright, vibrant testimonies to the faith. And news of this is now getting out. You know, Rome was the center of the empire, was the sort of nerve center for the whole empire. People were coming and going from Rome all the time. And so they were coming into Rome, they were meeting Christians there, these newly converted men and women filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with love for God and love for their fellow man. And this was making a tremendous impact. So the news of this was then getting out to other parts of the empire that this gospel, this gospel of Jesus Christ is having an incredible impact there in Rome. The lives are being changed. People are being transformed through the gospel. Even there in that place, Rome, which was the the center, the political, cultural, economic power base of the emperor, even there people are being saved. Today it would be like us hearing about the impact of something like Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC, or maybe Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, New York City, or All Souls Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. You hear about these churches and their gospel ministry and how even in those great centres of worldly power and social, cultural influence, even in those metropolises, the gospel is taking root. It would be something like that. But remember in this situation the church in Rome didn't have an internet. In those days, they didn't have the sophisticated websites, marketing strategies, outreach programs. In those days, this is just ordinary Christians living out their faith, living and working alongside their pagan neighbors, going about their ordinary lives. And yet, as they did so, the pagan people of Rome could see there's something different. Something different about these people. What is it? What is it that makes you different? This person's got something I don't have. I mentioned Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan. I remember hearing a story about a woman who'd come along to one of their services one time. And afterwards, one of the passers went over to her and asked her why it was that she'd come along. And she told the story, and she said, well, I made a mistake in my job, a bad mistake. I should have lost my job, should have lost my career. But my boss stepped up for me and took the blame for me. And it wasn't his fault. Partly he was to blame, but it was really my fault. But he went to the director and he took the blame for me. He didn't lose his job, but he lost an awful lot of credibility in the company as a result. And so I was amazed. And I said to him, why did you do that? And he didn't really want to speak about it. He said, no, it's nothing. It's fine. But she pressed him. And in the end, he said, OK, well, I'll tell you. I'm just going to tell you this once. I'm a Christian. And Jesus Christ took the blame for me and stood in my place and took the punishment for me. And when I discovered that, that turned my whole life around and has transformed the way I live now. And when she heard him say that, she said, what church do you go to? I want to hear more about that. Tell me more about that. Now that's New York City in the 21st century. This is Rome in the first century, but the same kind of thing was going on there in the streets and marketplaces and neighborhoods of that great city as the pagan citizens of Rome were coming alongside, brushing up against the citizens of heaven and seeing their lives and seeing them act and respond in ways just like that. They were saying, what is this? Where do you get that? I've never seen anything like that. What is it that makes you like that? So that's what was going on. Dr. Lloyd-Jones in his Roman sermon on this particular text says, what a lesson in church publicity. Because that's what was doing it, wasn't it? It wasn't the website. It wasn't the cool youth program they had. It wasn't the music. It wasn't the flashy building that they had. They probably actually met in people's homes. It wasn't any of those things. What it was making the impact was the vitality, the vibrancy of their Christian lives and witness. It was causing a tremendous stir in the city of Rome and beyond. So that Paul, even in Corinth here, on his travels, he's heard about this. And he knows that people all over the empire are talking about this. And so he says here in verse eight, I thank my God for this. I thank God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. Thank God. traces it back to the first course. This is God's work. It's God himself who's done this. Through Jesus Christ, of course, all the blessings we have in this life as believers are mediated to us through him. He's the one who's worked in them there in Rome. He's opened their eyes to see their need for him. He's given them the gift of repentance and faith. He's given them the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts, to cause them to love God and to love their fellow man This is where it's all come from. Paul doesn't say, I thank you that your faith is being spoken of. He says, I thank God. It's God, isn't it? It's God's work. Robert Haldane, the old commentator, says this, Paul thus acknowledges God as the author of the gospel, not only on account of his causing it to be preached to them, but because he had actually given them grace to believe. And so that's the lesson for us. When we hear of a great work going on in another place, maybe another church experiencing great growth, we rejoice in that. We don't become envious, cynical about it. We rejoice in that. And also at the same time, we give thanks to God for that. His work. He's the one who's brought it about by his goodness and grace through the person of Jesus Christ. And that's what we see here. This is Paul in thinking about his spiritual qualities of gospel servant. That's the first thing, his thankfulness for God's work. Let's move on to a second heading here, and that is his prayerfulness for Christian growth. And here we want to look at verse nine. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. Paul here is assuring. the believers in Rome of his ongoing prayers for them, which he considers to be part of his service. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit. And the word serve there has to do with worship. It's worshipful service is what he means. And then he adds another phrase when he says in my spirit. And so the service of prayer comes from the heart. It comes from within. It's the inner man, which only God sees, of course, which is why he calls upon God as his witness to this. Only God would know this. It's his secret life. It's the hidden life. Paul is sort of taking back the curtain here. to give us an insight to what goes on inside. This is what makes him tick. This is what he's all about. This is how he uses his time. He's praying for them without ceasing. He says, I make mention of you always in my prayers. Paul is a prayer warrior for the church. And not just for this church, but many churches. And we know that because we find him using phrases like this in many of his letters. He prays for the church at Ephesus, for example. He says, not ceasing to give thanks for you and making mention of you in my prayers. the Church at Philippi. He thanked God for every remembrance of them, praying that their love might abound more and more in real knowledge and discernment. And to the Thessalonians, we give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers. And so this is Paul's focus then, not on himself or just the church that he happened to be at at the time, but he prays for a number of churches and a number of congregations throughout the first century Roman world. He carried these people on his heart, especially this church here, the Church at Rome. Look what he says, without ceasing, I make mention of you always. in my prayer. You couldn't put it more strongly than that. Paul is continually in prayer for these people and for this church. Because think about it, there was so much he needed to pray for, for them. This is a largely Gentile church. These are people who don't have the background that the converted Jews have, they don't have the familiarity with the Old Testament scriptures that they had. These are spiritual novices in many ways. And then also the fact that they're making such an impact on this city. These are people who are turning from their idols, they're coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and it's causing a tremendous stir in the empire. And so you can imagine how the devil would be provoked and antagonized by them, how he would want to disrupt and destroy that work by sending false teachers into that church or leading them back into sin so their witness is compromised and destroyed. And so you can see why Paul has got this tremendous burden to pray for them, to pray continually for them because of their strategic and yet also their vulnerable position. He determines to maintain this pattern of continual sustained prayer for them. How about you? Do you do that? Let me ask you, do you pray for people in that way? Do you have spiritual antennae, as it were, that are attuned like that so that you can notice needs in the church? Maybe individuals with difficult, challenging situations, and you see them, or you hear about them, and you determine privately, you don't make a big deal about it, you don't tell people about it, maybe you don't even tell them, but you say, that person's in a difficult situation. I'm going to make an effort to pray for that person. Regularly I'm going to pray for him, I'm going to pray for her. Maybe it's a new believer, just come to faith and yet they're from a difficult home environment or they've got a difficult work situation. Or maybe it's a student going away to college. Or perhaps it's a single mum with an awful lot on her plate and you say to yourself I'm gonna pray for her, I'm gonna pray for them, I'm gonna put their name down in my prayer journal or whatever it is that you have and on a certain day so I'm gonna make sure I pray, I'm gonna ask for God's blessing, for his help, his strength, his protection for that person. Do you do that? And for other churches as well, like Paul, did you pray for other churches? Yes, of course, you must pray for this one and pray for the leaders and the members and the young people and the ministry and pray that we'll remain faithful to the word. Yes, of course, you must pray for those things. But do you also pray for other churches in other places? Again, maybe have a list and pray for them on different days of the week or maybe a missionary in a certain place. It's a wonderful thing to do. and over time you will, you will see many wonderful answers to prayer. I remember hearing about a worker for the China Inland Missionary, this was in the 19th century, and he was going through the records for the work that was going on at mission stations across China and as he was going through these records he noticed that one mission station in particular seemed to outstrip all of the others in terms of the number of converts and the rate of spiritual growth that was recorded among believers there and he asked around and people couldn't quite figure out what it was about that particular mission station. But then Hudson Taylor came back to England one time he was fulfilling some speaking engagements and after one of the meetings a man came over to him and he got into conversation. This man was very knowledgeable about this one particular mission station. And so Hudson Taylor asked him, how can we know so much about this work? And he said, oh, for four years, I've corresponded with my missionary friend there, and he sent me the names of inquirers and seekers and converts, and every day I take them to God in prayer. That was the kind of thing that Paul did. He probably had a list like that, a long one, must have been, and he would pray constantly without ceasing. This is one of the spiritual qualities that we see here. His thankfulness for God's work, prayerfulness for Christian growth. Consider thirdly, his longing for spiritual fruit. This is verses 11 through 13. I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established. That is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. So this is Paul's longing. to come to Rome. It's a strong word, he uses it twice in verse 10 and 11 and it means really his heart ached. He longed, he yearned to see them. He hadn't been there yet. Providentially so far he's been hindered from getting there as he mentions in these verses. The way hasn't really been opened up. for him to come but he's longing he's yearning to do so why well he gives us here three reasons in these verses the first is that they might be built up that's what he says in verse 11 there that i may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established or strengthened that can be translated as built up, made strong by imparting some spiritual gift. Referring, not in the charismatic sense of someone coming along and laying on hands and passing on spiritual gifts as some have tried to interpret these verses. No, Paul here is talking about his own gift. His own apostolic gift of understanding and teaching. He wants to come and spend time among them so he can use that gift in order that they, as a group of God's people, might be built up by the teaching and ministry that he would bring. I mean, think about it. Think about what a gift that would be for the church there to have Paul the great Apostle Paul come and spend time with them, preaching and teaching and ministering regularly in their midst. What a blessing. I mean, imagine it here, isn't it? Imagine if we had one of the great preachers or pastors or conference speakers, you know, the kind of men that we listen to in our Ligonier series on Sunday morning. One of those guys was perhaps, just imagine, hypothetically, He contacted us and said, I'm going to be in the New Haven area for six months and I want to be useful while I was there. I was wondering, you know, could you use me in the church there for six months? Just maybe plug me into the schedule, preach a sermon every Sunday, midweek meeting, something like that. Imagine that. What a blessing that would be, what an encouragement to have a spiritual resource like that just suddenly show up and be there in amongst the church for six months. And that's the kind of thing that Paul is saying here, I long to come to you that I might spend some time with you and minister among you to help you, to build you up and strengthen you in your most holy faith. That's one reason he wants them to be built up. Also, he wants to be encouraged. both parties in fact, he and they mutually encouraged by each other that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. So on the one hand Paul wants to encourage them by his presence and by his preaching and teaching and counsel and all the things we just mentioned but also you know it's not just a one-way street He doesn't say, I want to come so that you can be encouraged by me, but there's not really any way that you could encourage me. No, he doesn't say anything like that. Quite the opposite. He says that I may be encouraged with you. Just being with you. I know it's going to be an encouragement to me too. And Paul needed that, didn't he? I mean, Paul the apostle was a man who had an awful lot on his shoulders. I mean, just think about the nature of his apostolic life and ministry. There were so many things that could have caused him to lose heart. And, you know, as we go through the Bible, occasionally he gives us a little insight into that, doesn't he? Especially 2 Corinthians. If Romans is the most doctrinal of the epistles, then 2 Corinthians is the most personal for sure, isn't it? Paul there, he opens his heart and shares with us something of the burden that he carried as an apostle. 2 Corinthians 4, he says there, we are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed. And then later on, after listing some of the hardships and difficulties, dangers that he had to face, 2 Corinthians 11 verse 28, he says, Besides the other things, that which comes upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches. Paul is a man with a heavy load. He was a man who was on the front line. The devil had him in his crosshairs continually. And to be like that day after day could lead to weariness and even a proneness to discouragement. And that's why he's saying here, I really long to come and be with you. Not only so that I can encourage you, but I know it, just being with you, it's going to be a real encouragement to me too. And yeah, we can apply that. We should remember that. Don't think you're such a spiritual big shot that no one can ever help you or minister to you. Don't think that you're too spiritual. You're too mature that you can't be helped or encouraged by anyone else, even by younger believers. Don't think in that way. Calvin makes this interesting comment. Calvin says, there is no one so void of gifts in the Church of Christ who is not able to contribute something to our benefit. But, he says, we are hindered by our envy and by our pride from gathering such fruit from one another. Such is our high-mindedness, such is the inebriety produced by vain reputation that, despising and disregarding others, everyone thinks that he possesses what is abundantly sufficient for himself. You know, he's saying here, don't be the big shot who thinks he can't be helped by anyone else. Don't be the lone ranger Christian who thinks, I don't need to be in the church. I don't need other Christians. There's no one who can really help me. I'm on a different level. The Apostle Paul wasn't like that. He was one of the giants. of the Christian church, and yet he says, I'm longing to come to be with you, just to spend time with you, because I know it's just going to be like a breath of fresh air for me to come and spend time with. It's going to be like getting a whole fresh tank of gas for me. So we should remember, I don't think you're above being ministered to by others. You need the people around you in the church. And also, remember this as well, we should aim to be that for others too, shouldn't we? Aim to be an encourager. Aim to be a Barnabas, a son of encouragement. It's something We all, as believers, we can all do that. You haven't got to go to seminary to be able to do that. You haven't got to be a seminary professor. You haven't got to have a degree in counseling or have an MDiv or letters after your name to do that. We can all do it from the oldest to the youngest. We can be an encourager. of our friends and brethren in the church. In fact, I remember an encouragement I had, I've had many in my time, but one that really strikes out was at another church we were at in Michigan some years ago and I was just going through my suits just one day during the week and I picked up a suit jacket that I hadn't worn for a few weeks and I was just going through the pockets and I pulled out a card that was in there, and suddenly it came back to me. It had been given to me by a nine-year-old girl in the church a few weeks earlier. And what had happened is, as we'd gone out of church on Sunday evening, she'd given me this card, and I'd put it in my pocket, and I'd forgotten all about it. And here it was about three weeks later, and I opened it up, and there's a lovely little note just expressing her gratitude for some of the sermons that had been preached. and a wonderful encouragement. And providentially it came, I saw it three weeks late but it was actually just the time. Then I really needed, I was feeling a little discouraged. And here was this breath of fresh air as I read that note card. The oxygen of encouragement, isn't it? Mark Chansky in his wonderful book on encouragement, he calls it the EpiPen. of encouragement, the adrenaline shot straight into the bloodstream. Yes, I'm energized. I'm encouraged. I feel alive again. Now I can go again. And that's all it needs, isn't it? Just a word, a card, a phone call, or a text message, isn't it? Hey, I like what you did there. Good job. You went to visit Mrs. So-and-so. I know she was really encouraged by that. Thanks for doing that. That Sunday school class that you taught, my children are talking about that all through lunch. That son of yours, he's turning into a fine young man. Good job with the parenting you're doing there. Things like that, ways that we can minister to each other. Proverbs 27 verse 17, as iron sharpens iron, so one man another. And so that's why the apostles longing, longing to go to Rome. He knew he could encourage them, but also just as importantly, he knew they would encourage him. And so he wants to go there for that, to build them up, to encourage, to be encouraged. And also just one more thing under this heading, and that is to bear some spiritual fruit. Verse 13. Now, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you, but was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. So Paul wanted to come, he hadn't been able to as yet, but he was longing, yearning to come in order that he might have some fruit, he says, and by that he means a time of ministry bearing fruit. referring primarily to conversions. He wants to go there and labour there and preach the gospel there in order that by the grace of God, under the blessing of the Spirit of God, he might see souls saved. Men and women, boys and girls in that great city of Rome brought to faith in Jesus Christ. He wants to have a harvest of souls, which would of course be another way that he would encourage them. Wouldn't it? Were that to happen, what an encouragement that would be for them. Or as it would here, you know, to go back to our illustration of a few moments ago, if one of those great conference speakers was to come to our church for a number of months and in the providence of God, the blessing of the Spirit came down and there were people saved and there were baptisms and more and more people started coming to the church. We're running out of chairs for everybody. I mean, what an encouragement that would be for everyone. And so Paul here is earnestly desirous and longing to have a time like that there with them in Rome. That's what he wants. Notice what he says there, that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. So he's had that kind of ministry in other places. He has. He's had that kind of ministry in other churches and other regions that he's been to. Incredible usefulness and fruitfulness that he's enjoyed under the blessing of God. He's had that in other places, and so why not in Rome as well? Nothing special about Rome, nothing uniquely unconducive about the city of Rome. There's nothing uniquely hardened about the state of men's hearts in Rome that makes them harder to convert. than men and women in any other place. They're just as dead in their trespasses and sins as men and women are in other places. And the gospel will work just as powerfully in Rome as it will in any other place. Paul knows that. He's going to say that in the next few verses. He's convinced of that. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. He says it's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. He's utterly convinced of that. The power of the gospel to work in even the hardest of hearts and in even the worst of places. You know, others might have been tempted to Look at a place like Rome and say, I'm not so sure about that. Yeah, we'll go to this region and we'll go there and we'll go to Corinth and we'll go to Galatia. Rome, oh, I'm not sure about Rome. You know, that's a center of idolatry and I know there's persecution there and there's immorality and depravity. Oh, no, I don't know about that. But not Paul. Paul looked at Rome and said, we've got the gospel. It's the power of God unto salvation. It's just what these people need. It's like that story of the two American shoe salesmen and they were sent to Africa, to an African country, to try and sell a certain brand of shoes. And when they got there, the city they arrived in, they discovered that most of the people there didn't actually wear shoes. And so one of them phoned back and he said, it's no good, I'm coming home, the people here don't wear shoes. But the other phoned his HQ and said, this is fantastic, the people here don't wear shoes, send more shoes. And that was Paul. And he looked at a city like Rome and he said, look at all these people, they're dead in their trespasses and sins, and look at the power of the gospel. I'm longing, I'm yearning to go there that I might see the power of the gospel at work, even there, even in a place like Rome. And so, do we think in that way? As we apply this to ourselves, do we have that kind of approach? When we look at our own situation here in Connecticut, this region of New Haven and around and beyond, what do we say? Do we say, Connecticut, dark corner of New England here, isn't it? Not much we can do, better just hunker down in our holy huddle, just us, the frozen chosen, and just get our heads down and hopefully people will leave us alone. Is that what we say? Or do we say, look at the people around us. They're lost in their sins. They're perishing in their sins. And what we have is the gospel. It's the very power of God unto salvation. Come on, let's go. The fields are white unto harvest. Here am I, Lord. Send me. That was the way the apostle Paul thought when he thought about the prospect of going to Rome. And so we're getting an insight, aren't we? A window into the heart of the apostle here, verses 8 through 15. We've seen three things so far. His thankfulness for God's work, his prayerfulness for Christian growth, his longing for spiritual fruit. Consider finally his burden to share the good news. It's really building on the previous point. But look at verse 14. His burden to share the good news. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to the unwise. He's talking here about an obligation. I'm a debtor, he says. That's a good translation because the word in the Greek refers to someone in debt, in financial debt, someone who owes something financially to someone else. And if you think about it, there are two ways that you could get yourself into a situation like that. One is if, for example, someone lends you $50 and you put that $50 bill into your pocket and you have that there. And as long as you have that, you owe them. And at some point, you have to repay them. The other way is if someone were to give you a $50 bill and say, I want you to give this $50 to Jim, we'll say. This $50 is for you to pass on to Jim. And so now you've got a twofold obligation. You've got $50 that belongs to the person who gave it to you, but also you've got to pass it on to Jim as well. And that's really the sense that Paul is using the term here when he says, I'm a debtor. I've been entrusted with something I now have to pass on. To the Greeks and to the barbarians, which, by the way, refers to the Greeks refers to those at the top of the ladder. They were the cultural elite. They were the educated ones. They were familiar with the great thinkers and the philosophers of Athens. The barbarians, by contrast, were at the other end. of the spectrum. They were the uneducated, the uncultured ones. They didn't read. They didn't want to read. They were sort of seen as crude and unlearned. And so by saying this, I'm a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, to wise and unwise. This is a literary device. It's called an inclusion, meaning basically everyone from top to bottom, from one extreme to the other. I'm a debtor to all men, to those at the top and to those at the bottom. to the wise, the unwise, and everything in between. And here you might say from Florida to Maine. And you don't just mean those two states, you mean all the other states in between as well. Paul is saying he's under obligation to all, he's been given something of great value, which he is now under obligation to share with all. What is this thing of great value? It's the gospel, the message that we as fallen sinners, we've rebelled against God, we deserve to be cast away from God into hell for eternity, but God in his mercy has sent his son to be a saviour, to be a substitute, to be a sin bearer, for us, he's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, he's the one who comes and stands in our room instead and the Lord lays upon him the iniquity of us all and he's wounded for our transgressions, he's bruised for our iniquities, he dies just for the unjust so that through him then our sins can be blotted out and we can have peace with God and new birth and a new heart, new mind and also the hope of heaven. Incredible good news, what riches in the gospel. And this has been revealed to Paul, and with that Paul says there's an obligation now, he now has a debt to discharge. He's like the man who's been given $50, pass this on to Jim. Paul has been given this treasure, he's got to pass this on now. This deposit of inestimable value, he's got to pass it on to all that he meets from the top to the bottom. The rich, the poor, the educated, the uneducated, whoever. Paul is now a man under obligation to discharge this debt. And that's what you do if you have a debt. Maybe if you've ever been in that situation, you'll know, well, that's like, it sort of weighs on you. Well, I've got to pay this. I've got to pay that back. Ways on your mind, isn't it? When we were in Michigan, we used to listen to a radio show. We'd be driving along in the car, and you could turn it on. It was a fellow called Dave Ramsey, and he had a show there. And he's a sort of financial expert and a Christian man as well. And he would help people with financial problems. And sometimes it would be people who got themselves into debt, and he would help them and give them this sort of plan they had to follow to get themselves out of debt. And sometimes they would come on, they were at the end of this, and they'd made their final payment, and he would have them on air, and they would shout, I'm debt free! And you can sense the relief that they paid their debt, their final debt instalment had been paid. It was a burden and now they discharged it. And Paul in spiritual terms, he has that kind of a burden. He feels this obligation to his fellow man to pass on this incredible treasure, to pay off this debt. to pass on these spiritual riches that have been given to him. That's why he says what he says in verse 15, I'm eager. So as much as it is in me, I am ready or eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. And the word there, it's a compound word, which means it's two words brought together, one which means heavy breathing, and the other which means leaning forward, straining forward, like an athlete. So the images of an athlete breathing heavily, straining to get towards the finishing tape, or even a horse, it could be used of a horse in battle, breathing heavily, ready to charge. And that's how earnest and eager Paul is to discharge his debt, this spiritual treasure that's been entrusted to him. And now it's his life's business to make sure he meets his obligation to share this treasure with all that he meets. I heard a testimony that was given some years ago. It was at a conference I was at, and one of the keynote speakers was a fellow called Matt Chandler. I hadn't come across him before. It was the first time I heard him. And during the course of his address, he shared a few words of personal testimony and how he had come to faith. He came from really a very unchurched background. In fact, there's a strong line of criminality throughout the generations. I think his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father all ended up in prison. Now, he, as a young man, eventually the family moved from California to Galveston. Texas, and so young Matt, maybe he was 14 years of age, I think, something like that, he went to the high school in Galveston, and quite early on, he met a fellow called Jeff Fairclough, who he had to share a locker with, and Jeff was a big strapping young lad, a football player, and they shared a locker, and on one of his first meetings with Jeff, I think it was literally as Jeff was putting on his pads, he said to Matt, hey, I need to tell you about Jesus, when do you wanna do that? That was it. No messing, no options, no choice in the matter. I need to tell you about the person of Jesus Christ. Let's set a time. When are we going to do that? And Matt was sort of quite taken aback by that. No one had ever said that to him before. And so he met with him and he was intrigued by what he had to say. And so he started to go to church with Jeff every Sunday. And eventually he was saved. Because this young football player Jeff Fairclough had this Paul-like sense of obligation and spiritual debt that he needed to pay. I need to tell you about Jesus Christ. When are we going to do that? And that's challenging, isn't it? Are you like that? Am I like that? Are you ready? Ready always, as Peter says, to give a reason for the hope that is within you. When someone in school asks you why you're a Christian, ready, eager, ready to speak. Someone in the football team asks you why you don't play on Sunday. You're eager, ready to speak, or in the office, or in the lab, or in the hospital ward, when they ask you why you believe what you do, or they ask you why the world is the way it is. You know, with coronavirus, I was walking through a store just the other day, and I heard, I couldn't help but overhear, you know, social distancing, these people were standing six feet apart, they're having a conversation, and I heard, just a snatch, as I walked by, this woman says, why is the world the way it is? There are people out there with these kind of questions. Are we ready for that? Ready and eager like Paul to speak, to discharge the spiritual debt? Because we've been given this treasure too, the glorious good news of salvation, full and free through the person of Jesus Christ. We've been given that treasure too and instructions with it that we also are to pass it on. And so may we, like Paul, be found ready, willing and eager, eager to do so. We have heard the joyful sound. Jesus saves. Jesus saves. Spread the tidings all around. Jesus saves. Jesus saves. Bear the news to every land. Climb the steeps and cross the waves. Onward, tis our Lord's command. Jesus saves. Jesus saves. Amen.