SPEAKER_01: So the reading today is Romans chapter one, verse eight to seventeen.
SPEAKER_01: First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
SPEAKER_01: For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking it somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
SPEAKER_01: For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
SPEAKER_01: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented, in order that I may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: I am under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so reads God's Word.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, whoever's on the clicker could probably click one more time and we'll see the text come up as if by magic behind me.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, go back.
SPEAKER_02: There we go.
SPEAKER_02: Great.
SPEAKER_02: So keep that one on, and uh and we'll move through the text and get to kind of 13 to the end uh in just a moment.
SPEAKER_02: But I'd like to begin uh with a uh with a confession, something that's been challenging me from uh from this text uh this week.
SPEAKER_02: And I hope that I'm in good company, otherwise you're all just gonna sit in judgment over me.
SPEAKER_02: But in reading this text, one of the things that I feel like I ought to confess to you is that an off an awful lot of the time, even though I'm a pastor, I don't feel like a very good evangelist.
SPEAKER_02: I don't feel like somebody who is uh often very eager to get the gospel out in not in the course of normal lives and relationships.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you're if you're like that, but I feel like that when I'm talking to uh to my neighbors or uh to uh to Billy the barber who cuts my hair, who's maybe gonna be listening to uh to this.
SPEAKER_02: I don't really feel like um having those gospel conversations.
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't want the social awkwardness that comes from it.
SPEAKER_02: I feel like uh my mouth gets dry and like I'm gonna run out of somebody's gonna ask me a question that I'm not gonna know the answer to.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna start tripping over my words and uh and just sound like a bit of an idiot.
SPEAKER_02: And so I don't really feel like I'm very good at being an evangelist and telling others about about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I hope I'm not alone in that.
SPEAKER_02: But it's it's also worse than that.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes sometimes I feel like we don't even want to talk about what Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the good news, the message of Jesus, uh, to other believers.
SPEAKER_02: That oftentimes we go out there after the service, and you're all going to feel really on edge now after the service.
SPEAKER_02: We often go out there after the service, and it's the most natural thing to talk about the the Leinster match last night and those seven tries that were scored.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I watch sport.
SPEAKER_02: Um the sports more points than the other team that they were playing, and or we talk about what we what we did over Christmas and New Year's, that we don't even talk about the gospel with one another.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we don't even talk about well, what's what's encouraging your heart?
SPEAKER_02: What's the Lord been teaching you?
SPEAKER_02: What was the one thing that struck you from Mark's sermon?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should do that.
SPEAKER_02: What's the one thing that struck you from uh from Mark's sermon?
SPEAKER_02: What was something that was surprising?
SPEAKER_02: Because we don't even talk about it with one another.
SPEAKER_02: How can we be, how can we talk about it?
SPEAKER_02: Uh the good news of Jesus, that is, to people who are at that moment destined for an eternity in hell, apart from God, if we won't even talk about it with our heaven-brown brothers and sisters who've also come to know it and are seeking to grow in it.
SPEAKER_02: I often find that I'm a little bit ashamed of the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Paul, in many places, uh, not just here, in many places throughout his letters, encourages uh believers not to be ashamed.
SPEAKER_02: Don't be ashamed of the message of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Don't don't shrink back.
SPEAKER_02: Why would he say it unless it's a temptation uh that we face?
SPEAKER_02: Unless he's just writing particularly to me, saying, Mark, come on.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it's a temptation that we all face.
SPEAKER_02: Here he's saying, and I'm skipping kind of right to the end of verse 16, where he says that he's not ashamed of it, and he gives us some reasons why.
SPEAKER_02: But there is a temptation there, isn't there?
SPEAKER_02: And the temptation to be ashamed of the gospel is actually because to lots of people the gospel is offensive.
SPEAKER_02: We get ashamed of it because the gospel is offensive to the people around us.
SPEAKER_02: Why have you ever thought about why is the gospel offensive?
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you why the gospel is offensive.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you're sitting here and you're already offended.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you why you're offended.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the gospel's offensive because the good news of Jesus says that salvation, that is, having your sin forgiven, uh, being adopted into God's great family, so we're all hugging one another, and uh and life eternally with him is free.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why is that offensive?
SPEAKER_02: That's offensive because it needs to be free.
SPEAKER_02: The implication of the free gift of salvation is that you and I are morally bankrupt, that we have no spiritual health in ourselves, that we cannot offer anything of our own strength or moral goodness in order to earn God's salvation.
SPEAKER_02: And so it has to be free because we're all morally reprehensible, we're all spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_02: It's offensive because it says that Jesus died for you.
SPEAKER_02: But isn't that wonderful?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's wonderful actually if you see it with the eyes of faith.
SPEAKER_02: But it's offensive to many people because it says that you and I are so bad, that your sin is so heinous and disgusting, that the most precious thing, the most precious person, the king of heaven, had to die a bloody and gruesome death upon a Roman cross in order that you, in the state that you're in, the state that I am in, that I might be forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: It's another reason why it's offensive.
SPEAKER_02: The only way that you, being as wicked as you are, could be forgiven and adopted into God's family was through the death of his son.
SPEAKER_02: It just got a little bit quiet, a little bit slightly tenser in the room, didn't it?
SPEAKER_02: What's more, because he set ali set aside his life for the good of others, lived a life of service and of sacrifice, that means that he calls us to live a life like that of service and sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: That's the third reason.
SPEAKER_02: And I could go on and on and on, and I won't, but I'll stop here.
SPEAKER_02: It's the third reason why the gospel's offensive.
SPEAKER_02: It says your life is not your own.
SPEAKER_02: That if Jesus died for you, there is nothing that he cannot ask of you.
SPEAKER_02: That if he lived a life of service and sacrifice, he simultaneously calls you to live a life of service and sacrifice in response to him.
SPEAKER_02: And who wants to hear that?
SPEAKER_02: And Paul says, Don't be ashamed of that gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel is offensive.
SPEAKER_02: There is a temptation to be ashamed.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul says that he's not ashamed of it.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, he gives the opposite in verse 15.
SPEAKER_02: Actually, clicker uh person, can you go just one more slide so we can see verse 15 and 16 together?
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for doing that.
SPEAKER_02: Uh oh, they're on different slides.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so stay here.
SPEAKER_02: So verse 15.
SPEAKER_02: So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
SPEAKER_02: Next slide.
SPEAKER_02: For, see that connecting word?
SPEAKER_02: When you read the Bible and you see a for, you must ask, what's it there for?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: So for, connecting, for I am not ashamed.
SPEAKER_02: What's the opposite of being ashamed?
SPEAKER_02: It's being eager.
SPEAKER_02: I'm eager to preach.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm not ashamed.
SPEAKER_02: Paul is saying that he is not ashamed.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, he is eager for gospel advancement.
SPEAKER_02: He's eager for getting the gospel out.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Introduction done.
SPEAKER_02: Two questions.
SPEAKER_02: Two questions, two points.
SPEAKER_02: I'll not lie to you, the two points have subpoints.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: But two main points anyway, right?
SPEAKER_02: Two questions.
SPEAKER_02: How does Paul's eagerness for gospel advancement, how does it express itself?
SPEAKER_02: How does it come out?
SPEAKER_02: What does that eagerness look like?
SPEAKER_02: That's the first question.
SPEAKER_02: Then the second question is why?
SPEAKER_02: Why is he eager for gospel advancement?
SPEAKER_02: What is it about the gospel that he wants to get out?
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: So first question, how does Paul's eagerness for gospel advancement express itself?
SPEAKER_02: So let's go back to the start of the reading, uh picking it up at uh at verse eight.
SPEAKER_02: That's the question.
SPEAKER_02: Three sub points.
SPEAKER_02: First, it expresses itself in prayerfulness.
SPEAKER_02: Paul is prayerful for these Christians.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_02: First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because of your faith, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
SPEAKER_02: For God is my witness, whom I soon serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow, by God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
SPEAKER_02: First point.
SPEAKER_02: Eagerness for gospel advancement expresses itself in prayerfulness.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to be eager for getting the gospel out, you need to be a prayerful person.
SPEAKER_02: We need to be a prayerful community.
SPEAKER_02: And you know what's really surprising about Paul's prayers here?
SPEAKER_02: He's never met the people that he's praying for.
SPEAKER_02: He's never met the Roman Christians.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to at last succeed in coming to them.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't plant the church in Rome.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody else did.
SPEAKER_02: But his heart is bursting for these people that he has never met.
SPEAKER_02: See, Paul doesn't just pray for those he knows.
SPEAKER_02: Still less does Paul pray for his own concerns.
SPEAKER_02: His own shopping lists of, you know, well, God bless me, and God bless Demas and Timothy.
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
SPEAKER_02: He's looking beyond himself, beyond his needs, and prays for these people he's never met.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Why does he do that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because he's realized that actually one of the things that the gospel does, the good news of Jesus, is it connects people who don't know one another.
SPEAKER_02: That we're all part of God's great family, as we've just been saying about.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's true to the people that you're that you're hugging.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're if you're new here and you find somebody suddenly embracing you, welcome.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but but it also connects us all across the world.
SPEAKER_02: You actually, I might have just moved to Dublin and you're looking out for uh for a church, a place to uh to call your home while you're here in this city.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things you realize is actually, well, I'm connected to these people already because we all share in the same good news.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel connects us.
SPEAKER_02: He he's he's praying for them because he's he's grateful to God for them.
SPEAKER_02: He might know them, but might not know them, but God does.
SPEAKER_02: And he knows that he has heard that God has been at work in their lives, in their city.
SPEAKER_02: He's also praying for them because he wants to see them, he wants to encourage them.
SPEAKER_02: You see, friends, it's it's impossible to be eager for gospel advancement without increased prayerfulness, both individually and as a community.
SPEAKER_02: Because it is ultimately God who will advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: And so we need to be in communication with him.
SPEAKER_02: He'll advance his gospel, and so let's pray to him along the lines that he would invite us to.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray for those that we don't know in our city and beyond.
SPEAKER_02: Increased gospel advancement comes from increased prayerfulness.
SPEAKER_02: So, one of the things actually that we're going to be bringing to you uh next week, uh beginning next Sunday, and our worship night kind of leads into that, is we're gonna begin as a church family 30 days of prayerfulness, 30 days of guided prayer as we enter into this new year, as we think through what has the Lord got for uh for City Church in 2024 and beyond?
SPEAKER_02: How can we increase in our prayerfulness for one another and for our city and for the mission that God has called us to?
SPEAKER_02: Because gospel advancement will only be as a result of increased prayerfulness.
SPEAKER_02: That's the first way that it expresses itself.
SPEAKER_02: The second way that uh that this eagerness expresses itself for Paul is uh that he is looking for gospel advancement in himself and in other Christians.
SPEAKER_02: He's looking for gospel advancement, gospel growth and maturity in himself and in other Christians.
SPEAKER_02: So verses 11 and 12.
SPEAKER_02: For I long to see you that I may be may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
SPEAKER_02: Paul longs to get to Rome, to bring to them some spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_02: Now, in the in the context, that's obviously not a it's not a material gift that he wants to bring.
SPEAKER_02: It's not like he's gone to the gone to the duty free in the uh in the Jerusalem airport or anything, he wants to bring some gifts over.
SPEAKER_02: No, nor is it that he wants to uh bestow some uh some some ecstatic spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_02: No, in the context, you see he kind of catches himself, that's with the the dash.
SPEAKER_02: It's the gift is mutual encouragement by seeing one another's faith.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to see and show how the gospel is taking root in his life, and he wants to encourage the Roman Christians with that.
SPEAKER_02: And indeed, the gospel takes deeper root in our lives as we see one another grow, as we see one another go through trial and suffering and persevere as a Christian and continue to deepen our trust and our faith, that actually is an encouragement to one another.
SPEAKER_02: That as people look in in your life, perhaps you're going through a season of suffering or grief now.
SPEAKER_02: Can I can I encourage you with the thought that that actually God could be using that in your life to encourage the people who are looking in on you to say, gosh, I can't believe that this person is persevering, is trusting, that they're continuing to come together in in worship.
SPEAKER_02: And it must be so hard for them.
SPEAKER_02: They must be really clinging to the promises of God, but but I'm really challenged by their perseverance in the faith.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see that actually as we're together we we deepen our our faith because we're encouraged by one another.
SPEAKER_02: And what's really surprising here, I think, is that even the great apostle needs to be encouraged too.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: That's what I mean, but he kind of checks himself.
SPEAKER_02: He begins to say, I'd like to come and I'd like to bring some spiritual gift to encourage you.
SPEAKER_02: And then he he realizes, oh well, no, actually, when we're together, yes, I'll encourage them, but they'll also encourage me.
SPEAKER_02: That's what verse 12 is saying.
SPEAKER_02: That is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
SPEAKER_02: The great apostle needs to be encouraged by these Roman Christians' faith.
SPEAKER_02: Here's a question for you all.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've never considered it.
SPEAKER_02: Who's responsible for who's responsible for encouraging me in my Christian walk?
SPEAKER_02: Who's responsible for encouraging leaders in the church?
SPEAKER_02: Is it other leaders?
SPEAKER_02: Is it their sp is it their spouses?
SPEAKER_02: Certainly it is both of uh those groups of people.
SPEAKER_02: But actually, if you ask any leader in the church, the deepest encouragement comes from you.
SPEAKER_02: It's when it's when the people that God has graciously given to leaders in the local church, when they are persevering, when they are fighting sin and growing.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and when we sit with uh with you in community groups or or in one-to-one, and you get just every now and again, just every now and again, you get those little those little penny drop moments where that flash of realization comes over a people's person's face, and that's why we get up in the morning.
SPEAKER_02: Who encourages the leaders?
SPEAKER_02: It's the people that the leaders lead.
SPEAKER_02: Who pastors the pastor?
SPEAKER_02: The people, the pastor, pastors.
SPEAKER_02: You see?
SPEAKER_02: Mutual encouragement.
SPEAKER_02: See, the gospel doesn't just advance out, it advances down, it advances down into our hearts, deeper into our souls.
SPEAKER_02: It takes root.
SPEAKER_02: And how does it do that?
SPEAKER_02: It does that as we encourage one another.
SPEAKER_02: And biblical encouragement isn't just a kind of oh my goodness, you're looking great today.
SPEAKER_02: Is that a new dress?
SPEAKER_02: Did you get your hair done?
SPEAKER_02: That's not biblical encouragement.
SPEAKER_02: Biblical encouragement is is much more like I know that following Jesus is hard.
SPEAKER_02: I know that, gosh, you must be just feeling really under pressure now, weighed down with grief and burden.
SPEAKER_02: I know that it's hard.
SPEAKER_02: Let's let's persevere together.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, God, God is faithful.
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember what we've been saying about it?
SPEAKER_02: You're prone to wander, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: I feel it.
SPEAKER_02: I feel it too.
SPEAKER_02: But God can come by his Holy Spirit and He can seal our hearts for his courts above.
SPEAKER_02: Let's persevere together, let's journey on together.
SPEAKER_02: That's biblical encouragement.
SPEAKER_02: It's let's keep going.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, this is hard, but it's worth it.
SPEAKER_02: And God's promises are true.
SPEAKER_02: Can you see?
SPEAKER_02: That's biblical encouragement.
SPEAKER_02: And so here's the, I guess here's where this kind of caches out for us as a community is if gospel advancement isn't just out but down, and in order for us to get the gospel down deeper into our hearts and into our souls, we need one another.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the question.
SPEAKER_02: Have you positioned yourself within this church family such that you are having those one-anothering relationships?
SPEAKER_02: Or you actually just kind of you feel like you're just kind of standing a little bit on the outside looking in.
SPEAKER_02: Have you positioned yourself in terms of participating in a community group?
SPEAKER_02: If you have no idea what a community group is, you need to be at the connect table immediately after the service.
SPEAKER_02: Have you positioned yourself in terms of a service team?
SPEAKER_02: The service teams are not just because, well, we need stuff to get done.
SPEAKER_02: We do, and it's wonderful, but actually it's as people serve together, serving a bigger goal, that community is developed.
SPEAKER_02: So have you positioned yourself in order to be in community?
SPEAKER_02: Have you positioned yourself so that you are able to encourage and be encouraged?
SPEAKER_02: One of the ways, if you are new, if you want to kind of do the accelerated track of community encouragement and involvement, is to sign up for the church weekend away.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say this to you now.
SPEAKER_02: If you have just arrived in Dublin and you're looking for a church and you hear the announcement about a church weekend away, you think, no, that must be for the inner ring.
SPEAKER_02: That must be for whatever the inner circle of City Church is.
SPEAKER_02: That's not true.
SPEAKER_02: You're invited.
SPEAKER_02: We want you to come.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because if you're like if I'm if you're only here for a year or semester, coming on the church weekend away, spending 48 hours together in a comfortable environment and having fun and singing songs and playing games and all those sorts, that's a way of instantly deepening community.
SPEAKER_02: I really feel like I get to do kind of three months worth of uh of Sunday kind of pastoral relationship building in a weekend.
SPEAKER_02: And it's so much, and how much more for you guys?
SPEAKER_02: We sit up late and we eat pizza and it's great.
SPEAKER_02: So you are invited.
SPEAKER_02: Position yourself so that you are able to be encouraged and encouraging to your brothers and sisters at City Church.
SPEAKER_02: Third and finally, in this sanction, how does Paul's eagerness express itself?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he is eager to get the gospel out.
SPEAKER_02: To get the gospel out to all.
SPEAKER_02: This is verses 13 to 15.
SPEAKER_02: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, he says, that I have often intended to come to you, but have so far been prevented, in order that I may reap some harvest among ye, as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_02: I am under obligation both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome.
SPEAKER_02: Paul, in terms of his his own story, he started as uh as a persecutor of Christians, as somebody who hated the message of Jesus, and uh and Jesus transformed his life and set him apart for a particular task.
SPEAKER_02: And that task was to get the gospel out to those who weren't from a Jewish ethnicity or background, not from the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: He was set apart for this particular task, and he feels the weight of that particular responsibility.
SPEAKER_02: And so he wants to get to Rome.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Rome in some senses, culturally speaking, couldn't be further from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: It's the ends of the earth, as far as he is concerned.
SPEAKER_02: And so he is eager to get the gospel out to those who are what he calls Greeks non-Jews.
SPEAKER_02: Now, we have not been commissioned directly by the risen Lord Jesus and set apart as apostles, but a similar obligation rests upon us to get the gospel out to all.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why does Paul use this word obligation?
SPEAKER_02: It's like he's saying, he's like, I am in debt to these people who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Why does he say it like that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, imagine, uh Imagine I give Peter 100 euro.
SPEAKER_02: It's never gonna happen, but just imagine it.
SPEAKER_02: Imagine I give Peter 100 euro and I said, uh, pass that on uh to Owen sitting up there in the in the fifth row.
SPEAKER_02: Uh that's not gonna happen either.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but if I give if I give Peter 100 euro and say, can you pass that on to Owen?
SPEAKER_02: Peter is obligated, he is in debt to Owen.
SPEAKER_02: He owes Owen that money.
SPEAKER_02: I have given it to him, but he has an obligation to pass it on.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: In the same sort of way, God has given Paul the gospel and said, I want you to pass that out to everybody, want you to get that out to everyone.
SPEAKER_02: And so he feels indebted to these people.
SPEAKER_02: He he owes it to them.
SPEAKER_02: If that illustration doesn't jive, let me give you another one.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's kind of so in the ancient world, what would happen would be that a uh a king would win a battle.
SPEAKER_02: And upon winning the battle, one of the things that would happen is he would get more territory, more lands, more countries to rule.
SPEAKER_02: You think of kind of Alexander the Great, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02: He'd really he'd win a battle, and then as a consequence of that, find that he now governs whole new swathes of the globe.
SPEAKER_02: And so what that king would do is he would send out messengers, he would send out heralds to go and to tell all of the cities and towns that Alexander had won the battle and that actually you were now under his rule.
SPEAKER_02: And those heralds were obligated, they were under an oath to go and to take that message so that the people far away from the battle in these far-flung lands knew that there was a new king in town.
SPEAKER_02: You see, what Paul is saying is that the risen Lord Jesus, who is Lord of all, who who rules over every square inch of this present reality, has sent him and has sent us as his heralds to go to the places where he is not known and to declare to everyone that there's a new king in town.
SPEAKER_02: And not only that, I mean I know I'm speaking in our king, really, uh, but actually that he's a king like no other, and that his rule is good, that in his rule it brings life and joy and satisfaction and fulfillment and eternity with him, that is going and telling people that because of his resurrection from the dead, that Jesus is Lord of all.
SPEAKER_02: So Paul is eager.
SPEAKER_02: He's eager to get the gospel out, eager to get the gospel out wherever Jesus must be named or known, and that is everywhere, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: So, where are we?
SPEAKER_02: Paul's eagerness begins with prayer.
SPEAKER_02: It is eager, it's an eagerness that expresses itself in mutual encouragement with the believer.
SPEAKER_02: So getting the gospel down deeper into our hearts, into our souls, and then from there seeing the gospel go out to those who do not know Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Now, secondly, then, why is Jesus, sorry, why is Paul eager for gospel advancement?
SPEAKER_02: We've seen what his gospel advancement looks like, how it expresses itself.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why is he eager for it?
SPEAKER_02: This one has four sub points.
SPEAKER_02: First, and we're in verse 16 now.
SPEAKER_02: There we are.
SPEAKER_02: Great.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're in verse 16 now, and we're at the very start.
SPEAKER_02: It says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Uh for, so this, why am I not ashamed of the gospel?
SPEAKER_02: For it is the power of God.
SPEAKER_02: Now pause there.
SPEAKER_02: That's the first point.
SPEAKER_02: Why is he eager to get the gospel out?
SPEAKER_02: Because the gospel's power.
SPEAKER_02: Whose power?
SPEAKER_02: The power of God.
SPEAKER_02: You see, the good news of Jesus is not just a it's not just a message that you sit here and think, okay, I've got to kind of cognitively get my head around that and you know, get my questions answered, and then maybe I'll sign on the dotted line and become a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
SPEAKER_02: That's not quite what the gospel is.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the gospel has an intellectual component to it, which is why we preach about it.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul is saying something else here.
SPEAKER_02: He is saying that the gospel itself, the good news of Jesus itself, is a power, a power that comes from God to transform people.
SPEAKER_02: And that's where our confidence in the gospel lies, right?
SPEAKER_02: And this is actually what I need to learn when I feel all cotton mouthed and sheepish in my conversations with my neighbors and my non-Christian friends, is that actually the gospel itself is a power.
SPEAKER_02: That the gospel is not dependent upon my winsomeness or how well I answer a question in any given moment.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel, you know, God can make a donkey speak.
SPEAKER_02: And if he can make an ass speak, he can make me speak.
SPEAKER_02: And he can bring and he can bring life through that.
SPEAKER_02: The power resides not in my ability to speak, but in the message itself.
SPEAKER_02: And so what we do is we simply release the gospel and let it do its work.
SPEAKER_02: And what is it the power for?
SPEAKER_02: We don't.
SPEAKER_02: Is the gospel of uh for the gospel is the power of God for salvation.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel has the power to bring dead people back to life again.
SPEAKER_02: To bring people who are spiritually dead back to new life.
SPEAKER_02: It has the power to forgive your sin.
SPEAKER_02: Do you realize that?
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you have done.
SPEAKER_02: When I say that, I'm sure for many of you, there's a there's a little flash of something, something particularly shameful.
SPEAKER_02: Just flashes up in your mind.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever flashed up, Jesus can forgive that.
SPEAKER_02: Amen?
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever has flashed up, Jesus has forgiven that.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel has the power to forgive your sin.
SPEAKER_02: Nobody is too far away from the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: It is the power to bring us back to God.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says that we were wandering, we sang about it, how we have shut ourselves off, we alienated ourselves from God.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel has the power to remove all of those barriers and to bring us back into his family.
SPEAKER_02: To make him our father.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel has the power to secure a place forever in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_02: It is the power of God to salvation.
SPEAKER_02: That is why Paul is eager to get it out.
SPEAKER_02: Because it can transform lives.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_02: For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also the Greek.
SPEAKER_02: Why is he eager to get the gospel out?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because, well, in the kingdom of God there is no discrimination.
SPEAKER_02: People are not kept out of the kingdom of God by virtue of their background or their social standing or their ethnicity or their gender or their education level or their wealth.
SPEAKER_02: There's no discrimination in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_02: It is for everyone.
SPEAKER_02: Now, yes, Paul says that the gospel comes to the Jew first, and it and it did.
SPEAKER_02: It arose out of the Old Testament working of the of God with the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: It emerges from the Jews.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus was a, was the, is the Jewish Messiah.
SPEAKER_02: And the Jews were the custodians, the keepers of the revelation of God in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: But it is not for them only, it is for all.
SPEAKER_02: All who would what?
SPEAKER_02: All who would believe.
SPEAKER_02: Which we will come back to in just a second.
SPEAKER_02: So the gospel is a power, it has a transforming quality.
SPEAKER_02: But what makes it powerful?
SPEAKER_02: What gives it this transforming quality?
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is what verse 17 is about.
SPEAKER_02: This is what Paul is hoping to tell us.
SPEAKER_02: And this verse, verse 17, is possibly Paul's most concise statement of what the gospel is.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you're sitting here and you're thinking, I don't quite get it.
SPEAKER_02: What is the gospel?
SPEAKER_02: What's verse 17?
SPEAKER_02: We're going to walk through it in these couple of points.
SPEAKER_02: Let's let's read it all together and then we'll make two final concluding points about it.
SPEAKER_02: For, and notice all of these four, see how he's connecting things.
SPEAKER_02: So he's saying, I'm eager to preach the gospel because I'm not ashamed of it, because it's the power of God to save people.
SPEAKER_02: And then verse 17, for, how is it the power of God?
SPEAKER_02: For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
SPEAKER_02: Ah, great.
SPEAKER_02: Clear statement of what the gospel is.
SPEAKER_02: Let's let's unpack it.
SPEAKER_02: Why is Paul eager for gospel advancement?
SPEAKER_02: Why is it a power?
SPEAKER_02: Because in it the righteousness of God is revealed.
SPEAKER_02: This phrase, the righteousness of God, is packed, just packed, with meaning and significance.
SPEAKER_02: On the one hand, it means that in the gospel, in the good news of Jesus, we see God's righteousness, that is, his moral purity and perfection, we see it on display.
SPEAKER_02: That is, God's own righteousness goes on display in the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Break that down a little bit further.
SPEAKER_02: You want to see God's commitment to holiness, that he must punish sin, and his commitment to grace and to love, and that he wants to welcome sinners back into his family.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to save those who are far from him.
SPEAKER_02: How do you see, where do you see both of those things come together?
SPEAKER_02: Well, both of those things come together at the cross of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus dies on a Roman cross, under the curse of God, you see both God's holy commitment to punish sin and his gracious commitment to save sinners on display.
SPEAKER_02: You want to see the love of God?
SPEAKER_02: Look at the cross.
SPEAKER_02: You want to see the holiness of God?
SPEAKER_02: Look at the cross.
SPEAKER_02: In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God is put on display.
SPEAKER_02: You see?
SPEAKER_02: That's part of what Paul's saying, but it's more than that.
SPEAKER_02: It's wonderfully more than that.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just that in the gospel God shows us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: It's that he gives it to us.
SPEAKER_02: He gives it to us as a gift.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God is not just put on display, he gives it to you.
SPEAKER_02: You see, the gospel is the news revealed to all the world that God has done everything necessary through the death of his son to declare sinful people innocent and to clothe them in his perfect righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: To not just say that they're innocent, but to make them innocent.
SPEAKER_02: Not just to declare them righteous, but to make them righteous.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' perfect life, his perfect obedience on that cross.
SPEAKER_02: It is though it is taken from him and laid on us.
SPEAKER_02: And it is though our sin is taken from us and laid on him.
SPEAKER_02: So that when the father looks at me, when the father looks at you, you who believe and trust in Jesus, he sees his righteous son.
SPEAKER_02: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see why Paul might want to get that message out?
SPEAKER_02: Do you see why it might be a good thing for us to reflect upon?
SPEAKER_02: Well, how can we, how can we get that message out?
SPEAKER_02: There's no message like that anywhere else in the world.
SPEAKER_02: That God has done all that is necessary to take away all that you are ashamed of and to gift you is perfect righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: That's the third thing.
SPEAKER_02: Why is Paul eager to get the gospel out?
SPEAKER_02: Because it's the power of God, because it's for everyone, because in it the righteousness of God is revealed, and then finally, because that righteousness comes to us by faith.
SPEAKER_02: That's what this little phrase, from faith for faith, means.
SPEAKER_02: It means most simply that the Christian life is a life of faith from first to last.
SPEAKER_02: It is not the case that you need to you believe in Jesus in order to kind of get yourself started.
SPEAKER_02: The faith is kind of the Christian starter motor, kind of gets you, gets you running in your spiritual car, but actually you need to stay between the ditches, morally speaking.
SPEAKER_02: You need to keep on uh going under your own strength.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's saying that the Christian life begins with faith and it ends with faith, that it begins and ends with a trust and dependence on who God is and what he has done.
SPEAKER_02: Salvation ultimately begins not with us, but with God and with God's own faithfulness to himself.
SPEAKER_02: And all of our faith is a response to that.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's part of what from faith for faith means, that it's from God's faith, that is God's faithfulness to himself, and it's for our response of faith.
SPEAKER_02: Or Paul might also be saying that the message spreads from faith for faith, that it's actually from believer to believer, that as I, as a believer who have faith, from my faith, I communicate the gospel to others, and they respond in faith.
SPEAKER_02: It's from the faith of one believer for the faith of another, do you see?
SPEAKER_02: From faith for faith, all the way down.
SPEAKER_02: And it is that mustard seed faith that begins so small and yet grows so deep, a deep abiding trust and dependence on the God of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: It is all faith.
SPEAKER_02: Faith from first to last, beginning to end.
SPEAKER_02: It is faith that makes us a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: It is faith that will see us home to that great eternal shore.
SPEAKER_02: You know, over the last two years, I don't know if you've been here.
SPEAKER_02: A lot of you have, a lot of you haven't.
SPEAKER_02: Over the last two years, God has grown our community so that it's just about doubled its size.
SPEAKER_02: And over that time, we've seen people become Christian, we've added new community groups, new deacons, new leaders, new service teams.
SPEAKER_02: We've reached ride.
SPEAKER_02: But with that wider reach now comes the challenge of increased depth, depth in terms of relationship with one another, but also term in terms of our relationship with God and a deepening spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_02: Our maturing together as a community will be driven by an increased gospel eagerness, an eagerness to see the gospel advance.
SPEAKER_02: And that'll be expressed as we pray in our prayerfulness, in wanting to see the gospel grow in each of our lives, and seeking opportunities and times to support and encourage, comfort, and challenge one another with the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Just as Paul longed to be with the Romans.
SPEAKER_02: And just as Paul longed to be with the Romans, we cannot expect maturity without proximity, without being in one another's lives.
SPEAKER_02: An increased gospel eagerness must also then have in view those who are far from God, those who we may well as yet never met.
SPEAKER_02: And it is all grounded and rooted in a confidence, a confidence that the gospel itself is a power, a power that does not come from us, but that comes from God, a gospel the gospel of God's Son, the gospel that comes to transform lives, the gospel that is the message of Jesus, our sin-bearing righteous Savior.
SPEAKER_02: That it is open to all to be enjoyed by faith and faith alone, thank you for listening to this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, please visit our website found in the link below.