Speaker 2: Romans one is where we're gonna be.
Romans one starting in verse eight.
Romans one, verse eight.
Now, when I first started dating people, I really, really,
really tried to be prepared.
'cause I didn't wanna be that guy that just shows up on a date and just
doesn't really know what to say, right?
I didn't wanna show up on the date and be like, uh, hi.
You know, I wanted, I didn't wanna be awkward.
I wanted to be able to have things to talk about.
I didn't wanna, you know, be that awkward guy on a date.
So I really, really prepared.
I, I wanted to show up with, okay, what sort of questions should I ask?
What are some good things I should get to know?
I even wanted to come to the date with like a plan.
Okay.
If the date goes well, if, if, if dinner with this really cute girl at Mod Pizza
goes, well, then maybe afterward we should go to handles and get ice cream.
That would be a good backup plan to do, and hopefully, um, you
know, and the rest is history.
We should end up rapping in the car and we ended up getting married.
So, um, yeah, but you, I wanted to have a plan.
I wanted to be prepared.
And so I came ready.
I stood up to that date ready.
I was like, okay, here's what we're like.
I had things that maybe we would be good to talk about, things, maybe
questions that I wanted to ask, things I wanted to know about her.
I, I came prepared.
And now it's one thing to prepare for a date, which you should do, by the way,
especially gentlemen, if you're gonna ask someone on a date, you should be prepared.
But also what you may not have thought about is you should prepare
for your time with other Christians.
Whenever you show up to church on a Sunday, whenever you show up to
True North on a Wednesday, whenever you hang out with your Christian
friends, whenever you hang out with anyone, you wanna show up prepared.
And today we're gonna see what the Apostle Paul, the, the writer
of the book of Romans brings when he wants to go see them.
When Paul goes to see other Christians, what does he bring?
How is he prepared to talk to them and to live with them?
That's what we're gonna find out here in the book of Romans.
Okay, so we're gonna look at chapter one verses eight through 15.
I'm gonna read it real quick and just do some explaining and then we're gonna
go, go through the rest of the sermon.
Okay?
So read along with me, verse eight.
First, first thing Paul Paul's gonna say in this letter, I thank my God through
Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
So he's thankful that their faith is famous.
Romans are famous for their faith.
Verse nine, for God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit
and the gospel of his son.
So he is like, I, God knows what I'm gonna say.
It's definitely true.
What's he gonna say?
That without ceasing, I mention you always in my prayers.
I'm always praying about you asking that somehow by God's will I may now
at last succeed in coming to you.
So he really wants to go see them.
He's been praying for it a lot.
Verse 11, four, because I long to see you, I really want to be with you.
Why?
So that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.
Now we'll talk about more about that we what that means.
But he's got something that he wants to give them that's gonna make them stronger.
It's gonna make their souls stronger.
Verse 12.
That is, what does that mean?
What does that spiritual gift?
Well, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's Faith,
I want you to see my faith.
I wanna see your faith and it's gonna be encouraging.
It's gonna be good for us, both yours and mine.
Verse 13.
I don't want you to be unaware, brothers that I have often intended to come to you.
Thus far I've been prevented.
So I've really been trying, I haven't been able to make it yet in order that
I may reap some harvest among you.
Now what does that mean?
As well as among the rest of the gentiles?
I think that's similar to what he's been talking about earlier.
He wants to be encouraged.
He wants to grow.
He wants them to grow.
He wants to give them this spiritual gift, which is he just wants to help them
love Jesus more and follow Jesus better.
And that's the the result he wants to see.
That's the harvest he wants to gain.
Verse 14, I am under obligation to both Greeks and to barbarians.
Now that sounds weird, Greeks.
Those are like the smart people of the age barbarians.
Those are the not so smart people.
They made fun of their language 'cause it was probably similar to German and
it sounded like bar, bar, bar, bar, bar.
So that's what they called them, the barbarians.
So the Greeks, the smart people, and the not so smart people, both
to the wise and to the foolish.
Verse 15.
So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
So Paul, he's, he really wants to see the Romans.
He really wants to give them something.
And the last thing he says is, I want to preach the gospel to you guys who
are in Rome, are the Romans Christians.
Think about what we started this letter with to those who are loved
by God and called to be saints.
Are those people Christians?
Yes.
Paul wants to preach the gospel to the Christians in Rome.
Is that weird to anyone?
If I said, you know what we're gonna do on Sunday with all the Christians come
to church, we're gonna preach the gospel.
Would that be kind of weird for you or not?
That's what Paul's saying.
He's saying, when I, when I get to Rome, you guys are all Christians.
You guys are all loved by God.
You guys are all set apart.
You're saved.
I want to preach the gospel to you.
That's weird.
That's weird, at least from our perspective.
'cause we think, oh, well the gospel is what gets people saved.
But what I want you to know about when you go to hang out with Christians.
When you spend time at church, when you come to True North,
I want you to come prepared.
And so our main point tonight is when you hang out with Christians,
bring the gospel with you.
When you spend time with your brothers and sisters in Christ on Sunday
morning, Wednesday night, you're hanging out with them at school.
I want you to bring the gospel with you.
Don't leave it behind.
Don't forget about it.
Don't say, that's just for the, the unbelievers, the gospel.
That's, that's the best thing you can bring when you hang out with a Christian.
The gospel is the best thing you can take with you.
So Paul, the first thing he does is he gives God the credit for something.
He says, I thank God for something.
What's Paul gonna thank God for?
Well, let's see, verse eight.
What does Paul thank God for?
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because of your faith.
It's famous, right?
It's proclaimed through all the world Now.
Who's the one showing the faith?
The Romans.
So why does Paul thank God?
Why doesn't he say, I'm so grateful to you guys for being so awesome?
You guys are so faithful.
You guys trust God so much.
He's saying, I thank God for it.
The reason he does that is because their faith comes from God.
So he's giving God the credit for it.
He's saying, Romans, you guys trust God so much.
That's 'cause of God.
So I'm gonna thank God for that because God gets the credit.
So our first point tonight, give God the credit for faith and grace.
We'll get to that grace part in just a second.
But give God the credit for faith and grace.
When you see someone trusting God, you want to give God the credit for that.
And to you that might seem super elementary, there's actually
some ways that we don't do that.
Give God the credit for faith.
And grace.
Now Paul says, I'm thankful for your faith because your faith is famous.
Well, how do you see faith?
You can't see faith, right?
Like, I can't see.
Oh, you know what?
This is how much Mr.
Clancy trusts God.
I can see his faith.
I, well, how do I see that?
Remember what we talked about last week?
Faith and obedience are inseparable, right?
The obedience of faith, it's faith and obedience.
They're, they're, they're always together.
You can't separate them.
How is your faith talked about?
Well, it's when people see this, right?
So what, what Paul is also saying is I'm also thanking God for how you obey him.
He sees the Romans maybe sharing the gospel with people.
He sees the Romans maybe loving to hear from God's word.
He sees maybe, oh yeah, that that church in Rome, they're always praying.
They love praying.
They, they meet together and they pray all the time.
That church in Rome, they're so generous.
The church in Rome, they love people so well.
They love strangers so well.
He sees all these things about the church in Rome, and he
says, that's from your faith.
But all the things that you do are a product of your faith,
and that comes from God.
So I'm gonna praise God for what you guys are doing.
He's giving God the credit for things that the Romans are doing.
And that's because if faith comes from God, that means your
obedience comes from God as well.
So maybe this is a simple thing for you.
Do you give God the credit when you obey him?
When you do something for the Lord, do you give God the credit
or do you say, you know what?
I'm so glad that, that I did that.
That was such a good thing that I did.
And you think about yourself, you're like, man, I read and write Bible.
I listen to sermons, I pray, and you give yourself all that.
I worked really hard to do that.
You know, I really studied the Bible.
I really, you know, I watched this, this sermon.
I listened to this thing and I did this for me.
Sometimes we, we do that as Christians, sometimes as Christians
we say, I did all this stuff.
When really Paul is saying, God did that.
God is the one who should get the credit for the things that you do, which sounds
weird, but that's because God is the one who gives you the, the faith to do them,
and also gives you the grace to do them.
And see, we see that even in this same, this same verse, right?
I'm gonna show you some more of verse five.
We, so the same, same verse, we've received grace in apostleship.
So Paul's gotten grace and he's gotten his calling as an apostle
to bring about obedience of faith.
How does he do that?
He preaches the gospel, so the gospel of grace, right?
The, the good news of God's grace comes to Paul and then he brings
it as an apostle to Rome, and then they trust God and they obey him.
You see that we go from gospel to grace to obedience.
That's God's progression of how people follow him.
The gospel gives them grace, and that grace produces faith and obedience.
That's how God thinks your good works happen, and that's how we
should think our good works happen.
It's not, I heard a sermon, I tried really hard and then I obeyed God.
God says, no, you heard the good news and that gave you the grace and
the faith to do good things for God.
So God gets the credit.
'cause God's the source.
God's the source of all your good works.
Every time that you had a desire to read the Bible, that's God's work in you.
Every time that you wanted to show compassion to someone, even when
they were really annoying or you were really patient with someone or really
gentle with someone, that's God, right?
Every time that, that, you wanna be generous with someone,
maybe with your money or your time, that's God at work in you.
So God gets the credit.
God's the one doing it.
Every time you wanted to pray, God did that.
Prayer is actually God saying, Hey, you should talk to me.
And then he gives you desire to talk to him and you pray.
So all of these things that you do for God, God gets the credit for them.
'cause they're, they all come from God.
Your obedience is brought about by grace.
Every good deed, every good thought, every good emotion you have comes from God.
And so God should get the credit.
And so we shouldn't be like, oh, look at me.
Look how godly I am.
Look at all the things I've done.
That is something that we do.
But other things that we might do that this could help with
is maybe sometimes you think, I could never be like that person.
I could never pray like that person.
I could never know as much as that person.
I could never be as patient as that person.
I could never, I can never be as excited about God as that person.
Well, really, why is that person so excited about God?
Because of God?
God helped them do that.
God enabled them, empowered them to do that.
So really you don't have to be discouraged because the same God who get got that
person so excited about evangelism can get you excited about evangelism.
The same God who helps that person understand the Bible can
help you understand the Bible.
The same God who helps that person be generous and, and trust Him, can
help you be generous and trust him.
So if you look at other people, other, maybe you didn't grow up in a Christian
home, or maybe you just feel like you don't get it as much as other people,
God is the one who, who gives people the grace to obey him and to trust him.
So you don't have to say, well, you know, well I'm, I'm just,
my parents, just, they're not as godly as that person's parents.
Or, I don't know as much of the Bible as that person.
Well, God is the one who enables you to do that.
And so you can say, you know what?
The same God who helped them do that is the one who can help me do that.
So you don't have to be discouraged and think, oh, well that person
is so much, so much better than me, so much Godly than me.
I could never be like them.
God is the one who gives you the strength to do that.
And so you can trust him to, to do those things as well.
You don't have to look at someone and compare yourself and be like,
oh, I can never be like them because God's the one who did it.
You can be that way because of God, the same way you depend on God.
You trust him.
He gives you the grace to follow him.
So God gets the credit for faith and grace.
So we shouldn't be discouraged when we see other people and
we're like, oh, I'm not there yet.
That's okay.
'cause God helped him do that.
And also we shouldn't be prideful because we don't wanna say, well, look at me.
I did all this great stuff for God.
'cause God's the one who helped you.
So we don't wanna steal God's glory by saying, well, look at me.
I did so, so great.
I learned all these things.
I tried really hard.
That's because of God.
Even your own effort.
Maybe you did try really hard.
That's because of God.
God enables you to do those things.
So God gets the credit for every good thing that happens from any Christian
because it's from grace through faith.
So you might have noticed also that in his passage, Paul really, really,
really wants to see them, right?
Did you catch that?
He says it a few times.
God is my witness whom I serve that without seizing.
I mention you all the time in my prayers asking that by somehow, by God's will, I
might come to you for I long to see you.
He really, really, really, really, really, really wants to see them,
or he really wants to see them.
Now, I said this to our leaders earlier.
Paul is writing a book of the Bible to them.
He's writing the greatest letter of all time to these
Reese Romans, and he's saying.
I wanna see you.
I wanna be with you.
There's something unique and special about physically being with you.
There's something that I can do as Apostle Paul being with you,
that the book of Romans can't.
That's crazy.
The book of Romans can only do these things.
But me physically being with you, there's something unique and special about that.
That's crazy.
And now in, in our age, we might think that going together to church,
physically being with someone, meeting with someone, to read the Bible,
meeting with someone, to pray to them or pray with them, right, that don't
pray to people that's a bad idea.
They can't help you.
God has designed us to, to physically be together with people.
There's something unique about that.
And Paul wants to do it so that he can encourage them and so
that they can encourage him.
So, point to spend time with Christians both to give and to get spend time with
Christians, both to give and to get.
So Paul thinks that his letter is not enough for them.
He's writing 16 chapters to them and he's saying, you know what?
There's, there's something special and something unique that that could happen.
If I was with you,
there's something unique I can give to you that I wouldn't be able to
give to you without this letter.
Now, in case you didn't get enough of prepositions in your first
week at school, here you go.
So Paul wants to see them.
Why?
Why does he wanna see them?
See all the green, that those are purpose clauses, purpose statement.
Whenever you see something like that in the Bible, that something like
that, in the Bible, it's a purpose.
Why do, why does he wanna see them?
So that he can impart a, some kind of spiritual gift?
Why?
To strengthen them.
And in case he thought that was confusing, Paul's gonna explain it.
That is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.
So I wanna, I wanna see you, I wanna be together so I can strengthen
you and so that I can encourage your faith and mutually so you can
encourage my faith to give and to get, I want to give you encouragement
and I want to get encouraged by you.
That's what Paul wants.
And then something else he wants is in order that I may
reap some harvest among you.
I think there, he's talking about fruit of the spirit, right?
Galatians five, he talks about fruit.
He talks about love, joy, peace.
He wants to see that grow in them.
He wants to see those qualities strengthened in them.
So Paul.
Is convinced that being together with them can accomplish this in a unique way.
You can't be a Christian without other Christians.
If you think that you can be a Christian and never spend time with
other Christians, you're wrong.
You're doing it wrong.
If you think about all the things that God wants Christians to do,
love one another, how can you do that if you never spend time?
Well, I can send 'em encouraging texts.
Encouraging text is not the same as physical, personal, encouragement.
There's something different about looking someone in the eye and telling them
something that's different than a text.
Well, what about FaceTime?
Again, it's, it's different.
It's not the same.
It's something unique.
It tangible about being in the same room about eye contact, intonation, and.
Physical presence, three-dimensional there.
There's something unique about it.
You're in a, you can't give someone a hug, right?
You can't, which sounds silly, but you can give someone a hug
for the glory of God and encourage them and comfort them, right?
There's something unique about those things.
Take it from someone who dated long distance for two years.
There's something unique about being in person, even if all you're doing is
talking, there's something different.
You can't be a Christian without other Christians.
You can't love one another the same way.
You can't forgive each other the same way.
You can't serve each other the same way.
You can't be patient with someone the same way.
Think about all those one another commands in the Bible.
You can't be a Christian without other Christians.
So if you're a Christian who thinks, well, you know what?
All these other Christians, they're kind of lame.
They're not good enough.
For me, Paul would say, look, I'm the apostle Paul and I need
to be around other Christians.
The, probably the the godliest man who ever lived besides Jesus is
saying, I want to be with them.
And so if, if, and you're not the apostle Paul, and so you need to
be around other Christians too.
You can't be a Christian without other Christians.
So when you grow up in, in 20 years and you have the option to go to
metaverse church or VR church, which you probably will, what are you gonna do?
You can't obey God.
The same way in virtual reality church, virtual reality, small group,
virtual reality, accountability meeting, it's not the same.
You can't do it.
God made you if, if God wanted you to be a, a hologram or an avatar, you would be,
God designed you to have a physical body.
God came down and lived in a physical body because that's how God designed us
to, to live the best way for his glory.
So you have to be in person together to do things.
As a Christian, you can't be a lone ranger Christian.
You can't be an an independent Christian.
Right?
Paul would say that's like an eyeball saying, I don't need the rest of the body.
An eyeball on its own not gonna do much for you.
That's if, if you're a a, do it yourself, lone ranger.
I don't need anyone else.
Christian.
If you're someone who never shares anything about yourself in small
groups, because you wanna act like you have your whole life
together, you're doing it wrong.
You're just like a, a, a severed hand flopping around and you
think you're doing great.
You can't be a Christian without other Christians.
But see, Paul, he wants to come.
Why?
One, to strengthen their faith and then two to also.
Be encouraged.
He wants to give and he wants to.
Yes.
So let's focus on the give part.
What does he wanna give to them?
He wants to help them.
He wants to help 'em grow.
He wants 'em to love Jesus more because he's there.
So I wanna ask you, why do you spend time with people when you come to
church on Sunday, when you come to True North on Wednesday, when you hang
out with your friend at lunch, your Christian friend at lunch, or when
you meet up with, with your friends to hang out with them, why are you there?
What are you bringing to the table?
Are you coming with the intention of I want them to love Jesus more
when I leave than when I got here?
That's what Paul is saying.
He's saying, I wanna be in Rome so that when I leave Rome,
you guys have stronger faith.
Have you ever thought about that before?
I'm coming to true North on Wednesday so that my small group can have
stronger faith because I was there.
That's, that's the way Paul comes prepared to church.
Paul comes to church on Sunday thinking.
I want them to love Jesus more because I was there.
That's what Paul, that's what Paul thinks.
He says, I want, he's thinking, I wanna ask them questions.
I wanna maybe share something about myself or, or share something I learned
in the Bible or pray together with them.
I want to, I wanna do things while I'm together with them
to help them love Jesus.
I wanna strengthen their faith.
I want them to maybe learn things about being a Christian that
they wouldn't have known before.
I want them to maybe feel encouraged because maybe they
struggle with the same sin I do.
And they heard, you know, oh, there's someone else who feels that way.
Right?
It's not just teaching people things, it's also sharing, like,
you know, I struggle with this.
And you say that in small groups and maybe for the first time someone says,
oh man, I'm so glad that someone else struggles with that and it's not just me.
And they're encouraged by that.
And they say, okay, it's, I can, I can do this because they battled the sin too,
and they're seeing God strengthen them.
And I know that I can trust God to do that too.
And I wouldn't have known that if you didn't open up and say something.
Paul comes to to give, he comes to church to give, he comes to hang out
with his Romans friends to, to give, he wants to give them something.
He wants to give them faith.
He wants to help them love Jesus.
So why do you come to these things, right?
The way I was talking about this with Ezekiel actually earlier, are you
a producer or are you a consumer?
Remember these things?
The food web, remember that?
You've got like the producers and you've got your, what
are these primary consumers?
Secondary consumers.
Tertiary consumers and like apex, predator, whatever, right?
Are when you come, when you come to church, are, are you
just this guy and just taking, taking, taking, taking, taking?
Or are you giving anything?
Do other people benefit because of you?
Right?
Is true North better because you are here?
Is your small group more focused because you're there?
Is your small group better off?
Is the discussion better because you're there at school?
Are your friends more Christ-like because of you?
That's the question that Paul's asking.
Are you coming to give?
Are you coming to take, are you just right because you know, you know what
kind of animal that's not on here because comes and takes these things, right?
No one likes these things.
I thought about putting a more graphic image up here of
parasites, but I spared you all.
But are you a church parasite?
Are you just sucking the life out of your small group because you're distracted?
You're unfocused, you're goody two shoes and, and better than everyone.
You look down on everyone.
You're not vulnerable, you're not honest.
You're pretending to be a Christian.
You, you could be a parasite.
You could just be sucking the life outta your small group.
Don't be a parasite.
Come to church to give, come to true north.
Come hang out with your friends to give.
Don't I?
I won't.
I could really talk about like tapeworms and all that.
Don't you know, don't be a tapeworm, right?
Don't burrow into your small group stomach and suck all the life out of 'em.
Don't do that.
And the point of that, the reason I, I want this to sound gross.
'cause it is gross, right?
If, if you're coming and being a, you know what Jesus says about
people who cause other people to sin?
He said it'd be better off if you hung up stone around your neck and
jumped in a lake and drowned yourself.
That's what Jesus says.
If you're causing other people to sin, you'd be better off drowning yourself.
So don't come to church and be a bad example.
And be a bad influence,
but also the positive side, right?
Come to church.
To give, come to church to encourage people.
Think about how can I make my friend love Jesus today?
What can I share with them that could help them love Jesus?
What can I pray with them?
Maybe you make it your goal.
I wanna pray with someone at True North on Wednesday.
Maybe that's what you say.
I just wanna, you know, and, or maybe you say, I, I wanna come to True North
and my goal is to, to encourage someone.
I wanna think about something, you know, oh, this person in my small group,
they, they just, they're, they're, they always are honest and I appreciate
that, and I wanna encourage them, bless.
Maybe that's your goal, but think about things like that.
What can I, what can I bring to the table?
But then also, right, you're not just always giving, giving, giving, right?
You're not just the grass on the bottom that's just always getting eaten.
You're, you're also getting, when you come, Paul, he says, I
want to be mutually encouraged.
He's saying, I, I want you to encourage me and I wanna encourage you.
The Apostle Paul is saying, I'm gonna be encouraged when I visit the
Romans, so I don't care if you're the Godliest person in this room.
You can be encouraged when you come to.
You should never think, well, my small group's just not on my level.
I don't get anything out of it.
There's something wrong with you if, if that's how you think, because
obviously the Apostle Paul didn't think that, and you're not Paul, right?
So do you spend time with people who help you love Jesus?
Are you spending time with people who help you love Jesus?
That's the first thing, right?
Are you coming to church and expecting someone to pour into you?
But also, are you easily, are you, is it easy for you to grow?
I heard someone, they told me this once, a mature Christian is easily edified.
A mature Christian is easily built up.
It's easy for them to grow because they, they're, they're so easily they,
they see things about other people.
Man, I love that that person does that.
I love how that person trusts God.
Or, oh, I learned this in the sermon.
Even if I heard it all before, it was a good reminder.
That's a mature Christian.
Someone who walks away from a sermon thinking, oh, I heard it all before.
Been there, done that.
That's an immature Christian.
A mature Christian, even if they heard everything in the sermon
before, says, Hey, I was reminded of this and that really stood out to
me because of this, this, and this.
That's what mature Christians do.
So be someone who's easily edified.
There's a company, you've probably seen this logo before.
I had no idea what it actually stood for, uh, stands for Hewlett Packard.
But this company, they had what's called an open door policy, and what they did
is any level of the CEO all the way down, anyone from the business could come into
their office and give 'em ideas, and that was their, their whole, the whole
thing about the company was if the, even like the, the lowest level worker has
an idea, we want to hear it because it might help us, it might make us better.
Right?
Think about, it'd be like on a football team if like, oh, if the janitor has an
idea about how to make our football team better, he can go tell the head coach.
We need to have that kind of attitude with other Christians, you can
learn something from any Christian.
There's, I had my small group leader, pastor Evan, actually, he told
me this, he said, every person in the room can teach you something.
Every person in the room can teach you something.
That's the kind of attitude this company had, and that's the kind of attitude
I want you to have when you come to church, when you come to True North,
when you hang out with your friends.
I can learn something from this person, maybe not directly, but God can
teach me something from this person.
God can teach me something from this small group.
God can teach me something from this sermon.
So we wanna spend time with Christians to give, to encourage them, to
strengthen their faith and to get, because we know that we can learn
from everyone and God can use anyone to teach us something that we need.
But lastly, you probably noticed that Paul was excited to preach the gospel, right?
He was, he's eager to preach the gospel to, to the people in Rome.
How often do you think Paul preached the gospel?
A lot.
Right?
And he's still excited about it.
He's still excited.
He's like, I am so excited to preach the gospel to people who've already
heard it and been saved by it.
Isn't that cool?
The, the Romans know the gospel.
The Romans have been saved.
The Romans clearly have good theology.
'cause he wrote them this giant letter about theology and he didn't
say anything really bad about them.
Some of Paul's letters, he's like, Hey guys, come on.
We gotta like you.
You should be better by now, right?
Um, like, you know, in most La Paul's letters, he's like super happy at the
beginning and he's praising God for them.
Some letters like Galatians, he's like, he doesn't even say anything like positive.
He's like, what happened, guys?
I left and what went wrong?
That's how Galatians is.
So Rome is, is overall good letter, but he's excited to preach the gospel to them.
Paul is never bored of it.
Remember last week, he, he's talking about all about the gospel gospel's about Jesus,
and he's talking so much about Jesus.
Paul is not bored of the gospel.
Go.
Paul is eager to preach the gospel.
So 0.3
for all of us.
Never move on from the gospel.
Paul is preaching the gospel to Christians and he expects them to grow.
He expects it to strengthen them.
He expects it to encourage them, and Paul expects to be encouraged as well.
Paul is so excited about the gospel and honestly, excitement is always the best
motive for telling anyone anything, right?
When you're excited about something, you just naturally wanna tell people.
When you hear a song you really like, you're like, oh,
guys, have you seen this song?
Or you see a funny reel and you're like, oh, I'm gonna send this to everyone.
Excitement just naturally causes you to share things.
So if you're out there and you're scared to share the gospel, the best
thing to do is get excited about it.
Be like, Paul, be more excited.
That's why Paul always was sharing the gospel because he
was so excited about the gospel.
So what do you get excited about?
Think about that.
That says a lot about you.
What do I get excited about?
What do I get bored by?
That also says a lot about you.
Is the gospel boring to you?
Is it like, oh yeah, I've heard that before Jesus died.
Cool.
Is that boring or is that exciting?
Jesus died for me.
Jesus loved me enough to to die.
Jesus rose from the dead and defeated death so I don't have
to be scared of it anymore.
That's exciting.
So sharing the gospel is motivated by excitement in the gospel.
And Paul, we see this in verses 14 and 15.
He thinks the Romans need the gospel.
He says he's under obligation.
He's like in debt to all these people to preach the gospel to them.
So what's interesting here, this, this word, I'm not gonna explain all
this, I don't have time, but this word under obligation, Paul's saying
it's like I'm in debt to all these people to share the gospel with them.
I think some of us, we think about the gospel.
We think the gospel puts me in debt to God, and then we try to live the rest
of our Christian life trying to repay God for all that he's done for me.
That's not grace.
If I give you grace and you try to pay me back, that's not how Grace works.
You don't pay someone back for grace.
That'd be like if you got a birthday present and you said,
oh, how much did this cost you?
Okay, let me get you however much money this cost you and give it back, right?
Let's say you got a $50 gift card to Target for your birthday and you were
like, oh, thanks for the gift here.
Here's $50.
It's not a gift anymore.
You just paid for it.
Paul is not in debt to God because he received grace.
See that?
That's the connection to verse five.
Paul received grace and apostleship.
He's not in debt to God.
He's in debt to other people.
Paul's not trying to repay God for saving him 'cause then it wouldn't
be grace anymore if you're, that's you trying to earn your salvation.
Have you ever thought about that?
That way if you're trying to repay God, it's actually you trying to
earn your salvation because you're trying to get rid of your debt to God.
If you're out of debt to God, then you earned it.
That's not how grace works.
You don't repay God for being good to you.
The way Grace works is it puts Paul in debt to other people who might not have
received that grace yet, because they haven't heard the same message he has.
And so he wants to go tell them.
That's why he's in debt to them.
He's in debt to other people because they need to hear the
same message that he heard.
So he's under obligation to share the gospel, to share grace with people.
So maybe you're a Christian who's selfish with the gospel.
Maybe you, you got saved and you're like, great, I'm saved.
But I don't want those people to be saved 'cause they're bad people.
What does that say about you?
Right?
That says that you think you deserved it and they didn't.
Right?
If you, if you don't wanna share the gospel with someone because you don't
like them, or you don't think they're good enough, or they're too sinful.
You're saying that you weren't too sinful.
You're saying that there was something about you that made you
you special to receive the gospel.
Something about you that made you deserve it.
So don't be selfish with the gospel, right?
Don't, don't withhold it from people.
You're actually obligated to share it with people.
That's what Paul's saying here.
You don't choose who's worthy of the gospel 'cause no
one's worthy of the gospel.
But then also, do you still think you need the gospel As a Christian, Paul
thinks the Romans need the gospel.
And so the gospel helps Christians live.
It doesn't just help unbelievers get saved, it helps Christians live, right?
And we are, hopefully, we'll talk about that in your 10 minutes of small groups.
But the, the gospel helps Christians live.
And so, so when you spend time with Christians, make sure
you bring the gospel with you.
Don't leave the gospel at your conversion.
Take it with you.
Give it to everyone you know, Christians and non-Christians alike.
Let's pray and we'll get to small groups.
God thank you that you wanted to share the gospel with us.
You didn't have to, you weren't obligated to do anything good for us.
The only obligation you had was to be a good judge and to send us to hell, but
instead you showed great mercy to us.
And so I pray that we would be amazed by that, that we would
be, um, amazed that you would forgive us, that you would love us.
We would not be like the unforgiving servant in the parable that your son told
that, um, is forgiven a lot and then won't forgive other people who sin against him.
I pray that we would be overwhelmed by the gospel, excited about the gospel,
and that we would come to, to our time with other Christians ready to
love them, ready to encourage them.
Pray this in Jesus name.
Amen