From the Local Pew to the Ends of the Earth

Good afternoon, Crossway family.

See if this works. Yeah. So since we. We missed having service last week, Pastor Martin has given me permission to speak for 80 minutes today. No, I'm kidding.

No, I'm kidding. I've done my 40 minutes in Potsdam, so I'm gonna do 40 minutes here. But anyways, we're almost to the. Sorry, I'm gonna have to do my slides myself today, so. To handle them both.

So we're almost to the end of our series in the Book of Romans, and I thought I'd start with this slide here. Right. That's from the Babylon Bee. I think they're a great. They're a great magazine.

The great website, poking humor at Christians.

It says. It says up there Christian picky about whom he shares the gospel with, since he might have to spend eternity with them.

I think that's a great one for today's sermon. It has a lot to do with my sermon today, but not in quite the way that it's expressed up there, but it is. It does have some meaning to it, though. Right?

Right. I'm going the right way. Good. So I've titled my sermon for today, the Hope of Nations from the local pew to the ends of the Earth. Maybe we could just quickly start by looking to God in prayer.

Lord Jesus, I want to thank you for giving me another opportunity to stand here and speak for you. Lord, I pray that you give me grace as I speak. And I also pray that you give us as a church grace to receive this from you, Lord, and to put it into action. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Now, I have in the past explained to you that the reason for Paul's letter to the church in Rome. But I would like to say that again as a reminder to us for which the purpose of his letter to the Roman Church. Because a lot of what God has put on my heart today has much to do with the reason for the letter being written. Now, the. Sorry, I have to get used to this.

Now, the great Bible teacher David Pawson used to say that in order to understand a book in the Bible, you need to look for the crisis behind it. Why did the author pick up that pen? And I love that because that's really helped me understand a lot of what the Bible has to say. For a long time, I think people treated the Book of Romans as a dry theological textbook. But the fact is Paul was actually writing to real people in a real church with real problems.

And the church in Rome had serious tension. You see, the church in Rome began with Jewish roots. But after the Jews were expelled from Rome under Claudius, the church became a largely Gentile church. And later on, I presume about five years or so, the Jews came back. They were invited back under Nero, which included these Jewish believers in Christ.

And you could imagine when these Jewish believers returned back to their churches in Rome, there must have been a lot of changes that took place. You could imagine different customs that they had to deal with from the Gentiles, different expectations and same for the Gentiles with the Jews. Different sensitivities, maybe different festivals that the Jews once celebrated but were not being celebrated anymore. Possibly a change of Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday. And all of a sudden you had two very different cultures sitting in the same room facing each other.

And now, some of this might sound familiar to us today. You see, today we may not necessarily argue over the laws of Moses or the food laws of Moses and so on and so forth, but I think we still build invisible walls. And those invisible walls are based on politics, social status, race, generations, worship preferences, so on and so forth. In our passage today, Paul is wrapping up, I think, this masterpiece of a letter, and he's essentially telling them this. I think he's saying your petty internal arguments are getting in the way of God's global rescue mission.

And in this part of chapter 15, Paul now shifts their gaze from the comfort of the pews to the ends of the earth.

And I think if you notice something here. Sorry, playing up. My computer is playing up. Sorry.

If you notice something interesting here, Paul is. Paul had not been to Rome at this point in time of writing this letter to the Roman Church.

He was writing to a people that he did not know personally. And I think we need to be in awe of a man who had a concern for a people that was beyond that territory that he was operating in. He speaks to them with such love, humility, authority, and fatherly care. And I think he also urges them to live in unity, to support his mission and to welcome him when he actually does come to Rome. And the truth is, Paul never really arrived in Rome as a free missionary, but rather as a prisoner.

Now, Paul did actually have plans to go to Rome, but Paul's life shows us that God does not need our perfect plans to get his word to his people. You see, when our pathways are blocked, God can still move. Now, I'm going to start by unpacking the word of God through Paul's letter to the Roman Church under three points. And then I'm going to end with some practical points on how we can actually put those into action. So let's look at point one.

Oh, sorry, I've missed a whole slide there. Okay, let's look at point 1. Christ is the bridge builder. Verses 8 to 13. Let me read verses 8 and 9 for us.

It says, for I tell you, that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised, that is, the Jewish people, on behalf of God's truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed, and moreover, that the Gentiles, the nations, might glorify God for His mercy. Now, I think this is a wonderful summary of the story of salvation. You see, Jesus came first to the Jews, and he never came as a stranger to the Jews, but he actually came in fulfillment of their own story.

You see, God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and the prophets and Jesus. It was Jesus who came to prove that God had not forgotten a single promise that he had made to the patriarchs in the past. You see, Paul then turns to the Gentile believers and he says to them, don't look down on the Jewish believers. Christ became a minister to them to fulfill God's ancient promises. And at the same time, he looks at the Jewish believers and he says to them, don't exclude the Gentiles.

God always intended for them to be a part of the family.

Then, of course, in verses nine to 12, Paul goes on to quote a chain of Old Testament quotations from Psalms, Deuteronomy and Isaiah, where he is trying to show us that the nations praising God was always a part of God's plan. Jew and Gentile together, one voice, one worship, one hope. And I think this phrase in verse nine is rather important, that the Gentiles might glorify God. I think God didn't just save us to keep us out of hell, but rather he saved us so that we would actually glorify him. And I think God's favorite sound in the universe is not a solo, but it's rather a choir.

Now, I love listening to the piano. Think of a musical chord. If you play one note with one finger, I think it sounds all right. Sounds fine. Maybe some people can play a song like myself with one finger.

But when you actually press three chords or three notes, you form a chord, and it sounds rich, it sounds beautiful, sounds harmonious. Unity doesn't mean uniformity. God does not actually erase any of our backgrounds, our cultures, or our personalities. He redeems them and brings them all together under Christ. You see, I think God wants our differences to blend together, to show a broken world how great his mercy is.

And I think when we as a church, when we refuse to reconcile with people that are different from us, I think we're telling the world that the cross of Jesus is not strong enough to bridge our human divides. Now, a few weeks ago, Pastor Franz preached a five hour sermon from Romans 12. Does anyone remember that? No, that's all right. I'm kidding.

He's not here today so I can make fun of him. But anyways, he preached a wonderful sermon on Romans 12 and it was all about how to treat each other. So I'm not actually going to go down that line, but it was a fantastic sermon. If you missed it, do watch it on YouTube. It was absolutely brilliant.

You see, the thing here is Paul will not let us stay fragmented amongst ourselves. He brings us back to the heart of the gospel and he actually prays against division. And he says, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that the power of the Holy Spirit may abound. So that the power of the Holy Spirit you may. Sorry.

So that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And I think this is not wishful thinking, but this is rather gospel hope. You see, the God who built this bridge between Jew and Gentile is the same God that can fill you with joy, peace and hope. For today.

You see, God gives us the strength to live in unity with people that are different from us. And in this way we can show the world that the cross bridges every divide.

Let's move to point 2. Holy ambition and gospel mission verses 14 to 22. Now here Paul is moving from theology to something I think very personal. And we shouldn't rush past it because I believe this is full of holy ambition. Paul says in verse 20.

It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known. Paul had a very pioneering spirit and he was not satisfied to build where the church had already existed. He wanted to go. He wanted to go where Jesus had never been heard of.

At this point, I think his eyes were fixed on Spain, as you see in the picture on the back, his eyes were fixed on Spain. And I think at that time it was the edge of the Roman world or the Roman Empire. And this wasn't just a travel plan of Paul, it was his gospel vision. I think Paul believed that the good news of Jesus should keep moving outward until it reached people and places where Jesus had never been heard of.

Now this idea that the God of the Bible must be made known is not something new that Paul came up with. I think it actually fits into a larger biblical pattern in scripture because if you look back at Deuteronomy 4, for example, Israel as a nation was called to live so wisely and justly that the nations around them would see their life and recognize the goodness and greatness of our God. You see, Israel was meant to be a come and see people, sort of a model nation to come and see because they were a community that was so marked by justice, mercy, holiness, and that other people would see that the Lord clearly lived among them.

Sorry, go back again. Yeah, so Israel was meant to be a come and see people. However, Paul understood that in the New Testament the gospel cannot only be wait to be noticed, but that the gospel actually had to be taken out.

So now we as a church, I think we become a. We're not to remain as a come and see people, but we need to be a go and tell people.

We cannot just hope that the world will somehow stumble upon the truth. We need to actually carry the truth to them. You see, Paul did not see himself as some kind of a religious celebrity. He actually saw himself as a priest bringing an offering to God. And what was that offering?

That offering was the lives of people, the lives of Gentiles being brought to God through the Gospel and being made holy by the Spirit. And I think that should kind of reshape the way we think about ministry. Ministry is certainly not a performance. It's not about building a platform. It's not about winning arguments for the sake of winning arguments.

I think this offering people to God is helping people to come to faith and to grow into living sacrifices for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul says something else that matters. In verse 18, he says he does not boast about anything. He boasts in only what Christ has done through him. And I think that's real humility.

It's not just humility, but it's also confidence, Paul's confidence. You see, Paul knows that the gospel works because Christ works through the gospel. Now, I think it's easy for us here to get comfortable. We go to a church we like, we hang out with the people we like. We kind of get into a routine we like and our default setting becomes that preservation that we like to keep.

But you see, Paul's life calls us something beyond that. Paul did not want us to fish in somebody else's pond, but he wanted us to go where no fisherman had ever been.

So what does this look like for us? I think we need to stop waiting for the unchurched people to Somehow magically walk into our church building. We need to start thinking like pioneers like Paul in everyday life.

Therefore, we need to ask ourselves this, who is the Spain in your life? Could it be a co worker that we love to avoid? Could it be a neighbor from a very different background? Could it be a family member that has deep resentment towards religion? Question is, are we willing to cross that room, cross that street and cross some of those barriers with the Gospel?

See, Paul felt a kind of a debt. It wasn't a financial debt, but it was a moral and spiritual debt. It's kind of like this. If you found a cure for a deadly disease, I don't think we're going to keep it to ourselves. We're going to want to let the world know about it.

And I think it's the same thing with Paul. You see, Paul had received the cure for the human condition in Christ Jesus and he simply could not keep quiet about it.

Good. We've come to point three Gospel shaped plans, generosity and prayer. This is partnership. Let's think of this word partnership because that's quite important in here. Verses 22 to.

Sorry, 23 to 33. Yeah. You see, Paul was carrying a very generous gift that was eagerly, the Bible says, eagerly given by the Gentile churches in Macedonia and Achaia to poor Jewish believers in Jerusalem. And this was done against a wider background of hardship that the Jewish believers in Judea were suffering from. You see, in Romans 15:26, the word Paul uses here is koinonia.

Now I'm not a Greek scholar, but upon looking up this word, I understand that it means sharing, fellowship, participation or contribution. So I see this gift as not just a financial transaction. I think it was an expression of fellowship. You see, in the modern church we often use the word fellowship as having a coffee with one another, just hanging out with one another, probably having home group together and just having a casual conversation about things. But I think in the New Testament it was much deeper than that.

I actually think it meant sharing life, sharing burdens, and even sharing our resources.

Paul then goes on to say in verse 27 that they, those churches in Macedonia and Achaia were glad to do this since the Gentiles are us Gentiles, the nations shared in the spiritual blessing of the Jews. We're talking about their Messiah covenants, their covenants, their scriptures which we're a part of. And it goes on to say it was the least that the Gentiles could do for them by sharing their material blessing that the Gentiles had to help the Poor Jewish believers in their time of hardship, you see. Then Paul goes on to ask for prayer. In verse 30 he says, Dear brothers and sisters, I urge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.

Do this because of your love for me given to you by the Holy Spirit. You see, because the Holy Spirit has given us love for one another. Our prayers are not passive. They are actually a partnership in that struggle. We pray for others.

Sorry, when we pray for others, we are actually joining them in their mission. And we are also joining them in the mission of Christ. See, Paul then goes on to make two prayer requests. First he says, pray that God will protect him from the unbelievers in Judea. I believe these are Jewish people who rejected the Gospel and are actually very hostile towards Paul.

And secondly, he says, pray that the believers in Jerusalem, those poor Jewish Christians, will be willing and ready to accept the Gentile Church's gift. Who would have thought that receiving a gift was also something difficult, something that Paul needed prayer for. And I think this suggests there may have still been some kind of tensions or hesitation between the Jews and the Gentiles believers we're talking about. And Paul wanted this gift probably to be received as a sign of unity. So you notice that Paul, such a great missionary that he was, knows that he cannot do this alone.

He needs a church. He needed prayer. He needed God's protection, He needed the Spirit's power. And I think that should really humble us.

Now we often like to plan, organize and control. But Paul shows us that even the best of our plans must be held in open arms before God. Travel plans, money, missions, relationships, safety. You see, all of these belong to God, belong to Him. And I think we need to ask ourselves this question.

And I've had a very heavy time preparing for this sermon because you know, it really strikes me quite hard because here are some questions I have. Are our plans shaped by the kingdom of God or do we plan just for our comfort? I've had to ask myself that question. Second question, are our finances shaped by the Gospel or is it just for self protection and for my own enjoyment?

We also need to ask, are our prayers centered upon ourselves or on the mission of Christ?

Heavy questions. I've had a tough time kind of doing this sermon, kind of trying to justify myself speaking here, telling you this thing. But no, it's for me as well. Now as we look at the past, I finish with my three points. Now, just as we look at this passage as a whole, I Think the message from Paul is very clear.

And I think this is what Paul is saying. He says the gospel calls us to live bigger than ourselves. Let me give you five practical points here. I think first we need to see ourselves as part of one gospel family.

You see, if Christ has welcomed the Jews and Gentiles into one body, then no Christian has the right to look down on the other. There should be no room for pride prejudice or any kind of spiritual elitism. We belong to one another because we belong to Christ. Let me give you a little example of this. Me and my wife were a part of a thriving church in New Zealand.

I think we were about 400 people in the church. It was a big church, and we had two pastors up the top and. And they both did a wonderful job. They got on well with each other until one day they fell away from each other. So we agreed with one and we disagreed with the other pastor.

And the one whom we agreed with, he took half the congregation and started his own church. And the other pastor stayed behind and we actually left. We didn't take sides. We decided to leave and go to a different church, but we didn't leave necessarily from the pastor. We disagreed on a good note.

But a couple of years later, my wife felt the burden that we needed to go and say or apologize to him. So my wife said, I think you need to make an appointment. So I called him up and I said, hey, we'd like to make an appointment. We want to come and talk to you. And he was good.

He let us come. We went, we sat in his office, we had a coffee, we had a chat. We got to apologize. It was wonderful. We had love, joy, peace, everything flowing through.

It was. It was awesome forgiveness. But my point is this. I think in hindsight, when I look at this, you see God made us realize that we were part of one gospel family. And that is why he had placed that burden on us, that we needed to respect this person that we left because we'd had a great time with them for about five or six years.

Despite our disagreements, we had to ask for apologies and set it right with them. Oops.

Secondly, I think we need to treat gospel sharing as a responsibility, and it's not really an option. You see, Paul felt the burden of Christ's love, and so should we. The good news about Jesus, I think should be too good to keep to ourselves.

You see, there's always someone around us that needs hope, that might need forgiveness, that might need direction, and ultimately needs salvation.

Now, here's another Slide.

Some of you might know this family here, but I personally knew them when I was growing up. They used to come and visit us. They're an Australian family, an Australian family that came as missionaries to India. We knew them personally because they used to come to our home for holidays from their mission field. I'm very proud to say that I know them personally, but I must also say at the same time, I'm very ashamed to say that I could never, in my own strength put it that way, at least never in my own strength, live the way they lived.

Now, Graham Staines was a missionary from Australia who worked amongst the lepers in India. And not just working amongst the lepers, but they worked in a very rough part of India, in a very poor part of India, in a very backward part of India. And he was. Here was a man who worked amongst the lepers. Now, I'm sure most of you know what leprosy is, but let me be honest and tell you that me as a child, or when I was growing up in India, leprosy was all over me.

There was all over lepers. But even then, I remember I was traumatized as a child. There were nights that I couldn't sleep because of all these lepers that I'd seen on the street. It's a terrible, terrible disease. And once you have leprosy, you are thrown out of the house, you live on the streets and you live a terrible life.

But here was a man and his family that cared for the lepers. They looked after them, they took them into their home, they fed them and they shared the gospel with them. And let me also tell you that the life of this family that was threatened so often in India by the Hindu nationalists, but regardless of him being threatened all the time, he continued to share the gospel. And one night, I think he was out on a mission trip with his two little sons that you see in the picture. They were out on a mission trip and they were.

It was too late for them to go back. They decided to sleep in the car. Very sadly, that mob that had threatened them for years burnt them. So only Mrs. Staines, Gladys Staines and her daughter Esther were left behind. But what I'm trying to say through all of this is here was a man that saw the gospel urgency and he was relentless.

He just went for it. He just shared the gospel all the time, regardless of the threat to his life. And even his wife, even after everything, she came back, she forgave her killers and she continued the work. And there were many Christians that turned To Christ. Sorry.

Many Indian people that turned to Christ became Christians. Now, I'm telling you all this because I need to also remind myself that maybe God had put such people in my life because he also expects something of me. You know, it's what. It's one thing for me to stand here and preach to you with such inspiring stories, but I also need to be doing something like this. Not necessarily to this extent, but to start somewhere.

Third, I think we need to give generously and strategically. Not just generously, but strategically. The collection for Jerusalem reminds us that the gospel people cared for gospel people. We should support those in need, especially where there's hardship, persecution, or lack. And I think generosity is the clearest sign that the gospel has actually reached us.

Listen, church, I can only say that we, as a church, we need to be in touch with what's going on around the world. This whole idea of see no evil, hear no evil, I don't like politics. That should not really be our attitude. And I particularly say this, that we need to know what's going on in the Christian world around us. Now we're blessed with social media.

We have all of this information at our fingertips. And I think the easiest thing to do is really ask God, what do you want me to do there? Who do you want me to support? And I believe God will direct you.

Fourth, we need to be a praying church. Paul asked the Romans to strive together with him. And I think saying strive together means serious prayer. Not some kind of occasional prayer, not a polite prayer or a prayer with beautiful words, but real prayer. And I think a prayer that carries burdens.

We feel that burden. A prayer that names names and a prayer that asks for protection and a prayer that actually trusts God for outcomes.

Now, I do want to mention our brother Enrico here. You know, he spends so much of time inviting us to prayers. He has so many different sessions of prayers every now and again. It would be wonderful for us to really take part in that. I know it's sometimes difficult.

I know there are times when even I am not present in those prayers. But I think it is so important to remind ourselves that we need to pray as a church.

And I say the same to us men and women. Let's lead our families in prayer for others and Christ's mission. Fifthly, I'm going to say, make yourself available for missions. Maybe God is not calling you to Spain, but he is calling you somewhere. Could be to a workplace, could be in your neighborhood, family, school, maybe just a conversation on the street.

And I think we should Always ask the Lord, where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? I see our brother till here wearing a Jesus T shirt. I like that. He always has one on.

Maybe that will kick start a conversation, you see. And then Paul finishes off this chapter with an urgent request for prayer. Because he knew that Jerusalem was a dangerous place. The opposition there was real and he had longed to reach Rome with joy. And honestly, yes, there is a danger ahead and that is the reality.

We live in a hostile world, especially hostility towards Christ. You see, Paul was living with gospel urgency, not with personal comfort.

So maybe you are sitting here thinking today, wow, all this sounds exhausting. I can barely manage my own stress, my own family, my own problems, let alone any kind of global mission or any kind of cross cultural unity. It's all a bit too much for me. Now if that's how you feel, it could be because we're trying to live on our own strength, this Christian life. But you see, verse 13 tells us something better.

It says, the God of hope fills us with joy and peace as we trust in him, so. So that we overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let me just give you a little example of this from my life again. When me and my wife got married, we moved to New Zealand and we got plugged into a church. And I had no idea what we were going to do in terms of ministry in church. My wife had more of an idea, like she always does, I just follow her. So my wife suggested that we plug ourselves into the youth ministry in New Zealand.

And we ended up running a real big group of. A group of about between 50 and 60 kids. Well, it was a big church, so we had, I think half the number were kids from church and the other half were from off the street that just came there to have a good time, which was wonderful, of course. So we were there doing this ministry and then of course, a year and a half later, our first son was born. My wife had a lot of complications and she was in hospital for about two months.

And so did my son, he had a health problem. So we were stuck in hospital for about two months. And at that point in time I thought to myself, this is all over. We're gonna have, we've got, we've got a kid now. We're gonna have to stop all this and put it aside and focus on the family.

But you know, God placed it upon our hearts that we needed to continue doing this. And as we continued doing this, let me be honest and tell you that the grace of God was upon us. We brought this child from hospital into the youth ministry ministry. And our youth looked after that child while we were able to do youth ministry. And then it went on.

God placed more burdens on us. He wanted us to even start a home group. He wanted us to do men's ministry and women's ministry and all kinds of things. And then we had the second child born. And the same thing repeated itself.

My wife was in hospital for another two months. The child was in hospital for two months as well. And again I thought, I have no more strength. This is not going to work. But God continued to tell us, no, you will carry on.

It was very clear. But I tell you, my point here is this. I'm not trying to tell you this, that you. That you know that you have to compete with me or I have to compete with someone else who does more than me. That's not my point.

My point is that God places a task or burden on each of us as he pleases. And God knows how much we can actually handle. And what is amazing is this. He gives us sufficient grace to carry through his mission. And also remember we have the power of the Holy Spirit.

So it's not a competition year, how much I'm doing. It's about starting somewhere. And I think through this process, God accomplishes his mission of spreading the gospel through you in his own good time, not in our good time.

We can live as overcomers in Christ. The Bible encourages us to be overcomers. And it's not by trying harder, but by trusting deeper. You see, God is not asking us to do everything at once. You see, maybe he's simply asking us, why don't you start somewhere?

And this somewhere could be, for example, opening up your home to a home group don't necessarily have to lead, but you could just open your doors and say, come and do it in our home. Maybe it's inviting a neighbor for a coffee. Maybe it's just showing up for some ministry in church and then trusting God that He will take you through with the rest with grace.

For those of you that don't know Jesus yet, or if you've been trying to earn God's favor through some kind of religious performance, I think the gospel is an invitation for you to stop running and just come home. You see, in this chapter, Paul shows us that the gospel was for Jews and Gentiles. It was for insiders and outsiders. It was for religious people and irreligious people. It was for sinners of all kinds of you See, Christ died to deal with your sin, your selfishness and guilt.

And he rose again to give you a new living hope in Christ, a new identity. You don't have to clean yourself up before coming, but you must come to turn away from your sin.

Right, that's the end of my sermon. We're just gonna. I'm just gonna close in prayer, so if the worship team wants to come up, I'm just gonna close in prayer right now. So we'll just say, Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for your love and thank you for keeping God's promises and bringing us into one family. By your grace, fill us all with joy and peace as we trust in you and make us a people who live for your glory.

Serve one another in love and carry your gospel to the world. By the power of your Holy Spirit, help us abound in hope. Amen.

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Let's leave this people. Sorry. Let's leave this place as a people made whole by the cross. Be a praying church, a generous church, a hopeful church. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.

And may the Holy Spirit make you abound in hope so that the world sees the power of Christ to bridge every divide. Velocitysen ort als einfolk Das deutsches Kreuz wieder ge welt vorder sei eine Kirsche die Ernst half bet die frei giebech ist die Hofnung hat der Gott der Hofnung Murge oysch mit aller Freude und frieden E F un der heilige Geist mirge oysch in der Hofnung Reichmachnung damit develt decraft von Cristo seed Dan brook uber Vinton Khan. Amen. Enjoy your week.