Partnering, Mobilizing and Strengthening Church for the Sake of the Gospel - Romans 15: 14-33

1:17And for example, I saw a commercial over the holidays for Apple's iPhone 13 Cinematic Mode. I don't know if you've seen this or not, but they have a cinematic mode now on the camera. Which allows you to shallow the depth of field and to do focus shifts like you see in a movie. And in the commercial for this new feature on the iPhone, there's two men sitting in a car. Presumably, they're either detectives or private investigators or FBI agents or something like that. And one is out of focus while the other is in focus. So the man closest to the camera is in focus, and the guy in the background, he's out of focus, and he's talking, and he's saying, Why am I so blurry? Why am I out of focus? And then the man in focus says, Because I'm the main character, and you are just supporting cast. Now, the commercial continues, and at some point in the commercial, the focus shifts to the other man, and then the man that was closest to you is out of focus, and so the other guy says, Well, I guess now this means I'm the main character. Of course, in photography and as well as cinematography, the main subject that you're focusing on needs to be the one who is with whom you have the camera in focus. But every now and then, there's a focus shift where you shift from this subject to another subject to get the audience to move their attention. And for the last three years, in our association of churches, as your associational director, I've been trying to prayerfully consider where our association's focus needs to be. And to some degree, we've shifted our Focus a little bit. This past fall, we made some changes in our association to streamline our ministry and to keep our focus on the right things. Along with that came a name change. We're no longer the Kreth Brazos Baptist Association, we're now the Brazos Valley Baptist Network, and some new structure, some new bylaws, and a new title, as you heard from me. All of this is being done to carry out our mission statement, to carry out the focus of our network of churches. And here is our mission statement: We exist to glorify God through partnering, mobilizing, and strengthening churches to extend the gospel of Jesus Christ. Partnering, seeing churches work together, mobilizing, seeing churches on mission with the gospel, and strengthening, seeing churches be healthy. And of course, all of this works together. Healthy churches are churches that can be mobilized, and mobilized churches realize they need one another for the sake of the gospel to fulfill the mission. And so, this morning, I see this threefold focus in this biblical passage we're going to look at today. In this passage of Scripture, as the Apostle Paul concludes this letter to the Romans, we see all three of these things. So, I'm going to ask now that you would stand as we read God's Word, Romans 15, verses 14 through 33.

4:30Romans 15, beginning in verse 14, reading to the end of the chapter, and we stand in the honor of reading God's all-sufficient, infallible, and inerrant word. Beginning in verse 14, it says this: 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. But on some points, I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God, 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. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 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, 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 Illiquium, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. 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. But as it is written, those who had never been told of him will see, and those who had never heard will understand.

6:00This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaiah have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. When, therefore, I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. We believe that the power is in your word. So, Father, I pray that this morning you would give all of us, myself included, ears to hear it rightly. And Lord, grant me a voice to speak it properly. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated.

7:45My goal, as I mentioned, is to walk through this text and to see how the three focuses of our network, partnering, mobilizing, and strengthening churches, are reflected in Paul's ministry and in his relationship to the Roman church. Now, of course, this text is coming near the end of the epistle to the Romans. And Romans, as you know, is a deep doctrinal book that lays out the foundations of our faith. And that doctrine takes up the first 11 chapters of the book. And in the second half of the letter, beginning in chapter 12, just as Paul does in other epistles, he shifts to application. And then beginning with today's verses, in chapter 15, Paul comes to his epilogue, the summation, the conclusion of his letter. And here at the beginning of the ending of Paul's letter, he takes some time to explain his ministry and his travel plans. That's right, I'm preaching on Paul's travel plans this morning. You wouldn't think you could get a lot out of Paul's travel plans, but you can. And then in chapter 16, Paul concludes with a lengthy section of personal greeting and doxology. And so as I stated earlier, I believe that the three focuses of our network. Churches are reflected in today's text. And I have three points for you this morning, and I'm going to word those points in a way that really are the application of the sermon. Namely, that I'm asking you to join me in prayer for the churches of our association. And so, my first point is simply this: Pray with me for the churches of our network to be, number one, strengthened by the gospel, strengthened by the gospel. Look with me at the text starting in verse 14, and we'll see that the Apostle Paul was very pleased with the health, with the strength of the Roman church. Verse 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.

9:50Now, we need to state, friends, that the Apostle Paul has actually never been to the Roman church. From chapter 16, we can deduce that he knows a lot of them, but still, he has never been to this church. However, he has heard enough about them to know and to be satisfied with the fact that they are a healthy, strong church. A healthy, strong church is a church that is growing in maturity, in spiritual maturity. And we see three types of maturity here in Paul's commendation. First, we see their moral maturity. When Paul says in verse 14, you yourselves are full. Of goodness. That's their moral maturity. A healthy, strong church is growing in goodness. Goodness here refers to uprightness of heart reflected in the way one lives. In other words, he's talking about their behavior. Sometimes this word is translated kindness. Again, it refers to behavior towards other people. Paul goes on in verse 14 to say they are also filled with all knowledge. So not only do they show moral maturity, they also show intellectual maturity. They have right thinking. They have right beliefs. They have right doctrine. They have right convictions. They have right theology.

11:16They are morally mature. They are intellectually mature. And thirdly, in verse 14, we see that they have functional maturity. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean that their right thinking and their right moral behavior have a purpose, namely to continue to build up the church. And so we see in the final part of verse 14 where Paul says that they are able to instruct one another. Not only do they have good behavior, not only do they have right thinking, they're actually putting it into practice by instructing one another. Instruct here could also be translated counsel, exhort, or admonish, or even warn. It's the Greek word nutiteo, and it literally is. Means to put into the mind. So, a healthy church is filled with people who are teaching and counseling and exhorting and admonishing one another towards greater Christ-likeness. In other words, it's discipleship. It's what we call discipleship. That's the mark of a healthy church. And conversely, a church that is not doing this, not teaching one another, according to Hebrews 5, is an immature church. Now, these are the health metrics. These are some of the health metrics that are very important, that matter in a church. But many churches look to the wrong things, to the wrong metrics, to determine whether or not they're healthy. They may look to the numbers, how many people are coming, or giving, how much money is coming in, or programs, are we doing this, this, and this, or buildings. You guys have a beautiful building here, but I know enough about you that you are not measuring your strength by the beauty of your building.

13:01Now, those are not bad things in and of themselves, but they are not necessarily signs of true health, true strength. The other day, I was watching and trying to prepare myself for the new Spider-Man movie. And if you know anything about the new Spider-Man movie, it brings in the Spider-Man from previous movies, okay, outside of the Marvel universe. And so, I had to prepare myself for the new Spider-Man by going back and watching the 2002 Spider-Man. Spider-Man with Toby Maguire. And just my opinion, he was the best of the three Spider-Mans.

13:35Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, what's this? Find a nerd and ask them about what I'm talking about about Spider-Man. But anyway, I watched that 2002 version of Spider-Man, and there's a scene in there where Toby Maguire, where Peter Parker goes and has a wrestling match with somebody. And he's trying to earn a little extra cash, and he has these superpowers now, so he goes and wrestles. And in that scene, the person playing the wrestler, I was just trying to figure out who is that? It was this big, huge, hulking guy, and he had this loud, booming voice. And I was like, who is that? And so while I'm watching there, I whip out my phone and Google it. Who played the wrestler in 2002 Spider-Man? And if you know, it was Randy the Macho Man Savage.

14:21Now, again, if you don't know who Randy the Macho Man Savage is, I'm not going to take any time to explain that to you. Just go Google 80s wrestling and you'll see who he is. But then I got to thinking, man, I haven't seen Randy the Macho Man Savage in forever. And so then my next thing I plugged into Google was what happened to Randy the Macho Man Savage. And I found out that just a few years after filming that movie, he passed away. He was only 57 years old. And I got to thinking about that. I mean, in this movie, he looks so healthy. He looks so strong. I mean, he's got huge muscles. There's not an ounce of fat on this. Guy.

15:02But he wasn't healthy because on the inside, his heart was falling to pieces because of steroid use earlier in his life. Too many churches believe in a type of church growth that is merely steroid church growth. And on the outside, they look healthy. On the outside, they've got the buildings, they've got the programs, they've got all things going on, but on the inside, they're falling apart. What Paul cares about, what I care about, is what's happening in the hearts of the people in the church.

15:34That's the mark of a healthy church. Are you filled with goodness? Are you filled with right knowledge? And are you putting it into practice by discipling one another, seeing each other grow into greater Christ-likeness? The Romans were a strong church, but it should go without saying that none of this, the goodness, the knowledge, okay, and the ability to counsel one another, none of it was inherent to themselves. We know from the book of Romans itself that they were not naturally good people because we read in Romans 3.12 that none does good. We know from Romans, the book of Romans itself, that we don't naturally have right knowledge because Romans 1.21 says that mankind's thinking is futile.

16:24And we are not naturally able, nor do we have the desire to teach one another. We read in Romans that in our natural state, in Romans 1:29 through 31, we are filled with unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slander, haters of God, insolence, haughtiness, boastfulness, foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness. I mean, the Apostle Paul does not let up when he describes our natural state. So, what does that mean in the church? The only way a healthy church can be filled with goodness and full of knowledge and able to teach one another is through the transforming work of the gospel. The gospel has to be at work in a church. That's why you sing the gospel. That's why you keep on singing the gospel. You keep on preaching the gospel. It's only through the transforming work of Jesus Christ and the indwelling Spirit of God that goodness can be on display because that's the fruit of the Spirit. That our mind can be transformed because, according to 1 Corinthians 2:16, we have the mind of Christ through the gospel. And the ability and the desire to teach one another is the overflow of Him first loving us.

17:44The gospel is the mark of a healthy church. It enabled this Roman church to be strong. And so, a healthy church keeps the gospel front and center, keeps the gospel in focus. And so, friends, A strong church is always being reminded of the gospel. Look at verse 15. This is what the Apostle Paul is talking about. He says, but on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder. Reminder. Friends, we never graduate from the gospel. We must always be reminded of the gospel. If you were at our annual gathering, I know some of you in here were, you would have heard Jared Wilson, and I think Jared spoke here, preached here the day after our annual gathering. You would have heard him teaching on this very thing, and you can still access his annual gathering sermon on our YouTube page. But Jared said what others have said before him: if we aren't constantly reminded of the gospel, then one generation believes the gospel, the next generation simply assumes the gospel, next generation forgets the gospel before that last generation denies the gospel. That's the path of a church that isn't constantly reminded of the gospel. Paul was aware of this. He always does this. 1 Corinthians 15:1, he says this, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

19:20Paul understood that the grace of God in the gospel was the only reason that his ministry had any kind of success. Look at verse 15, where it continues. He says, because of the grace of God, Grace given to me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel. Now, I don't have time to really break down every little aspect of this text here, but I do want to say that Paul is not saying that he himself is like the Old Testament priest. What he's saying is because of the gospel of grace in his life, God had given him a unique ministry to share the gospel with the Gentiles, to share the sacrificial propitiatory work of Christ, so that the Gentiles would themselves become an offering acceptable to God. In Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, we read how we are living sacrifices, and that's what Paul's talking about here. They become themselves sacrifices for God. The beauty of this is that the Gentiles were not allowed into the temple, but because of the gospel, every barrier had been brought down, and now the Gentiles themselves were the offering to God. It's beautiful what the gospel does. And it says here they were sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Verse 17: In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. Paul's boasting about his work was never a prideful boasting, but a humble boasting that pointed to the gospel. Verse 18, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience. Now, let me say a word real quick here about obedience. You may say, well, Steve, obedience, that sounds like doing. That sounds like works. Were the Gentiles saved by their works? Well, I think we need to ask, what is this obedience? And to answer the question, what is this obedience? We simply have to go and see how Paul has already used it in the book of Romans. And in Romans chapter 1, verse 5, the Apostle Paul says this: We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations. So the obedience of the Gentiles is not works, it's faith. That's the obedience Paul is aiming for. The gospel, friends, is received by grace alone, through faith alone. So if you want to be a healthy church, you cannot in and of yourselves work your way there. You rest in the gospel. You continually rest in the gospel and let him do the work, and he gets all the glory, just as the Apostle Paul is showing here. He doesn't want to take any credit. He simply wants to point to what Jesus has done. Real quickly, Paul lays out three means that God has used to bring the Gentiles to faith. It says here, by word and deed. And this is simply referring to Paul's preaching and his action, his lifestyles, his lifestyle that backed up the preaching. And then in verse 19, by power of signs and wonders. Paul's words were backed up by unique signs and wonders that were specifically unique to the apostles. Paul was an apostle and We read in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 12, that the apostles were accompanied by signs and wonders in order to confirm the gospel message. And then, thirdly, by the power of the Spirit of God, namely by the power of the Holy Spirit to renew a dead heart through the gospel. Romans 1, verse 16 says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. So, by God's grace, provided through the gospel, Paul was able to complete his amazing ministry that covered much of the known world. Look, continuing in verse 19. So, that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. So, I want to shift now from this focus on a healthy church that rests on the gospel to what Paul now is beginning to talk about, and that is his ministry to reach people with the gospel. And so, I'm not only going to ask you to pray for me, for the churches of our network to, number one, be strengthened by the gospel, I also want to ask you to pray for the churches to be mobilized for the gospel. So, I'm asking you to pray that our churches will be strengthened, healthy in the gospel, but also that we would be on mission, we'd be mobilized for the gospel. And so, what we see in Paul's next Words to the Roman church is his pulsating heart for missions. But we also see him challenging the Roman church to be active participants, becoming mobilizers for missions. So, first, let's look at Paul's heart in verse 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. Paul had this insatiable desire to see the gospel reach new people in new places. Now, this doesn't mean it's wrong to build on someone else's foundation. We read in 1 Corinthians 3 that the Apostle Paul planted the church in Corinth, and then came along Apollos, who was called and gifted to water the seed that Paul had planted and thereby build upon the foundation that Paul had set. But for Paul, his heart and his giftedness and his calling was one of preaching in new places and planting new churches. Recently, I was reading about our nation's expansion westward in the 1800s. And they talk in what I was reading about certain pioneers who, upon seeing the smoke of a new cabin, would pull up stakes and head further west to unsettled land. That was just who they were. The moment they saw smoke, they pulled up stakes and they had to find new land, new unsettled land. Settled land. Paul, similarly, once he felt an area was settled enough with the gospel, he would pull up stakes and head to a place where Christ had not been named. And Paul's missionary movements were not driven by pragmatism or by preference. For Paul, there was always a theological, biblical impulse driving his ministry. That's why, here in the text, he grounds what he's doing in an Old Testament passage. Look at verse 21. As it is written, those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand. What Paul is doing here, he's quoting Isaiah 52:15, and thereby grounding his missionary effort in biblical theology. Now, we don't have time, and it's not my aim today to go back and analyze Isaiah 52 and see how Paul is applying it to this context. I mainly just want us to see that missions work, that any missions work that Paul engaged in, had to have theological underpinnings. So too, biblical theology must drive the mission of the church today. It must propel the goers and motivate the senders. Not humanitarianism, not social justice, not philanthropy or altruism or kind-heartedness, but a robust theology grounded in God's Word that teaches that there is only one name under heaven by which man can be saved, and that name is Jesus. And therefore, we have to take it to the ends of the earth. That's what drives the church, is robust biblical theology.

27:09And so it was that missionary impulse that shaped and fashioned Paul's decisions, including his travel plans. Look at verse 22. This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. So he's been wanting for years to come see them, but he's hindered. Why? Because God has not allowed him to go that direction yet. There's always been some other new place to share the gospel. Verse 23. But now, okay, now the situation has changed. And Paul states two reasons that he now hopes to come and see them. First, he says in verse 23, there's no longer any room for work in these regions. Now, of course, this does not mean that everybody in those regions had been saved. But he had, Paul is saying here that he's completed the task of strategically starting and strengthening churches in key cities along key trade routes in Asia Minor, in Greece, and Macedonia. It is in that sense that his work is done. And then Paul states his second reason. I have longed for many years to come to you. He loves this church, and he wants to finally see them in fellowship with his brothers and sisters. But, friends, I want us to see something else. His desire to visit them was not merely... For fellowship and camaraderie. That was an important part of it. But it was also strategic. Look at verse 24. Paul states, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain. Listen to this. And to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. This phrase in the English here, helped on my journey, is only one word in the Greek. It's the word propimpo, and it means to send. And in the New Testament, it took on a technical meaning for sending missionaries. And it meant a lot more than merely wishing one well on their journey. It wasn't that he wanted to show up in Rome and get a pat on the back and for them to say, hey, man, good luck. That wasn't what Paul was aiming for. This word propimpo means to prepare him, equip him, enable him for the journey. We see that this same word used in Titus chapter 3, verse 13. Paul says this, do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way. Listen to this, seeing that they lack nothing. To speed on their way is the same verb, propimpo. And what does it mean? It means to make sure they lack nothing. Propimpo would certainly include financial assistance, but it could also include providing means of travel or other provisions like food and clothing. It could also mean sending missionary partners along with Paul, perhaps translators. And of course it implied prayer.

30:01And so let me brag on your church for just a moment. The spirit of propempo has been fleshed out in the way you have served Southern Oaks. You have come alongside this church, which I think that needs to be part of the mission of local churches, that is to serve other local churches. You've come alongside this church in need, and you've supported them. You've done propempo. You have sent people. You have provided finances. You provided support, a location. You have come alongside them in the spirit of propempo, and I'm so thankful for you, and I pray that that would be duplicated across our association.

30:42Of course, I said Southern Oaks. I guess I should say their new name, Redeemer, right? If I want to people call the association by its new name, I need to be consistent. And so we see Paul's heart for missionary work and his desire to see the Roman church share in that work. But there is something, something that's keeping Paul from starting his missionary journey to Spain. There was something that was standing in the way of Paul visiting the Roman church to enjoy their fellowship and receive their support. And that barrier brings me to my third and final point. So first, I ask you to pray with me for the churches of our network to be strengthened by the gospel. And I ask you to pray that these churches would be mobilized for the gospel. But finally, we would be partnered. In the gospel. Now, listen to what I think is a quite stunning statement by the Apostle Paul. Verse 25.

31:40At present, however, okay, so he's already said he has this desire to go to Jerusalem, go to Rome, this desire to start new work in Spain. At present, however, I'm going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints. This is what was standing in the way. We know from the text, Paul has a passion to preach in Spain. We know from the text, Paul has affection for the church in Rome. So, what on earth could possibly keep him from going to Rome immediately? What would cause him to take an 1,800-mile detour to head in the opposite direction of Rome and Spain and go back to Jerusalem to a place where he had enemies who wanted to kill him? The answer is partnership. Partnership. That's what drove him. Partnership was so valued by the Apostle Paul that these other issues, these other things, had to be put on hold. And what am I talking about? Well, Paul here is referring, what he's referring to when he says he's bringing aid to the saints, was a multi-church cooperative giving campaign that Paul had organized to support and help the church in Jerusalem, which was suffering greatly from poverty and persecution. It was a cooperative effort, and we read about it in several places. In the New Testament, people don't think about it very much, but Paul's cooperative collection for the saints is mentioned a good bit. It was most likely precipitated by a prophecy in Acts chapter 11, verses 27 through 30, which foretold of a great famine that would greatly impact the believers in Judea. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verses 1 through 4, he encourages the Corinthian church to be part of this multi-church offering. And then in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9, he in detail describes the generosity of the Macedonian churches while exhorting the Corinthian church to give freely and cheerfully. And then later in his life before in his trial before Felix, he states that the offering was his reason for going to Jerusalem. The Southern Baptist Convention was birthed with a focus on missions. But in 1925, something was introduced that transformed the Southern Baptist Convention to make it into the greatest missionary sending agency in the history of the world. And that something was called the cooperative program. It was a moment we decided as churches, hey, let's pull our resources together for the sake of the gospel. Each autonomous Southern Baptist church would choose how much they wanted to give into this cooperative program. And it transformed missions in our denomination.

34:26It's similar to what Paul is talking about. I could say this is the first cooperative program. Program offering if I want to. But that's what's going on here. It's these churches cooperating together, partnering together. And this is what we're reading about in verse 26 when he says, for Macedonia and Achaiah have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. And for Paul, this partnership, many churches partnering together to bless one another, was more than just about money. For Paul, the financial aspect of partnership represented a much deeper unity in the gospel. In this very epistle, Paul has gone to great lengths to explain the relationship between the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers.

35:12And it's his heart's desire that the theological truth of the Gentiles being grafted into the olive tree of God's people be fleshed out in genuine partnerships between Gentile and Jewish churches. Partnerships that involve mutual blessing and mutual dependence. Look at verse 27. For they, referring to the churches of Macedonia and Achaiah, were pleased to do it. It gave them joy. And indeed, they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessing, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings.

35:54So we see that for Paul, partnership in the gospel was of paramount importance. So much so that he needed to go with them. He needed to go with this offering, to personally authenticate it and deliver it to Jerusalem. And until he did that, he couldn't come to Rome and he couldn't commence his ministry efforts for Spain. Verse 28: When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I'll leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. And so we see modeled for us in Paul's ministry and in his relationship to the Roman church the importance of strong churches, of mobilized churches, and of church partnerships. All these three are the main characters of the BVBN, the Brasilus Valley Baptist Network. Everything else is simply supporting caste. These are the things we're focused on. These are the things I'm putting before our churches. Everything else is simply supporting caste. So my application for you is simply this. Pray with me. Pray with me for the churches of our network to be strengthened by the gospel, mobilized for the gospel, and partnering in the gospel. And prayer, my friends, is the way the Apostle Paul ends today's passage. Verse 30: I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive. That could be also translated, labor together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf. And he has two prayer requests. Look at them. First, verse 31: that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea. And here's the second one: that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints. So we need to ask the question: Did God answer these prayers? Because we know how things went.

37:55Did God answer these prayers? Well, it seems that second prayer request that the offering would be received by the Jerusalem saints, it seems that he did receive a warm welcome from James and the church in Jerusalem. So it seems that prayer request was answered pretty straightforwardly. But how about that first one, where he prayed to be delivered from unbelievers? Well, his prayer was answered. He was rescued from a mob who wanted to kill him, from a Roman flogging, and from a plot from some Jewish leaders to secretly ambush him and kill him. But it certainly wasn't answered in the way he expected. The way God protected him was to incarcerate him and put him under Roman care and custody. Oh, friends, the prayers we lift up for this church and for this association, for your own lives, God may not always answer those prayers the way we expect him to. But we know that for those who belong to him, all things do indeed work together for the good. And God always. Answers prayers in a way that is for our best and most glorifying to himself. Paul's aim for these prayers, well, these prayer requests, basically amounted to a third prayer request in verse 32. So here's why he wants these prayer requests answered, verse 32. So that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. Paul had a plan to get to Rome, but many are the plans in the mind of a man. It is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. Paul planned to visit Rome, and God's purpose was to get him to Rome via imprisonment in Jerusalem and two more years of imprisonment while he was treated like a political football in Caesarea. And then after appealing to Caesar to avoid being sent back to Jerusalem where they planned to kill him, a perilous journey, a shipwreck, being bitten by a venomous snake, only to arrive in Rome and spend two more years under house arrest while he awaited his trial. I can't say for sure, but I sincerely doubt that was the route to Rome that Paul had planned.

40:11But in those years of imprisonment, those years would become some of Paul's most fruitful years of ministry to the churches. Fruit we still benefit from today in the form of many of his epistles. God's way of answering our prayers is always a manner that is best. For us and serves to glorify Himself the most. And so, while trying to shift our focus in our association, or I should say, our network, to keep our eyes on partnering and mobilizing and strengthening, friends, I want to tell you, I'm holding on to my plans very loosely because I want God to do whatever God needs to do so that He gets the most glory out of this association and out of each church that's part of this network. So, friends, I want us to close with prayer. I've asked you to pray. Now, I want us to close with prayer. If you would bow your heads and close your eyes, I'm going to pray for this church and for all the churches of our association. Father, I thank you. Thank you for Emmanuel Baptist Church. I thank you for the example that they have set in our network, the example of being a strong, healthy church with a vibrant focus on doctrine and theology. I'm also thankful for the example they've set in partnership as they've come alongside another church to help lift them up and see them revitalized and perhaps replanted. And, Father, I'm certainly thankful for how the gospel shoots out of this church. It's mobilized from this location here in international missions support and work, but also locally in this community in many different ways. So, Father, I'm thankful for this church. But my desire is for this. Network of churches to have 64 churches that are doing that. And so, God, I beg you to do a work in our association. We need more gospel-centered churches. And, Father, I beg you to put it on the hearts of the people here in this room to join me in prayer, praying that these things will happen in our association. Father, I thank you so much for your love. Thank you for your gospel. Thank you for your Son, Jesus. And may the God of peace be with you all. Amen.