Rom 1-Encouraging Each Others Faith

| Encouraging Each Other’s Faith! Romans 1:8-15

November 20, 2005 8 Let me say first of all that your faith in God is becoming known throughout the world. How I thank God through Jesus Christ for each one of you. 9 God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by telling others the Good News about his Son.10 One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing, to come at last to see you. 11 For I long to visit you so I can share a spiritual blessing with you that will help you grow strong in the Lord. 12 I’m eager to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours. In this way, each of us will be a blessing to the other.13 I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now. I want to work among you and see good results, just as I have done among other Gentiles. 14 For I have a great sense of obligation to people in our culture and to people in other cultures, to the educated and uneducated alike. 15 So I am eager to come to you in Rome, too, to preach God’s Good News. (NLT)  Pray Scripture memory:I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. – Romans 1:16 Intro:What we long for in life is a visible reflection of our hearts. It is also a visible reflection of the choices we are making in our lives. These choices and desires are very strongly influences by the people in our lives.1.      Paul’s longing2.      To visit the believers in Rome3.      To minister to them4.      To see them strong in the Lord5.      To be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith1. Paul’s longingI long to visit you (v. 13)What we long for in life tells a lot about our hearts.Paul was consumed with the Kingdom of God.We develop our longings by feeding themMany years ago, a young missionary was sent to a Native American tribe in the American Southwest.  He labored for several years, winning only a handful of converts before receiving a call to another field.  Those few converts grew over the years and established a church.  On the 10th anniversary of that church, the members invited all those who had helped in establishing the church to celebrate the anniversary.  The invited included that missionary who had worked so diligently long ago to bring the good news to the tribe.The missionary arrived at the celebration service.  He was gladdened to see how the work he had done had come to fruition.  But, he was also saddened to see that, of the handful of converts he had worked so hard to win for the kingdom, only one, a wizened old man who was not the tribe's chief, was in the church.  At an opportune time, he pulled the old man aside and asked him, "Where are the others who came to Christ when I was here?"  The old man replied, "They have all gone back to their old ways?"  "Why?  Why are you the only one left?" the missionary asked.  "Because I learned about the two dogs and the others didn't?"  Knowing that the "two dogs" was the old man's way of expressing some truth, the missionary asked him to explain.  "Before you came here, we all had a big, dark, mean dog living inside us.  Whenever he wanted to be fed, he would bother us until we fed him.  He always wanted to be fed.  When you came here and we followed God's way, He put another dog in us.  This dog was a gentle, quiet, light dog.  I fed the quiet dog.  The others didn't."A question:  Do you have two dogs living in you?  Which one are you feeding? Which one do you have on a chain?Anticipation can often be half the fun. The pessimist may say that having high expectations only leads to disappointment. Perhaps, but not where God is concerned.2. To see the believers in RomeThe Newbranders and the other American…The joy of seeing a friendly faceThe thrill of meeting family – Uncle Nick’s trip to the USSRMeeting other believersTraveling and going to other churchesWhy? F    Because we share a common Lord. F    We share a common forgiveness.          – The gospelF    We share a common hope. F    We share a common passion. 3. To minister to them (share a spiritual blessing with them, lit. to impart some spiritual gift)Paul’s life was devoted to ministering to others. He endured things we can hardly begin to appreciate.We were made to serve. We are designed to find our fulfillment in ministering to others. – The purpose of spiritual gifts – Our joy in eternity – 1. Glorifying God, 2. Impacting other’s lives – “It’s a Wonderful Life.”For many of us, we lose the joy of ministering because we listen to the lies and half truths of the enemy of our soul who says that we are being neglected, that we need to take care of ourselves. He points out what others are NOT doing. And when we focus on that we lose the joy of what WE ARE doing.What is YOUR ministry? If you are not involved in ministering to others you are missing out on one of the greatest blessings God has entrusted to us.NOTE: ministry which is behind the scenes is JUST AS MUCH MINISTRY as more public ministry. |   | 4. To see them strong in the faith (NLT: grow strong in the Lord)Gk.: to see them firmly established – like a stone firmly attached to a wall or bond which is practically unbreakableHis desire was that all men might be fully reconciled with God. He understood that this is the most important thing, not only in this life, but also in the one to come.F    Because He loved God – and knew that this was what brought Him the most pleasure in peopleF    Because He loved people and knew that this was the best thing that could happen to them.Like a parent who can really trust their child because he/she knows that they are committed to making good choicesThis is our goal, as parents, to make our children successfully independent. This is our desire for each other that we might be so firmly connected with our Lord, so strong in our faith that we are practically unshakable. 3 John 4 - I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 5. To be mutually encouraged by each other’s faithHe truly sought mutual encouragement – In other words he had no intention of it being one sided. – Humility – teachability – mutual respectHe expected to be encouraged by their faith from the Gk with and paracaleo or paraclete: comforter, counselorThe idea here is that He understood the value of the body parts, one with the other and he fully expected to see his own faith strengthened, to see himself built up by being with them.Many times we miss this because we do not expect it. We tend to color what we experience by our expectations. Like food… (why I dislike olives)  Summary / Review:Paul loved God’s people. He looked forward to being with them. He invested everything he was and had into introducing others to His Lord, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to anyone who would listen.His passion in life was His God; and because of that His passion was the gospel; and because of that his passion was the people of God, those who have understood and embraced the gospel. His joy in life was touching people’s lives for eternity. He saw everything God had entrusted to him as entrusted to him to that end. He was a minister, not merely because others had commissioned him, but because that was his joy and his purpose in living.His desire was that everyone whose lives he could touch would be reconciled with God and firmly established in their faith so that they would be able to weather the storms of life.And he fully expected to be blessed by God’s people whenever he was able to be with them. He expected it. He looked for it and, more often than not he found it. A truth to remember:We were designed to be ministers. That will be our role throughout eternity, to glorify and enjoy our God by being His ministers. When our sin natures are removed we will find that our greatest joy is in the blessing we can be to others.A challenge to consider:What can you do this week to nurture and develop your joy in ministry and your enjoyment of God’s people? |