I would have liked to have more stories and less information, but however, I should listen to this talk and trust God in what He will do with this. You can also listen to this in our sermon library or watch it here.
Welcome to church. Do you ever wonder what it is that we are doing here and what it is we should be on about? Is your view of church a bit small, is it just an event on Sunday? Do you feel like you are part of something bigger? Or really is church a thing to simply help you be motivated throughout the week, where you try living with your head down not to make any waves and be a good person to those around you?
I remember when World of Warcraft was a thing, it was a very popular game, at its peak it has 46 million active users at one time. More than 116 million people have played the game[1]. I never played it as I was too cheap to pay a monthly subscription, but most of my friends have. I remember us talking about its success and someone said, it is because people want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. It's why people go for sports teams, so they can belong to a group and cheer along something that they are somehow connected with it. There is a community, there are wins and losses, and there is excitement which helps in the drudgery of life.
Today I hope, we will get a glimpse of church, not just as an event in your weekly timetable, but as something that you can really invest in and be part of something bigger than yourself, something bigger than the pandemic.
In Romans 15, Paul is wrapping up his letter here, and as we head into the holidays, this letter changes style.
As Paul wraps up his letter it gets personal. We have mostly been looking at the “oughts” and the “shoulds” of the Christian life. We had teaching on how we should consider ourselves in Christ and how we ought to live. But now we look at the realistic - how is it all lived out? We kind of get to pull back the curtain and bit and see how Gospel churches were working in the real world back then.
Paul has talked a lot about unity and generosity and love. He harps on about the power of the Gospel and how that brings salvation, but it is one thing to talk about this, it is another to see it working, not as an analogy, not as a hypothetical, but in real life.
So at the end of this letter, we see the personal and the real life of how Paul is seeking to live out all that we have just read in this letter. This perhaps could be quite instructional in how we might prioritise and focus things in our church today.
Today, in this section we will look at Paul’s proclamation, Paul’s Plans and Paul’s Prayer, and then we will move on to us. I do worry that could just turn into a very interesting talk on Paul and to hear specifically about him and what he wanted to do, but hopefully, we will then connect the dots to us and look at our roles in the mission of the church. But first I’ll pray for I need some help.
Heavenly Father,
Help me to speak clearly. I pray Lord that you will help us fix our eyes on you, that we see how big and glorious you are, and that we will be on about the promotion of your Son to the whole world. Amen.
Paul’s Proclamation
First up, Paul talks about his duty and ambition to proclaim the Gospel. He does this so that the Gentiles may hear it and be an offering to God, through the power of the Holy Spirt. Paul was convinced that the Gospel is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16).Telling people about Jesus and seeing their lives change excited him. This is his goal in life. This is what he sacrificed pretty much everything to do - to tell people about Jesus. And not just anyone, but the Gentiles who have never heard or never had a chance to hear about Jesus in the first place.
In verse 20 Paul says:
It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.Paul was a pioneer who would walk into a town, preach Christ in the synagogue if there was one, and then when he got kicked out and he would go next door and preach to the Gentiles (Acts 18:7), looking out for those whom God would call, and then building a church around those folk.
Paul was utterly convinced of the power of speaking the Gospel. That it changes lives. And I hope you do too. I hope that you can say that at some point in the past, you know the power the Gospel has. That before your life was going one way, but then you heard about Jesus, about how He died for you, that He took all the things that separated you from God away, and now you have direct access to the Father. You are no longer a slave to sin, but an adopted child to God. That now you have confidence that God is with you, that after death when you face the judgement you will not be declared guilty, even though you have done wrong. But because Jesus was your substitute, that He died in your place, that you will be seen as right before God. And like Jesus will get a resurrected body to be with him forever.
I hope you can say all this, that you know this, that you have experienced this.
Conversion isn’t about being nice, it is about being a new creation. It’s not about being sincere but about salvation in Jesus. It isn’t just a once-off decision but is lived out as a lifelong disciple of Jesus[2].
Paul had seen firsthand the gospel said out loud to people and then seen their whole lives changed in response. Paul saw people who heard the gospel stopped worshipping other things and started worshipping Jesus. And this got Paul hooked. He wanted to see as many lives changed, not so he had some great stat and was at the top of some conversion high score board - but because He wanted people to worship the one true Lord. That was his mission, to extend the worship of Jesus to the whole world.
And so he has written and writes again about his goal and plans to do this more.
Paul’s Plan
And so with that in mind, we see what Paul's Plans were with the Roman church. Paul thought everything to the East of Italy now had access to hear about Jesus. Paul makes a crazy statement in verse 19 saying:So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
But what he has done is preach in some of the major cities such as Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus and Philippi. And in Paul’s mind, there are now churches springing up around that side of Italy, but not to the West of Rome. And so that Paul isn’t treading on anyone's toes so that Paul can preach to those who haven’t heard Jesus, he seeks to go to the other side of Europe and go to Spain. He is doing a reverse Jonah and wants to go all the way to Tarshish, not to avoid God, but to bring God to that place too.
To Jerusalem first
But first Paul has one more plan. He wants to go in the opposite direction and head to Jerusalem first. This may seem a bit of a terrible plan, especially since Pauls considers himself the Apostle to the Gentiles and yet he is going to Jerusalem - the Mecca of Jews. Why would he want to do that, what is so valuable there?There were Christian Jews in Jerusalem who were doing it tough. There had been a famine in Palestine in A.D. 46–48[3] and Paul had been on a bit of an aid collection tour going around the Gentile churches collecting money for them. And so in bringing this money to help those in need, it first off was just a great kind loving thing to do, but also on a bigger scale, it showed unity between the Jews and the Gentiles in Christ. It showed their common partnership in the Gospel.
This act of the Gentiles giving money to the improvised Jewish Christians demonstrates a bunch of things that Paul has been going on about in this letter. Generosity, paying back a debt of love, unity among believers, using what we have not for ourselves but for others. This aid campaign was a demonstration of the Gospel, of the reality of what Paul has been writing about. Here, literally, the church is putting its money where its mouth is and showing the world that it does care, it does love and at great cost to itself. Just like Jesus.
To Rome to get to Spain
So, the plan was, that after this collection had been given to Jerusalem Paul was then going to visit them in Rome. But that wasn’t his final destination either. Rome wasn’t Paul’s end goal. He wanted to go to Spain. I don’t know how ripped off the people in Rome felt, they get this big, long letter from Paul the Apostle, and then at the end, they see that he just wants to pass through on his way to somewhere else.They probably didn’t feel that ripped off. I know at St Matt's we don’t feel ripped off when we have visiting missionaries come to us. It’s actually exciting and encouraging that they do come and pass through us. They come and tell us stories about where they have been and they talk about what they are planning to do. We feel a connection, a belonging, a unity, a sense of also going with them with our support. We see how far the mission of Jesus is around the world, as we sometimes forget there is a whole world out there beyond our own community.
Paul may have been looking for a new missionary base to head out West and thought the Roman church could help. I think they may have felt pretty stoked about that.
Paul’s Prayer – For Peace
But Paul ends this little bit by asking for prayer. In verse 31 he asks for two things:Pray that I may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favorably received by the Lord’s people therePaul wants protection from unbelievers and for this collection to be well received, so he can come to them with joy. He knows Jerusalem will be hard. Will the Jewish Christians accept the offering? Will they be too proud to take the Gentile money? Paul also knows that there will be opposition there, he after all was once the opposition there.
But still, he seeks to resolutely face Jerusalem even if it is at great cost to himself[4], so that it can bring unity and show God’s love to others. So, with this plan in mind, he asks the Roman church to pray for him. Paul wants to invite the church in with his struggles, for them to help share the worry and to cast them on God. In sharing Paul ropes the church in to help him, by praying to God for him.
Plans and God’s Providence
And Paul was right to ask for prayer for his time in Jerusalem. If you have read Acts, you know that Paul’s plans don’t work out. He goes to Jerusalem, and a mob tried to kill him, he is then put under Roman guard for about two years when there is an assassination attempt on him, he faces two different Roman governors who are indifferent to him before getting shipped to Rome (and on the way on the way crash lands on Malta and then gets bit by a snake). So Paul does eventually make it to Rome, but not how he had planned[5]. It was in chains.The book of Acts ends with Paul alive in Rome. There are two historical references after the Bible that suggest between his first Roman imprisonment Paul did make it to Spain[6]. But considering these journeys were book ended by imprisonment, I think they might not have ended how Paul also had planned.
So what do we do with this? How do we deal with Paul’s plans verse God’s providence?
Paul knew, even in this passage, that people only come to God because of God. The Gentiles only come to Christ because of what God is doing through Paul.
God does work through people. We need people to speak the Gospel to others who haven’t heard it. And these speakers need a network of partners to help support them and to pray for them[7].
We must always remember that it is God who rules over our plans. Sometimes we may make the mistake of thinking our ministry or gospel projects are too important to fail for the kingdom. We focus on hard work, planning and execution but forget that it is all under God. We can fail to pray and to enlist others to pray[8] trusting in God, that His will be done, in and through and despite our planning, trusting in Him. Or as the letter quotes at the start, the righteous will live by faith (Rom 1:17).
And I think Paul knows this because he wrote it. We do make plans, but God rules over them, and we have to live in faith.
Partners in the Gospel
So how are we to live from this passage? We are not Paul. He had a specific calling, to be the Apostles to the Gentiles. He had plans to travel to Jerusalem and then Rome and then Spain. Based off this, should all Christians be booking that holiday? Are we Paul in this passage?No, we are probably the Gentile Christians and the Roman Christians, both of which were partners with Paul in the Gospel, through aid and support.
Paul talks about the duty he has in presenting the Gentiles as an offering acceptable to God. In his immediate travels, he has also been collecting money from the Gentile Christians to give as aid to the Christians in Jerusalem. We could be like one of those Gentile churches and give aid and support to those in physical need.
Paul also was writing to the Roman church asking them for support to help him to preach the Gospel to others. We too can at least be partners and support those who are speaking the Gospel.
Paul was overseeing aid and then wanted to preach. With him, at this point, it wasn’t either/or. It wasn’t practical needs over spiritual needs. Paul wanted to do both.
And we do this at St Matt's. It is great. We are a generous bunch. As Ian has said, we have given 13 thousand dollars to help those in the Ukraine, and another 12 and a half thousand dollars to help those Iranian who are travelling to Canada.
Our third biggest expenditure at St Matt's isn’t our building and grounds, it’s not our utilities - it is giving to missionaries. It goes, first the staff, we are all on one line, and then giving to the diocese and then giving to missions. That is, our church’s top three priorities for our finances. We are bounded to give to the diocese, but we are not under any obligation to give to missions. We could get an extra staff member right off the bat if we diverted the funds to us. Over 10 years we probably could pay for a large chunk of the new building if we stopped giving to missionaries.
But, I don’t know if I would like to be a church that made that decision and I bet Lubbock wouldn’t want that, as he knows firsthand what it means to be on the receiving end of that money. He would probably walk if that happened.
But all that to say is, giving to missions is right and good. It demonstrates our generosity, our unity and God’s love in supporting people to provide aid and to tell the gospel outside of our area. You also are free to give directly to any other missionary organisation.
It is good that our church gives 10% of this money to missions, but the way I have looked at it is for every $100 I earn if I give $10 to St Matt’s $1 goes to missions. I can and I do give more than that directly to other groups.
I know there is talk of inflation and rate rises I am not really sure how it will all pan out. But in 2008 when the Global Financial Crisis was a thing, I remember someone saying, here in the west it may mean we won’t eat out as much, but in the third world it means some may not eat[9].
The Ukraine used to export 20% of the wheat in the world. India which is the second-highest producer of wheat in the world has had some terrible weather and has now stopped all its wheat exports. I don’t know what this flow-on effect means, but I am only guessing that it can’t be good for poorer countries.
There is also still a massive need for missionaries. Even though this letter was written 2,000 years ago and Christianity did make it to Spain there are still places in the world that haven’t heard of Jesus.
I don’t know if you have heard of the Joshua Project website. They list how much people of the world have access to a Christians to hear the gospel.
They have some categories in ranking things. There are the unreached groups of the world. They are considered 5% or less Christian, but there is another category called frontier groups, they are considered less than 0.1% Christian or less.
Do you know how many people worldwide, the Joshua Project rank as being in a frontier group?
The Ukraine used to export 20% of the wheat in the world. India which is the second-highest producer of wheat in the world has had some terrible weather and has now stopped all its wheat exports. I don’t know what this flow-on effect means, but I am only guessing that it can’t be good for poorer countries.
There is also still a massive need for missionaries. Even though this letter was written 2,000 years ago and Christianity did make it to Spain there are still places in the world that haven’t heard of Jesus.
I don’t know if you have heard of the Joshua Project website. They list how much people of the world have access to a Christians to hear the gospel.
They have some categories in ranking things. There are the unreached groups of the world. They are considered 5% or less Christian, but there is another category called frontier groups, they are considered less than 0.1% Christian or less.
Do you know how many people worldwide, the Joshua Project rank as being in a frontier group?
2 billion.[10]
2 billion people on this planet do not know Christ and do not have access to know Christ. These are not unsaved people but unreached people. They live, they die, without knowing a Christian, without seeing a Bible and without hearing about Jesus[11].
Western Sahara[12], depending on who you talk to, is a country or disputed territory of Morocco. They have a population of about 620,000 people, one and half the size of Canberra. They have maybe 180 Christians in their country. We have more Christians at our 10am service every week than there are in Western Sahara.
Every Christmas we talk about Advent and look forward to Jesus' second coming, and yet one-quarter of the world hasn’t heard of Jesus’ first coming.
There is power in the Gospel. It changes people from death to life, and there is still a real pressing need for people to go and tell the world about Jesus.
2 billion people on this planet do not know Christ and do not have access to know Christ. These are not unsaved people but unreached people. They live, they die, without knowing a Christian, without seeing a Bible and without hearing about Jesus[11].
Western Sahara[12], depending on who you talk to, is a country or disputed territory of Morocco. They have a population of about 620,000 people, one and half the size of Canberra. They have maybe 180 Christians in their country. We have more Christians at our 10am service every week than there are in Western Sahara.
Every Christmas we talk about Advent and look forward to Jesus' second coming, and yet one-quarter of the world hasn’t heard of Jesus’ first coming.
There is power in the Gospel. It changes people from death to life, and there is still a real pressing need for people to go and tell the world about Jesus.
Prayer for the Gospel
If Romans has taught us anything about Salvation, it is that it is all by grace. Salvation is given by God to those He chooses to give mercy to. It’s like the question if God is all-powerful and all-knowing why do we pray?[13] If salvation is based on who God has mercy on, why should we pray? It is because He is all-powerful and all-knowing that we should pray to Him. It is because He is merciful that we should pray to Him for the salvation of others. He is able to save and offer mercy to whoever He wants, so we ask Him.God can change people’s hearts, God can change people’s circumstances. It’s up to Him. He rules over all our plans. Even when our plans don’t work out, even when things that we value like health and jobs and family and travel don’t go to our plan.
Paul writes to the Roman church to pray for him, to share in his struggles. As I was literally tying this bit of my talk on Monday morning, someone Facebook messaged me and said “hey mate, anything I can pray for you?” I don’t know if I was tired or stressed out because of this talk and my week ahead, but I felt deeply moved that some other saint out there was thinking about me and was asking to talk to the Father on my behalf. I was seriously moved. I felt loved and supported. He then when on and typed out a prayer for me in the chat. I felt humbled and supported. We can do that simply task for missionaries.
At St Matt's, we are a praying people for our missionaries. The monthly prayer meeting is on again tomorrow night. We dedicate time in those to pray for all our missionaries that we support. You can come along and share in their concerns and struggles. We also have the weekly Monday prayer meetings. Again, that is a time for prayer for our church and the mission beyond.
What you can also do, in your Life Group is to adopt a missionary. Just one and write them letters or emails. Let them know that you are praying for them and ask them how they are going. You can even send them gifts. However, check with them first. One time my Life Group did this with Lubbock when he was in Italy. I didn’t know he had to pay some sort of import tax when receiving gifts, which meant the little Ozzie care package we set him, cost him money to receive. That wasn’t helpful, so do that.
Gospel Pioneers
Now before I wrap one, I should also say something about this in passing. This may not be for everyone, but it would be missed if I didn’t mention it. There could be someone here who may well go out and be a missionary. Someone here may feel called to go overseas to tell people about Jesus. I would wonder if you would think about it.After all, all missionaries came from some church some somewhere else. Why wouldn’t some in our services right now, later go out somewhere else to live amongst a different people group and tell them about Jesus? It has happened in the past.
There is this Finishing Well group starting up for retired blokes to think about their future life plans, to look at their skills and gifts and resources and then chart a course on how now they will live. This is great, but for some of you, why wait till you are retired? How might you want to live now, faced with a world in need of knowing who Jesus is, you might want to go now. Live a life spent out for people who you do not currently know, telling them the good news of Jesus. Even if it is hard. And it will be. David Platt who was once the president of the International Missions Board in America said “Unreached peoples are unreached for a reason. They’re hard, difficult and dangerous to reach. All the easy ones are taken”.
Our Partnership
Not all of us are a Paul, we may not travel to far distant places to tell people about Jesus. But as a church, we have a mission and we can partner with those who go abroad.2,000 years ago Paul wanted to Jerusalem to give them aid and then on to Spain to preach the Gospel. Today the mission of Christ is far from complete. You want to be part of something bigger than yourself? Get involved in church.
The task of proclaiming Christ to all the world should not primarily be in the hands of mission agencies but be driven and supported by the local church[14]. This means we are part of this calling, part of this mission that has been going on for 2,000 years which has a global aim.
St Matt’s as a church seeks this mission. Do you? You can help support the missionaries we are connected with, you can give and pray directly for other missionary and aid agencies. If the Great Commission is true, our plans are not too big; they are too small[15].
So let us partner with and strengthen missionaries. May we be a generous church that cares for those in need, both physically and eternally - trusting in the power of the spoken Gospel, that it changes lives; and trusting in our good God, who rules over all our plans. Let pray:
Heavenly Father,
We thank you for your gospel and the power it has for salvation. We pray for our missionaries, that they will feel loved and supported by us, and that they will think of creative ways to tell the people around them about your Son Jesus. Help us to be reminded about your mission, and through the strength of your Spirit, help us to pray and support those out on the field, and I pray that maybe even some of us will plan to go.
Amen
[1] 15 Facts About The WoW Player Count in 2022
[2] Some of these lines were from the contents page of Conversion by Lawrence
[3] Thomas R Schreiner, Romans (Baker Exegetical Commentary On The New Testament Series) cites Acts 11:27–30; Josephus, Ant. 20.5.2 §101; cf. Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–37
[4] This was kinda an allusion to Luke 9:51, but I didn’t want to push it too hard
[5] A similar recount is in TNTC - David Garland, Romans (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)
[6] 1 Clem 5:5-7; The Muratorian Canon 34-39, St Paul went to Spain? cites more, but I think the first two are the oldest and are what the others were basing their statements on.
[7] TNTC - David Garland, Romans (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)
[8] Douglas J. Moo, Romans (The NIV Application Commentary)
[9] For the life of me, I can’t remember who said this, but for some reason, I think maybe it was John Dickson
[10] Frontier Peoples: All
[11] David Platt, Divine Sovereignty: The Fuel of Death Defying Missions (Session VI) - This is one of the best sermons I have heard.
[12] Country: Western Sahara
[13] I got this simple logic from Mat Chandler, but I forget where exactly
[14] David Platt, Divine Sovereignty: The Fuel of Death Defying Missions (Session VI)
[15] Pat Morely
Awesome job🔥👍🙏
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