Please
turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans – a letter that he wrote, v
7, “to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints” –
a letter in which he wished them “Grace to you and peace, from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” But a letter to strangers,
at least in person, for he says in v 13: “And I do not want you
to be unaware, brethren that often I have planned to come to you
(and have been prevented thus far).” At this stage, Paul had never
been to Rome.
With the gospel
having spread across the Roman empire for over 20 years, and Paul
being the church’s most well-traveled missionary doing that, it’s
possible that believers at Rome might have wondered, if you care
for us so much, why have you not visited us by now? And now we
get such a long letter – for a stranger who had time to visit us,
why would you write us such a long letter? Early in his letter,
Paul answers both questions.
He wrote them
at great length because he cared deeply about their spiritual maturity
– even though he had never visited. And as for that visit, he had
never visited them because, well, he had tried and had not been
able to get there! Every attempt he made had been prevented. And
sometimes, when you don’t get what you want – even a good thing
– you get to see the wisdom of the controlling providence of God.
For, since Paul had this as-yet unfulfilled yearning to get to
Rome, that’s why you have a copy of a letter to the Romans on your
lap right now!
He only wrote
it because he couldn’t get there! It wouldn’t have been necessary
if he had made it. A shorter letter, such as the Thessalonian or
Colossian letters, would have done fine, because he would have
preached a lot of this stuff in person. But since he did not get
there, he wrote this letter, leaving us the fullest, richest, best
explanation of how Paul preached the gospel that we have anywhere
in the Bible. Paul’s wishes denied, resulted in a masterpiece that
might otherwise have never been written.
Well, knowing
that I was getting back on this Easter Sunday, I was certain that
what most of you are most eager to do is, get on with studying
Romans. And even if somebody feels strongly that on this day, of
all days, the message ought to be on the resurrection, I’m in luck!
The whole book of Romans is about the resurrection! It’s a letter
about Christ, the gospel, the faith we hold, the resurrection,
the life He gives – these just keep on coming up in Romans. So
we will have no trouble finding the resurrection in our study today.
Now, as for Paul
writing the Romans – that’s the church at Rome, the believers in
Christ in that city. Believers he had never had the opportunity
to meet – maybe just a few of them who might have traveled at some
time to places where he was – but Paul had never been to Rome,
and so had never attended a meeting of their church, never taught
them as a church. To these brethren, he gets to his usual and customary
greeting in v 7 when he says “Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
You know that’s
the most common greeting he uses, in some form near the start of
every single one of Paul’s 13 letters. Did you ever think about
how that is the most often-repeated phrase of the whole NT: “grace
and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”
– that kind of puts a heightened value on it, doesn’t it? If you
started every single letter you ever wrote with a certain phrase,
chances are, you put some thought into that. You chose words carefully,
that you thought communicated something vital, in a few words.
An idea worth repeating. An idea of importance.
And it was: Paul
wants them to know, “Everything I have to say is about grace.”
There is no word more key to describing the Bible’s message than
the word “grace”. And what is it? Paul always puts it first in
his “grace and peace” greetings – without exception first – and
with good reason. It’s the source of the peace; it’s the grounds
of the peace. It’s the source of every other blessing we have.
If you want to
understand “grace” in the Bible, think of “works” – and then go
the opposite pole. It’s the antithesis. Good works is a way people
earn what is due them. And grace is a way of God’s dealing with
people totally contrary to what is due them. OK? Is that clear
enough? Grace is the free gift of God’s favor, without you earning
it or deserving it. And in the NT, grace is central to everything.
Growing is “growing in grace.” Continuing in the faith is “continuing
in the grace of God”. Coming to Christ is receiving God’s gift
of grace. It was clearly a word about a gift. You can even find
documents from the 1st century in which a foreman in charge of
a team of servants was instructed that he was to do nothing towards
servants with “grace” – that is, treat them as they deserve, no
favoritism, no favors, let them get what’s coming to them – good
treatment or bad, as their behavior calls for. It’s very enlightening
as to what Paul meant, saying that we have grace from God.
And “peace from
God” is the 2nd part of Paul’s greeting. Every sinner to whom God
has given grace, now has peace. Not only does Paul mention “peace”
at the opening of all 13 letters, but he re-states a wish for peace
at the end of 8 of those letters! – so he seems to really want
us to have peace with God! The way we use “peace” in the English
language, it can mean everything from the absence of war to feeling
an inner calm. To a Jew, saying “shalom” – peace – was wishing
you a sweeping, overall well-being in life, in all your relationships.
Harmony and calm in all your relationships. Paul wants his readers
to have peace in the most ultimately vital relationship: I want
peace with God for you.
Peace is when
you are no longer at strife or enmity or hostility with God, and
Him having no reason to be against us, either. You can be on good
terms with all mankind, but if you have no peace with God, nothing
is safe. But when a man has peace with God, the one and only essential
relationship is on good terms. And that happens when God is relating
to you “in Christ”, because in Him, God made peace, through the
blood of His cross.
Now, that’s v
7. Today, picking up at v 8, we can learn from Paul a lot about
how we should feel about our fellow-believers, even believers of
whom we have heard, but who we’ve never met. And from what I can
see, it looks as if many of the new ministry opportunities coming
to us at GBC give us a great chance to apply this. Because we seem
on a track of learning about many believers in far-off places.
Well, listen to Paul – a man whose love and prayers went way beyond
his own sphere of personal acquaintance. I am sure that many of
you can think of believers in far-off places to whom you’d like
to be a blessing. Listening to Paul, starting at v 8 – where we’re
going to talk about Paul’s Thanks (for other believers) and then
about Paul’s Prayer (for other believers). Paul’s prayers were,
without a doubt, absorbed in others.
A) PAUL’S THANKS
– v 8
V 8: “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all” – when
Paul says “first”, he isn’t giving us a list, a sequence – “Here’s
the 1st thing, then I have a 2nd thing and a 3rd thing” – no, it’s
not an outline. “First”, to Paul, reveals to us what is uppermost in
his thoughts. This is the first thought of his heart when he thinks
of them: thank God! If we consider Paul a model, and he is, then for
us, thankfulness should leap to mind first when we think of our brothers
and sisters in Christ. Here or far away.
Paul is sincerely
thankful over what God has done in the lives of believers many
miles away. We should be in touch with missions efforts and churches
elsewhere. We are a church of the Lord Jesus Christ but we are
not THE church. We should not be isolated. It is our gospel joy
and privilege to be connected to others!
Don’t miss that
he says “I thank my God” – wouldn’t you love to be able to talk
like that? “MY God” – do you talk like that? Were you able to sing,
as we just did, “I will glory in MY Redeemer”, and know that He
is yours? This is an instance of what Paul calls “the spirit of
adoption”, in himself – the blessing of knowing that God has adopted
me. This comes through often in the Psalms of David. For Paul,
God is not just some distant heavenly being, nor a philosophical
idea; God is his personal friend.
How do you get
that way? The same way you cultivate any other deep and close relationship:
lots of intimate time together. Paul knows the God that some of
you have only heard about as “my God”, and Paul knew him because
of some of these habits: being in constant thanks. Offering up
constant prayers.
But there is
one key phrase in v 8 that nobody can afford to ignore, because
if you don’t understand it, you can’t have a relationship with
God. You will have no tie with the people who know God except a
social tie. You’ll be in the dark when you read the Bible. You’ll
be lost as to what is going on when you come to church. Not one
of your prayers will be accepted. Your financial gift might as
well be taken out of the plate and burned. And your singing is
not regarded as worship at all, but is nothing more than noise
Unless you know this. Sounds like something pretty important to
know, doesn’t it? It is. It’s when he says:
“I thank my God
through Jesus Christ for you all” – why does Paul says “through
Jesus Christ”? Do you realize, this is the 5th time Paul has used
the name of Jesus Christ in the first 8 verses of this letter!?
That’s redundant. That’s repetitive. But that’s inspiration. There
are good reasons. Why not just say “I thank God for you”? It’s
not as though it would be wrong to just say “I thank God” – but
Paul says it this way because fuller truth is revealed by him saying
so. And Paul tends to not leave things incomplete. Listen to three
verses which communicate the same truth to us:
Heb 13:15: “Through
Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to
God, that is,
the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”
1 Thes 5:18:
“in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ
Jesus.”
Eph 5:20: “always
giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
to God…”
Are you catching
a theme here? Do I hear an echo? When he talks about praise and
thanks, he keeps saying that we bring it to God through Jesus Christ.
Do you understand that even your worship is presentable to God,
because of Christ? It’s not your warm, sincere heart that makes
your worship presentable. It’s that Christ stands in your place
before God.
Let’s put it
this way with an illustration that hits very close to the heart
for me: Let’s say that someone abuses you, tears down your good
name, maligns you, and generally treats you with a lot of contempt.
Then he comes along one day and has a whole slew of compliments
for you. He just can’t say enough good about you. How do you feel
about that? How well do you receive all those accolades and that
praise, from a person who had so many derogatory things to say
about you? You don’t receive it very well at all. You wonder if
you’re being buttered up, set up, or whatever! You doubt his sincerity,
you suspect his motives, you feel that he’s trivializing your differences,
maybe even acting like all the evil he did you never even happened.
If the evil he did against you was bad enough, you can even feel
as if, “From you – of all people – I do not want to hear it!”
OK: you can relate
to that. And you think you can walk into a worship service and
sing praise to God, and bring money to God, and stand in the presence
of God and sing Him songs? What about that heap of sins you committed
in His face? By grace, you can come to the Father in Jesus’ name
– He Who said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes
to the Father, but by Me”, Jn 14:6. Knowing this is knowing the
very first thing about the gospel: that in Christ we have a Mediator
– 1 Tim 2:5 – a person standing between two parties who cannot
reconcile their relationship on their own. They have a gulf between
them, an issue, a crisis. They need someone to work it out between
them.
In our case,
the gulf was with us and God. And Christ is the Mediator. God the
Father knew what had to be done to “work it out”, and He both chose
and sent the Mediator, His Son.
Some other key
verses which bring out the “in Christ” point. When you pray, you
enter a holy place – the presence of God. And Heb 10:19 says that
“we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus.”
(other vss which touch on the same point: Heb 4:14-16 and Eph 3:11-12)
So yes, even
your worship is presentable to God, because you are in Christ!
Because the Father cannot possibly turn His Son away, all the worship
and thanks you bring to God is happily received. This is even what
it means to pray “in Christ’s name.” We need to understand, when
Jesus said things like Jn 14:13-14, He was not saying, everything
you pray for, just make sure you tack on: “in Jesus’ name” and
you get what you asked for. He was saying, anytime you pray, remember
that you have access to God through Me. Only in that way will you
get answers – but praying in that way, you will get answers.
OK: moving on
– there is something specific that Paul gives thanks over them
for: “because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole
world” – so, why not thank them (rather than God)? If their faith
is widely known, it’s because they believed. So why not thank them?
There are reasons you thank God:
-- because God
brought the gospel to them, so that they might believe it
-- because God is the author of their faith, and without His grace
working in them, they would not have
believed
-- Because God is the reason that the news of their faith has spread
to other people
-- Because God is the reason that their example had a good influence
rather than make people angry
And probably
lots more could be said. Still in that phrase at the end of v 8:
“your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world” – other
believers had heard the reports about their faith and were encouraged
by it, and that’s reason to thank God. Lost people all over the
world had heard the gospel from the church at Rome, due to them.
Why, the word is, the church at Rome had already sent some of their
own missionaries out into the world.
Why is that not
told in the book of Acts? There’s a lot not told in Acts. There’s
a lot in church history never heard of. Men trained by Charles
Spurgeon’s church in the late 1800’s traveled as far as South America
to preach the gospel and plant churches, some of them never heard
from again. Converts from Brazil crossed to Africa.to do missions
work. Christians from one Pacific island went to another. Some
even sold themselves into slavery to reach other cultures that
could not be penetrated in any other way! Men do this not just
because Jesus Christ has died. There would be no good reason to
do it for Jesus Christ if He was still dead. Men do this for Jesus
Christ, in service to Him, because He is alive.
Some churches
are famous for their architecture; their stained glass windows;
some churches are famous for their numerical size, or rapid growth,
or their internationally-acclaimed pastor, their TV ministry. Some
churches are even famous for the size of the offering they took.
The report of fame from the church in Rome was for their faith.
Paul is probably not just speaking of the fact that they believed,
but of their persevering in the faith, in the face of many obstacles,
including some local pressures from the government of the city
of Rome. They had paid a price for being Christians, and Paul thanks
God for them. But now:
B) PAUL’S PRAYER
– vv 9-12
It starts, v 9: “For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching
of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make
mention of you” – now, for starters, delete the words “in the preaching
of” from your v 9. Those words are not there; somebody thought it clarified
matters to add those words. It seemed like a safe assumption, that’s
what Paul meant. But Paul served God not just in preaching but in all
of his work! The verse should be left as it is, to say that. And what
Paul is telling believers at Rome right now is, you are never, ever
off my prayer list, and that he serves God in that way too.
Every time we
read Paul tell us how he prays (and he tells us often how he prays)
it is loaded with instruction. His praying is so UN-like much praying
people do today. Look at some features of Paul’s prayers, and learn
to pray. His prayers were:
1) Ceaseless
2) Consumed with Others’ Needs
3) Crying Out for Opportunity
4) Content with the Will of God
We will look
at each of those. Just a glance at v 9 first: Paul says, this is
how I serve God “in my spirit” – just as Jesus taught that we must
worship God “in spirit and in truth”, Paul says “I do that” – “in
my spirit” – sort of a way of saying, “from the heart, not just
as a ritual.” And then he says “God…is my witness” of this. That
means, I do this in truth. It was a form of oath, of swearing to
the truth. Jews said “God is my witness” often, whether they took
it seriously or not. Paul said it often too (2 Cor 1:23, Phil 1:8,
1 Thes 2:5) – a way of saying, “When I tell you that I pray for
you, I realize that I’m not just saying it to you, but in the presence
of God, and it’s 100% true. I pray for you! All the time!” So he
really did pray for them as an unceasing habit.
May we all be
so blessed as to have people who pray for us like that. May we
become persons who pray that way for others! Occasional, sporadic
praying is common: a commitment to habitual prayer is another matter.
One of the best ways to start to form that habit is to form a habit
of being regular at our prayer meeting. I do believe that no church
will be mightily used of God for long who do not commit themselves
to regular prayer together. I crave the idea of about twice as
many of you committing to do that on Wednesday nights.
But now, we’ve
got to get to those 4 habits of Paul’s praying that I named:
1) Ceaseless
– vv 9b-10a (habitual, constant, regular) – probably daily
“how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making
request…”
Paul is committed to pray regularly for churches and brethren in places
he had never been. How well do we pray for the church we’re part of!?
Now, we may not do what an Apostle did – have a worldwide burden for
all the churches – but I am sure we must remember at least our own
church and some other churches, too. If you start, you’ll find it won’t
be a burden – it’ll be a pleasure! Here’s a man with more than enough
to do! He has a personal stake of responsibility for a lot of churches,
which he personally founded. They placed heavy, constant demands on
his time and strength. But in addition to bearing their burdens, Paul
chose to remember in prayer other churches, too. Regularly. Unceasingly.
Always. I think he did it out of love for it.
You have habits.
You have things you “always” do; things you don’t go a day or two
without doing. Make prayer for others one of those things! Maybe
you can replace one of those other habits with prayer for others.
Give me one good reason why not. I think you’ll be happy about
it once you’re in the habit.
2) Consumed With
Others’ Needs – v 10
“always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the
will of God I may succeed in
coming to you.”
What did he pray about? “God, let me get to them!” Paul is utterly
committed to ministry to people! The big request in his heart: “Coming
to you”! He asks the Father’s permission for him to be a blessing to
the church at Rome. That is so Christ-like, to have that aspiration
– Paul is imitating His Savior, Who came to us. Who gave His death
and His life for us. And v 11 closely ties in:
3) Crying Out for Opportunity – v 11
“For I long to see you in order that I may impart some spiritual gift
to you, that you
may be established.”
It’s more “Use me!” and “Send me!” Do you pray that your spiritual
gifts will be a blessing to us? That you will impart to us what God
gifted in you, for the building up of this body?
Now, even if
you share Paul’s aspiration “Use me!” aspiration, let me give you
a question to ask yourself. Many a man who says and feels that,
is mostly obsessed with being useful, feeling significant, making
a difference, to feel good about himself. Paul does want to be
used, but not just so he can lay his head on the pillow at night
and say “Man, I feel useful. It makes me feel good about myself
to know that I’m doing something that counts!” Notice the last
words of v 11: he wants to be used “so that you may be established”.
He wants it to make them stand strong and firm. To ground them
in the faith more than they are now. It’s not for him; it’s for
them!
For people who
Paul not even know well enough yet to know what benefit he might
be to them, he’d just love to find out and do it! He wants to strengthen
them spiritually: by preaching, exhorting, warning, comforting,
counseling, discipleship, whatever. It reveals the spirit that
he shows in 2 Cor 12:14-15: “What I want is not your possessions,
but you…and I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls.”
As soon as you
pray for something, ponder: does God want me to do anything about
that? Has God put this on my heart to pray, because He intends
to use me as the answer to my own prayer?
Notice also this
in v 12: I don’t think this is an element of the prayer, but it’s
worth noting that Paul says: “that I may be encouraged together
with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both
yours and mine” – what a comment! Here is probably the most useful
man in the history of the church, the greatest and most foundational
theologian in the history of the world, the chief Apostle and the
most significant missionary to ever travel the world – and he’s
humble enough to admit that he hoped to grow and be strengthened
by their faith too, not just thinking of himself as able to be
a blessing to them.
So there is no
attitude of “I am the Great Apostle, the Mighty Minister, and you
little people certainly can expect a blessing when I’m in town.”
Like the person to whom you say “Nice to meet you!”, and who replies,
“Yeah, I’m glad you got to meet me, too.” No, for Paul, since they
were believers, he knew they would be a blessing to him, too. Expect
that each time you come here. Gathering with God’s people has a
two-way effect. You cannot minister to others without being ministered
to in the very act.
I have known
a few Christians who told me that they didn’t get much out of fellowship
with other Christians. It always troubled me. If that’s you, one
of the following things is true: You’re not hungering for something
you ought to be hungry for; or, you’re closing yourself off protectively
from something you need, and so keeping the conversation on a surface
level so it never touches you; or you’re too absorbed in your own
thoughts to listen well. You should get a blessing when you are
here. I do almost every time I’m with you. And I’m the pastor.
So if I can locate it, you should be able to too. And with that,
the 4th and final point that we can learn from features of Paul’s
praying:
4) Content With
the Will of God – v 10
“if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming
to you.”
For Paul, “if God wills” was no empty phrase. Acts 18:21, 1 Cor 4:19,
16:7. He had learned from how the Lord Jesus prayed: “not My will,
but Thine be done”, to submit all his plans to the will of God. He
subjected himself to God’s sovereign disposal and direction, knowing
that, anytime I have plans to do a good work, I still might not know
God’s plans for me. God may have other intentions for me. So Paul’s
eagerness to serve God was remained harnessed to the will of God.
Now, while we’re
on “the will of God”, there is something we tend to get confused
about – so let me lay it out real logically for you:
- Paul had a passionate desire to do something: to get to Rome and
be a blessing to the believers there
- Paul made a habit of praying for that to come to pass
- Paul’s request had been repeatedly frustrated: he couldn’t get there
- Paul regarded the delays as the will of God, and he submitted trustingly
to that
(but now: be sure to catch this):
- Paul did not treat the delays of God’s will as reason to quit praying
for his chance
Does that mean
that, secretly down deep, he was rebelling against God’s will and
just wanted what he wanted and was pushing and pushing?! No: he
was able to submit to the present will of God, while continuing
to ask for the chance to carry out a good plan that he had a burden
for. There are times when, maturity and growth and time teach you
that, something you used to ask God for in prayer was just wrong,
and you should give it up. But there are times that, no matter
how long God says “no”, you can still Biblically seek after a good
end, a God-honoring end. And in that case, there is no reason to
stop praying!
So: submission
to God’s will does not mean, you have to quit praying for an outcome
or opportunity that seems to be a godly thing to aspire for. It
just means you leave the timing to God. But no need to give up
praying. That could include the salvation of anyone. That could
include a man praying for his entire adult Christian life for a
chance to be a missionary.
How long do you
think Jim Blomstand might have prayed to be a missionary to Mexico?
God delayed him until he was nearly 60 years old. God did give
Jim the desire of his heart once, when he was about 50, and let
him stay 15 months – and then took Jim back out of Mexico. But
Jim didn’t give up praying. And in all the breath Jim put into
those prayers, in the meanwhile, God did not waste Jim’s time in
one of those prayers.
And so we can
say that, part of the prayer life of Paul, even without being mentioned
in so many words, is he’s a guy who was persevering in prayer.
He prayed as he taught us to pray, Eph 6:18:
“With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and
with this in view, be on the
alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”
Again, he prayed
thankfully, and contentedly, as he taught us to pray, Phil 4:6-7:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses
all comprehension,
shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
An Important
Conclusion to this Message:
You and I can’t just read about Paul’s prayer here and figure, “Well,
that’s great, I’m glad the guy was such a prayer warrior and is so
regular about it. It’s wonderful the early church had leaders like
that, and I’m sure Pastor Dennis is just like that, too.” Not as much
as I wish or as you think, perhaps. I know that I’m provoked by studying
these verses today to do better.
How about you?
After all – Eph 6:18, which I just read you, was written to everybody
in the church. And so was 1 Thes 5:17-18:
“Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's
will for you in Christ Jesus.”
And so was even
Rom 15:30:
“Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love
of the Spirit, to strive
together with me in your prayers to God for me…” – he wanted them to
pray for him. The
preacher needs the prayers of the people. And wow, I just noticed this
– will you look at v 32:
“so that I may
come to you in joy by the will of God and find refreshing rest
in your company.”
Would you pray
for what I told you, way back at the start of the letter, I have
been praying for? And maybe God will let us get together and be
a blessing to one another.
Maybe this will
even show you that, when we pray on a Wednesday that God would
bless the meetings on Sunday, it’s because we don’t assume either
that 1) there will BE a meeting, or 2) if there is, that it’s just
automatically been a blessing. There have been meetings in this
building which were not a blessing, I assure you. It can happen
if God leaves us to ourselves.
So I would say
that, unceasing prayer is supposed to be your habit, too.
