One Eager Mission

Romans 1:8-15

Please stand…

English Standard Version Chapter 1

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Pray…

We have made it to a new year. I am sure some of you have made some plans on what you would like to do different this year than last and, statistically, some of you have failed on those plans already. I hope many of you started the year long bible reading plan. If you haven’t, it isn’t too late to start. If you are behind, that is ok. It doesn’t have to be perfect. If you have it on a bible app, most of them will read you the text, listen to it while you are driving or getting ready in the morning, or getting ready to go to bed, or in the shower. It takes about 10-15 minutes a day to just listen. I know there are many of you that will say, “That doesn’t count, you must read it and break it down.” To which I would say, “Most people couldn’t read for the first 1800 years of the church, so calm down.” However you can get the bible into your brain, your heart and your soul, do that. You will be surprised at how much you get by listening.

I have some personal goals that I want to hit this year that will take discipline, I have some physical goals I’d like to reach. We, Krysta and I, have some places we would like to visit. I want to be a better teacher/preacher, I have started the process in what I think God is showing me. Its good to make goals. It is good to take time and say, “What would I like to see happen in my life this year?” God could be working through that to sharpen you. I am sure that I will succeed in some of the goals that I have made and I am sure I will miss the mark on others. James tells us that when making plans we should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

Paul made plans. He had hopes that he would make it to Rome and visit this body of believers. From there it would be the jumping off point for him to take the Gospel to Spain, we see this in Romans 15. He would not make that journey, but he would make it to Rome, both times as a prisoner and the last time leading to his death.

Paul’s main push, his main objective was to get the Gospel out to as many people as he could. He knew what the freedom would be to the hearers and receivers of that message. He had something that he HAD to give to people and he was so encouraged by those that were already believing and helping to spread it.

In verses 1-7 from last week, Paul told this group that they were called to belong to Jesus, loved by God, called to be saints, literally “pure ones” or “set-apart ones”, so that they could enjoy the grace and peace of God. This is a great start to a letter. That is who we are. If you have heard and accepted the Gospel of God, which is Jesus Christ, you are counted as one who is called, loved, chosen as saints to enjoy the grace and peace of God. We cannot think of this flippantly.

Take yourself out of the bible belt, hearing about cultural Christianity your whole life. Take yourself out of the idea that someone walked an isle one time, or raised a hand once at an event, or, because their brother or sister did it, or they were pressured into getting into the baptismal waters by a brand of church that somehow those things made them right with God and they are saved even though they kept on in their willful disobedience. That thought has plagued this part of the world for far too long. It is not an action that you do that sets you right with God. In fact, there is nothing you can do at all to set you right with the Father. It is only through the Son and what He has done that can do that. HE calls, He loves, He sets you apart and He gives the grace and peace. The good news to that is realizing that you can’t. It is not a gift if you must work for it. It is not love if you have to earn it.

There is this movement in the believer that receives the gift and then he is obligated to share it. It is too big to keep. I’ve got this freedom, I’ve got this peace, I’ve got this love that has so changed my life, I want to help everyone get out of their bondage. When we see others doing this, we rejoice..

English Standard Version Chapter 1

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

Paul has never met these people. He has never been to Rome at this time. He wouldn’t be able to pick them out of a line up, but he is thankful for them. Why? He has heard about their faith. What does that mean? They have been spreading the Gospel throughout Rome, so much so that the word got back to Paul over 2000 miles away.

It says their faith was proclaimed in all the world. That means that it wasn’t just one letter or one verbal account from someone, but it was multiple accounts from churches everywhere talking about the faith of this group. It wasn’t a perfect group as we talked about last week, but it was faithful and they found a way to work together as they were trying to figure it out.

What do we know about God? He will make a way through imperfect vessels. He will use us, in spite of us, every time to advance His will. There is no perfect church, but we can be faithful to the best of our abilities. Paul knows this…

English Standard Version Chapter 1

9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.

To be a faithful church, we must be a praying church. We should pray for the other churches in town. We should pray for people we don’t like in our own churches and for those that don’t like us. We should pray for pastors and elders and the person sitting next to us. Paul knows, and we should to, that without God moving and working in the church in Rome and our church here, we are as good as dead.

We pray that His message would be the only one coming from our pulpit and our weekly studies. That He would be covering us with His protection from the enemy. That He would unify us in the essentials of the faith and that He would give us wisdom and love toward one another.

Paul knows that he has something to give to this church. He has been called as an Apostle. He has been taught the Gospel by the resurrected Jesus. He longs to come to them to help them understand what unity in Christ means.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you

This is what pastors do. They want to lift up the body. They want to encourage and correct, not for pride or gain, but to strengthen what is weak. Paul wants to encourage and build up. This is not only from pastors but believer to believer. When someone is in the hospital, out of your comfort zone, to have a visitor from the church either a friend or elder, is an encouragement. Someone loves me and is praying for me. We support missionaries in Turkey. They are surrounded by people that don’t look like them, talk like them or believe like them. We should be there for them either through email, phone or visit them. I have heard stories of missionaries on the verge of giving up and then they were visited and it renewed their spirit so that they could continue. We need that as the church.

Paul wanted to go to this church to share his gifting to encourage, but also…

English Standard Version Chapter 1

that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.

My wife’s brother and sister-in-law came to visit on Christmas. They stayed for a few days and it was nice having them. The last time they came, our youngest son had just been born. I think he was about two months when they stayed with us. They were excited to come down and help with the baby. They did, they would watch him while we took showers and they helped with bottles, holding him, entertaining him. They had resources and gifts that they wanted to share with us to bless us, but they also had another motive. They wanted to be blessed by being with us and spending time with the baby. Though they were probably tired and ready to get home, there is this feeling that we get when we can help people and be around those that we love and care about.

When we visit with a brother or sister in Christ to encourage them, the Spirit is filled in both of us. I have left hospital rooms feeling better having gone. When Jesus says in Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”, there is great power and peace in that moment.

Why is that? Because we have a deep connection with our creator. There is a family tie that goes deeper than blood. We are adopted by the same loving Father. We share a love that is eternal. Paul wants to share and experience this with the other believers and we want to share it with those that have never heard so that they can experience the love too.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.

Paul is excited to go to work. Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 9:37-38

Matthew 9:37–38 ESV

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

There are several vineyards in the area and when the grapes are ready, you have to get them off the vine or they will be eaten by birds or ruin. You have to have a lot of workers to do that in a timely manner. Many large vineyards will grab anyone that is available to pick the grapes, especially in a good year where the harvest is plentiful.

This is what God is doing with us. He wants us to be laborers to gather the harvest. When the Gospel is planted it grows.

Mark 4:20 ESV

But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

It is an incredible feeling to be chosen by God to go out to the world and spread the Gospel to all the nations to then see those that want to be baptized and obey what Jesus taught. Discipling someone that is new to the faith with a hunger for the Word and to please Jesus is a wonderful experience. It is hard. Harvesting is hard work with long hours, but watching a brother or sister when the light bulbs finally turn on is a blessing. Watching relationships grow and get stronger, watching repentance happen, forgiveness and apologies, watching someone find true peace in the Lord is something that never gets old.

Paul wants to get in on it in Rome to that group of Jews and Gentiles. The Christians work is never done until God calls us home. We should have a fire and a want to be in the middle of what God is doing. Not so that we can be on the right side and win arguments, but because the King of the universe is calling you and inviting you to play.

Think about the most significant celebrity or politician, or even someone you really respect. Someone you really like. If they called you and asked you to be their friend and do something for them, would you? I guarantee that for some of you, if the sports team that you really liked called you to hang out with the players, you would spend however much it took to get there. Or maybe it is that celebrity that you love calls you up and wants to meet with you, or maybe it is your favorite pastor you watch online wants to have lunch with you. Some of you would walk over hot coals for that. Why would we not feel that way about the One that creates all things and is infinitely more important than the people you see on TV? We have an obligation because of the great love we have been shown.

Paul owes people the Gospel.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

Obligation means that you must do it. It is not like I borrowed money from someone and now I have to pay it back. Don’t look at your salvation is something that you can ever pay back. A gift is not a gift if the giver expects you now to earn the gift. On the contrary, it is like someone giving you money to give to someone else. What do you do with that money? You protect it until it gets to the right place. You have this burning that you have something that you need to do.

Last Sunday, someone gave me some cash for the Feed My Sheep food ministry we have here. It has been in my wallet since then. Every time I open my wallet, I make sure that money is there because I am responsible to get it where it needs to go. I am obligated by the person who gave it to me and to the Lord to do what I am supposed to with that money.

You have been given a great gift that blesses you, but it can’t stop there because that isn’t the whole gift. It wasn’t just to rescue you, it was rescuing you so that you would be free to go out and offer that same freedom to others with an attitude knowing that God will win. We preach it expecting that hearts will change and we will be there to harvest the believers that come.

I watched a video this week about the University of Indiana. They have had a lack luster football team for the past 50 years and now they are number 1 in the country. They hired a new coach at the beginning of last season that came from really no where special. The interviewer asked the coach, who took the job at 62, if he had a chip on his shoulder because he had so much success in his previous programs that he wanted to show that he could do it in the big leagues. He said, “No. The chip on my shoulder came the first day I walked into the facilities of the school. He said everywhere around him he saw that people thought no one could bring a winning team to that school.” He said the facilities had been neglected, the offices looked like they were from the 1980s and the overall attitude was that they would always lose. That is what most churches look like today. The people are miserable, they don’t think they matter, they think the bible is old and dusty and they downplay the power of the almighty God. That is not who Paul was. He is going to bring the hope of the world to a dying people. He believes that the Spirit can raise up bones and wrap them with sinew, muscle and flesh. He believes that the Spirit can breath life into those bodies and make them alive. He believes in freedom and wants everyone to experience it. He believes he will win because Jesus has already won. Paul says…

English Standard Version Chapter 1

15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

He has one eager mission, to preach the Gospel. This Gospel builds up and encourages the people of God because it binds us together. It gives life to the dead, sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Are you eager to share this message?

This is not a passive faith. If you think that you are saved because you raised a hand one day or you were baptised and never had a heart change or a willingness to show others the love that you have been shown, I don’t think that you have what you think you have. When that spark of life ignites in your heart, everyone should know. You should be eager to share with everyone what you have.

Some of you have been truly walking with the Lord for a long time and you are tired. I get it. You have poured yourself out for the Gospel and have had very little to fill you up. Maybe you are in a season that is hard and you are down or depressed, the Lord knows. Lean on Him. I pray today encourages you to lift your head and get back into the fight.

If you have been sitting on the sidelines because you are too afraid to enter the game, listen. God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord. That’s 2 Timothy 1:7-8. We will get more into that next week. Do not be afraid.

We have a job to do. There is fertile soil all around us to plant the seed of the Gospel. Spread it. Talk to your friends about it. Study it. Ask questions. Seek the Lord in prayer. This faith is real and it has legs. The Lord wants you to use them and take the Gospel with you wherever you go. Trust that wherever you feet take you is where the Lord is.