Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Romans, chapter 15. I know we are jumping way ahead, and I don’t want you to think I’m giving up on Romans. I also don’t want you to think I am chickening out on dealing with the next part of Romans 1, where Paul deals with the issue of homosexuality. I promise, we are going to deal with that.
But today is the first of our four Great Commission Sundays. Our original plan was to have Steffan Carr from the Bruce Outreach Center as our gues today, to share with us what the Lord is doing in the Appalachian foothills in western Maryland. But Covid happened, and we are going to have to reschedule Steffan for another time.
But I still want to talk about missions. And also, since we are observing communion today, I wanted to spend some time talking about what unites us as a church. What brings us together as a church. Not something that right now is causing division in the church. And for that reason I wanted to jump all the way to the end of Romans, where we see Paul repeating to the church in Rome his reasons for writing them this long letter in the first place. So this morning we are going to look at Romans 15:14-21 together, and I promise we will come back and deal with the tough stuff in Romans 1 next week.
Mark Buxbaum, one of our students, has already read the scripture for us, so let me pray, and we will jump into this together.
[pray]
Glows and Grows (v. 14-15): Somewhere, I picked up this phrase “glows and grows” whenever I was doing evaluations of our summer staff, or giving a camp pastor feedback on his sermons. I think I must have picked it up from an elementary school teacher somewhere. Because whenever you are giving someone feedback on the job they are doing or the speech they just gave or whatever, you give them glows—the good things they are doing, and grows—the things they need to work on to make them even better.
And so, Like any good teacher, Paul begins with positives when he evaluates the Romans. Look at verse 14:
14 I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.
He says, “I am satisfied about you brothers.” This sounds a little surprising coming from Paul. He was so passionate, so driven, so powerful, that you would assume no matter what you did, it would never be enough.
I heard a story once about two of my favorite Christian musicians from back in the day—Steve Camp and Keith Green. Any fans? I know Mark is a huge Keith Green fan. Kristy, you and I have had conversations about Keith. And Steve Camp maybe isn’t as well known, but he wrote some powerful songs as well—“Consider the Cost,” “Run to the Battle,” He Covers Me…” Anyway, when Keith Green was killed in a plane crash in 1982, Steve Camp was one of several Christian musicians who shared their memories of Keith. Steve Camp tells the story of calling Keith Green one day. Keith said, “How’re you doing?” Steve Camp said, “Not so good. I got mugged today. Dude came out of an alley and pulled a knife on me and ran off with my wallet.” Keith Green asked him, “Well, did you tell him about Jesus?”
And Steve was like, “No.. I was too busy getting mugged.” And Keith Green kind of went silent on the other end of the line and said, “Get your priorities straight or get out of the ministry.”
And we just kind of imagine that Paul would have been the same way. So this verse feels strange—“I am satisfied about you.” Well, he doesn’t say, “I’m satisfied with you,” like “good job—you guys are crushing it.” He says, “I’m satisfied that you have what it takes to join me in taking the gospel to the nations.”
I actually think the ESV didn’t do a great job translating this word. The better word might be “convinced” I am convinced that you are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instreuct one another.” It’s the same word Paul uses in Philippians 1:6 when he says, “And I am sure of this,” or “I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” If you want to hang on to the word “satisfied,” then think of a judge in a court case being “satisfied” that the prosecution has proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Paul says I am satisfied that you guys in Rome are good people. You are smart people. You are mature enough in the faith that you are able to instruct one another.
Then, Paul gets to the “Grows” in verse 15:
15 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God…
Paul says, I’ve written you this long letter very boldly by way of reminder.” What does Paul want to remind them of? Well, he doesn’t explicitly say what he wants to remind them of, but I definitely think he implies it. Look at the last part of verse 14 again:
[you are] filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.
That’s the problem, says Paul. That’s why I am writing to you so boldly. You’ve got all this goodness. You’ve got all this knowledge.
And you are basically just sitting around instructing each other! It’s time to take your goodness and your knowledge and your ability to teach to the next level. So follow my example!
1. Missions as Worship (v. 16)
Paul says that that he has been called
16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Circle that word minister. I learned something fascinating this week about Paul’s choice of words here. We’ve talked before about what a precise language Greek is. And Paul could have used a number of similar words here to describe himself. In his opening introduction, in Romans 1:1. He said he was a doulos of Christ—which was like the lowest household slave. He could have used diakonos, the word we get our word “deacon” from.
Instead, he uses this word li-toorg-os'. It’s where we get our word “liturgy.” A liturgy is a service of worship. Paul says that his liturgy—his service of worship—is to minister to the gentiles. He paints a word picture of the priest in the temple, working to make sure the offering of the Gentiles is acceptable.
Do you see it? For Paul, being a missionary to the Gentiles was liturgy. It was worship!
You know, I talk to a lot of people who like to tell me that what they are doing instead of worshiping at church on Sunday mornings is actually worship.
• “Pastor James—I gotta tell you, when I’m in my bass boat in the middle of the lake, I feel like I’m worshiping.”
• “When I’m up in a deer stand, and I see a beautiful ten point buck come right into my scope, AND I BLOW HIS BRAINS OUT!!!... well, during deer season, that’s my worship.”
• “Pastor James, when I’m walking across the fairway… and the mist is coming off the water hazard, and I didn’t have to use my sand wedge one single time… well, to me, that’s worship.”
Look—I get what you’re saying. You feel close to God, and nature is beautiful, and blah blah blah.
But there are only a few things that you can get away with calling worship from a biblical perspective.
Worship is worship.
According to Romans 12:1-2, offering your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God—that’s worship.
And here, in Romans 15, ministering to the Gentiles so that their sacrifices will also be acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy spirit—that is worship.
So bottom line—if you want to go hunting this weekend, go hunting. You want to fish, or golf, or hike, or scrapbook, or whatever you do, then do it.
Just don’t call it your worship. And be very, very careful. Because that thing you are calling worship may actually be idolatry. Of the 106 verses where the Bible talks about worship, about a third of them are talking about worshiping something other than God.
But—if you are on mission, going to the nations and sharing your knowledge, and instructing people who’ve never heard the name of Jesus—guess what? You totally get to call that worship!
For Paul, it was his liturgy. And it can be for us, too.
Now, one of the ways you be confident that what you are doing is actually worship is to ask yourself, “Who gets the glory?” Because the heart of the missionary brings God glory.
Did you know that there is such a thing as holy or sanctified boasting?
You’re like, “No there isn’t. Boasting is bragging about how awesome you are.” And most of the time, you are right. But sanctified boasting is bragging about how awesome God is. And that’s what Paul does in verses 17-19:
17 In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 18 For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed,
Paul was probably used more powerfully by God than any human being who ever lived. But he always, always gave God the glory for it. Can you imagine what a pain he would be to be around if he didn’t? You’ve probably heard preachers or evangelists that are always talking about how many people they’ve won to Christ. How many conversations they’ve had with people in the seat next to them on an airplane. And I will be honest with you: I usually walk out of those sermons going, “Man… I hope I’m never sitting next to that guy on an airplane.”
Because everything seems to be about them. How great they are. How in tune with the Lord they are. And I am convinced that missionaries that truly bring glory to God are typically the ones that get very little glory for themselves.
I don’t watch much pro basketball. But I do have a favorite NBA player.
My favorite NBA player is Stacey King. Raise your hand if you have ever heard of Stacey King?
Right. Almost Nobody. Stacey King played 438 games over the course of his eight seasons in the NBA and ten teams He averaged almost seventeen minutes a game. He averaged 6.4 points a game.
So why is he my favorite basketball player? Because on March 27, 1990, Stacey King was playing for the Chicago Bulls against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He came into the game late. Got fouled. Went to the free throw line. Made 1 out of 2 free throws. Ended the game with 1 point.
That same night, Michael Jordan scored 69 points. It was MJ’s biggest game of his career. It ranks 12 on list of most points scored in a single game.
And in the press conference later that night, Stacey King made this statement to a reporter:
This counts as the greatest game of my career. I will always remember the night Michael Jordan and I combined to score seventy points.
That. Is. Awesome! And that was Paul’s attitude! Paul was like, “Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.” (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul’s attitude was, I am nothing. But Christ working through me is everything!
That’s what Paul is saying here. Gentiles have come to obedience, not because I’ve done anything, but because Jesus has been working through me.
19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ;
People have seen me do signs and wonders. A guy in Ephesus who fell asleep during one of my sermons and fell out a window—died! And I brought him back to life! (Acts 20:9)
Another time, I got annoyed with this slave girl who was possessed by a demon. And I cast out the demon. (Acts 16:16-18).
On top of all that, people from Jerusalem to Illyricum have heard the gospel of Christ. And all that has happened because I was on the team with Jesus. Jesus is having a career high every single night, and He is allowing a little short balding bow-legged Jew like me, with a unibrow, to be on the roster!
We are nothing. By ourselves, we are lucky to make one out of two free throws. But I promise you, that if Christ is in us, and if we allow Christ to work through us, then we are going to have some monster stats. We give him the glory. He gives us the championship ring.
And that’s why we come to the communion table. Communion is the point in a service of worship where we recognize our absolute dependency on Jesus. And if we are going to be serious about being on mission for Christ in the world, we have to be serious about remaining in Christ. In John 15:5, Jesus said, (and if you’re doing Experiencing God, pay attention, because you’re going to be quizzed on this tonight): I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in him, he it is that will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do—what? Nothing, says Jesus. Apart from Me you can do nothing.
This time, I want you to think of Communion as the pregame meal. We need to take in the body of Christ and the blood of Christ so we can be ready for game day. And we need to understand that the work of missions is unfinished.
Paul says in verse 20-21,
20 and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, 21 but as it is written,
“Those who have never been told of him will see,
and those who have never heard will understand.”
See, there are people who have never been told of Jesus. They need to see Him. There are those who have never heard of Him. They need to understand.
So we must take all of our goodness and all of our knowledge and all of our ability to teach other people to the nations. To those who have never heard.
We need to commit ourselves to a lifestyle of God-glorifying worship. We come together to receive the bread of life that will sustain us for the work of missions. Because the work of missions is unfinished. Three billion people in the world have no access to the gospel. We make it our ambition to preach the gospel where Christ has not yet been named. And the only way to do that is Christ in us. In the words of the prayer of St Patrick,
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Let’s prepare our hearts to receive communion.
