Romans chapter 15. Our text is going to be verse
4, but I just want to touch on the first three verses briefly. In chapters 13 and 14, Paul is
being used to write to us and instruct believers on our walk
in this world, on our walk with one another, our walk with all
believers and our walk with all men. And the Holy Ghost is just
ever reminding us of our constraint. What constrains us? The love
of Christ. It's ever reminding us of our justification. The
faith of Christ is our justification. Ever reminding us of our redemption
and the remission of our sins. The blood of Christ. What He
accomplished. His sacrifice. Paul's wrapping
up this thought before He gives us, yet again, a child of God's
hope in Christ. Shows us one more time. Then
He gives us His final greetings, and then some departing instructions,
and then this book's over. The letter's over. That ends
it. He summarizes here what He's been telling us in these previous
chapters, here in chapter 15, verse 1. Someday, as we have
time, we'll come back and finish up chapter 14 and look at these
three verses, but I just want to touch on them tonight. It
says in Romans 15, verse 1, We then that are strong ought to
bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
Not to say, look at how strong I bear these weak brethren. Not
to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his
neighbor, for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself,
but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproached thee
fell on me." It should be my purpose in life not to be happy. Happy comes from happenstance.
That means every now and then. It shouldn't be my purpose in
life to have my best life. My purpose in life shouldn't
be to be happy. It should be useful. I should have a desire
to want to be useful to the Lord, to His gospel, and to His people.
John Bunyan once wrote, he said, you have not lived today until
you have done something for someone who can never repay you. Have
I done that today? Have I done something for someone
that they cannot repay me? If I haven't, I haven't lived.
The Spirit of God tells us in the Scriptures, by love serve
one another. They're in Galatians 5. He told
David, said that David served his own generation by the will
of God. King David served his generation
by the will of God. I want to live like that. I want
to live in a way that's not pleasing myself and looking out for number
one, but for the furtherance of the Gospel and the Lord's
people. That's how I want to live. Living for God is living
for the benefit of others. Serving God is serving others. But listen to me, we can serve
others and not serve God. But we cannot serve God without
serving others. I'm going to put that in the
bulletin this weekend so we got it wrote down. We cannot serve God without
serving others. We can be lazy boy theologians
all we want to, we ain't serving God if we're not serving others. Now our text here in verse 4,
Romans 15 verse 4. For whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning. that we, through patience
and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope. These things
were written for our learning. 27 times here in this letter
to the church at Rome, Paul says, it is written, or the scripture
saith. Paul uses the Old Testament scriptures
27 times in these short chapters to show the brethren in Rome
this great and marvelous gospel. God's free and sovereign grace
in Christ. That eternal covenant of grace.
He does this as a preacher ought to. He told them and then he
showed them. I gotta write that down in my
notes. I need to tell you and then I
need to show you. Paul told us, he wrote to Timothy, he said,
all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it is profitable for
doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
I'd like to have about three and a half hours to expound on
that. It sounds like you can read it pretty quick, don't it?
But all scripture is given by the inspiration of God. Everything
in this book is the inspired Word of God. They have a name
for the folks that don't think so. It's called infidel. Kevin,
you're calling people's names. I'll use another one. Fool. Deist. Another name. Deist. They say they believe
in a god. God created everything, but he
doesn't influence the universe. He started it, and then he stepped
back. Deist. That is the many the scriptures
speak of when it talks about why is the path to destruction.
That's most religion, isn't it? Well, God can't do that. God
wouldn't influence that. He's hands off. It's up to the
sinner. Nonsense. But knowing God made
the heavens and earth, I have confidence He is able to preserve
His Word. I've heard that a lot and I wrote
something else down this evening. Knowing God is able to preserve
my soul for eternity, He's able to preserve His Word. Big save
me, he can keep his word preserved. When someone's, you got the opportunity,
the Lord opens the door to speak to somebody about the gospel
and they don't believe that the Bible's the inspired word of
God, move on. I'm giving you good advice, move
on. It's not given to me to convince
men and women that the Bible is true. I am to declare who
the Bible concerns, the truth of the Bible. Like dynamite. I just throw it. I declare it.
The person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But our Lord gave
great prominence. Christ gave great honor to the
Word of God, didn't He? When He was tempted of Satan
right after His baptism, He went into the wilderness 40 days.
He responded with, there in Luke's Gospel, three or four times,
It is written. It is written. At any moment, Christ could have
just destroyed the devil immediately. At any moment, He could have
cast him from His presence. He could have froze him. He could
have had the angels do all that. What did He do? He responded
with, It is written. Turn over to Luke chapter 24. Luke 24. This road to Emmaus. These two disciples were walking
along. They're so sad, aren't they? They're uncomfortable,
they're restless, and they're hopeless. We're going to see
more of that in a minute. They're uncomfortable, they're
restless, and they're hopeless. Luke 24, verse 25. And He said
unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to
believe all that the prophets have spoken. You're so quick
not to listen to the Scriptures. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning Himself. What would you like to walk that
road? So let's double back for a little
while. How long can I walk this road?
You hungry? I ain't hungry. I want to keep
walking this road. And our Lord appeared to the
apostles there in verse 44. Luke 24, 44. And He said unto them, These are the words which I spake
unto you while I was still with you." I told you this. "...that
all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law
of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me." That's the whole Old Testament Scripture. Every bit of it. "...Then opened He their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures. Who's he talking
to? Some disciples and apostles,
there's been with him a long time. They're looking at him
risen from the grave. Those that spent time with him
said, I told you the same thing while he was walking this earth.
And now he's opened their eyes and understanding to see Christ
in the Old Testament. Two necessary things to see.
physically and spiritually. We have to have a good eye, and
there has to be light. Christ must give both. Physically,
as we walk this earth, He has to give me a set of eyes, and
there has to be a light. Night vision goggles don't work
if there's zero light. If you're in a cave, they don't
work. He has to give eyes, He has to give light, and spiritually.
Spiritually, for my soul to see Him, He has to give me eyes,
and He has to give me light. Now back in our text here in
Romans 15, It says in verse 4, Romans 15,
4, For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning. These scriptures are for our
learning. We can learn something about
God's power and about His wisdom when we look at His creation.
All of creation declares God is, but the forests The oceans,
all the animals, they don't tell men and women if God will forgive
sin, does it? He is, what are you going to
do about me? It doesn't tell us that God is
just. This creation we live in, it
doesn't tell us about God's purpose in salvation. Nature does not
tell us what happened in the garden. Follow Adam. Follow his seed. Everyone born
of Him. We can see this in the effects
of it, can't we? We can see that in nature. Consuming,
biting, devouring, disease, pestilence, meanness, evil. Without the Scriptures,
you could never know of the Lord's power to save His people. What
a blessing He gave us these Scriptures. You can sit all Sunday in a tree
stand or you can be on a boat out in nature and call that your
church all day Sunday and you will not be taught how a holy
God that will by no means clear the guilty can show mercy to
sinners who are at war against him and the whole time remain
just. Trees won't tell you that. Fish
won't tell you that. It says, these things written
aforetime were written for our learning, for us to learn the
holiness of God who cannot lie. For us to learn His immutability. That means that God doesn't change.
For us to learn His sovereignty in all things. He's the Lord
of all. For us to learn about His grace
and mercy to me, a sinner. For us to learn the fullness
of this God. The fullness of this Godhead
was in one body, the Lord Jesus Christ. He walked this earth
as a man. For us to know the truth of man, sin, the noun. I keep saying these things repetitively
all the time. Hope starts sinking in. You don't
have to remember that I said it. I just hope it starts sinking
in. The noun, sin, that's what I am. Of justice, of holiness,
and of the Lord our salvation. Here's God's purpose in His people
concerning the Scriptures, concerning His Word. Look there in verse
4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning, that we, you and I, through patience and comfort
of the Scriptures might have hope. That's my title tonight. Patience and comfort to hope. The word patience there, that
word means cheerful, Endurance. Cheerful endurance. That's not
only waiting on the Lord. That's perseverance. Not just
to wait on Him cheerfully, as we ought to. Perseverance. How
do we wait on the Lord? How do you and I cheerfully have
endurance? The patience. That Hebrew writer
told us, let us run with patience. That sounds like an oxymoron,
doesn't it? Unless we know it means endurance. Let us run with
endurance, the race that is set before us. How do we do that?
Do we just muster it up on our own? Just over the decades and
decades of hearing Bible things, listening to any old message,
don't make a difference which one it is. Is that what gives
us that endurance to run? Look here in verse 5. Now the
God of patience. We read the scriptures about
the kingdom and patience of Christ. John told us that in Revelation
1-9. I, John, whom also am your brother and companion in tribulation
and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. What's the source
of our cheerful endurance? What's the source of our patience?
God is. Christ is. He's the source of
it. Knowing where the source is, I ask you and I ask myself,
how's your patience? How's my patience? I went to
pick Jared up from school yesterday, and he was doing some road construction
right down here. And so I waited here by the red
light right in front of the church. Do I turn around? It's getting close, so I text
him. I can go Humboldt Drive, can't I? So I turned around and
went back that way. Well, a pickup truck hit a dump truck head on
coming down Humboldt Drive. Do I turn back around and go
the other way? Wasn't patient, was I? You know why I wasn't
patient? I didn't know the outcome. I didn't know what was best,
did I? It's tough stuff. It's tough stuff. The only way
you and I can have patience is if we know the outcome already. The only way the Lord can give
us patience is if we know the outcome already. If we were watching
the Super Bowl, and it's this year, and our team's playing
in it, we'd be on the edge of our seats, wouldn't we? Oh, we
don't want to know what's going to happen next. We'd be tore
to pieces. We wouldn't have one lick of patience. But if we watch
the Super Bowl from last year, we know our team's already won.
We already know how they win, what quarter they get ahead in.
We already know who gets hurt, all those things. Would you be
on the edge of your seat? Oh, your team's down by 25 points.
I didn't worry about that. I know who wins. Patience. It's patience. Do we have patience
with the Lord? Do we wait on Him and endure with Him? We know
who wins. We know what He does for His
children and for His people, don't we? When do I truly have
patience? Cheerful endurance. When the
God of patience teaches me in His Scriptures from times before,
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to His purpose. When He teaches
me that, now I'm starting to get some patience, ain't I? I'm
going to cheerfully endure. As His Scriptures, written before,
come into my heart. See, He applies it. When He stirs
up my pure mind, my new man, and He makes me to remember His
power and His promises to His people, I am cheerful while I have endurance. I can tough it out another day
with a smile on my face. Turn over to Joshua 21. Joshua
21. It's the sixth book in the Bible.
Genesis, Sextus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. If you
get the Judges, you went too far. Joshua 21. Joshua 21, verse
43. And the Lord gave unto Israel
all the land which He sware to give unto their fathers. And
they possessed it and dwelt therein. When the Lord gives something,
you possess it and you will dwell therein. It's not a gift like
we get nowadays. You take that back. You get a
receipt I can return that with? When the Lord gives a gift, You
possess it and you dwell in it. Verse 44. And the Lord gave them
rest. Roundabout. None were working. All the work's done. You know,
I can't rest. I feel sorry for my wife. She
can't rest for nothing. There's always something to be
done. And if it ain't for today, it's getting ready for tomorrow.
Can't rest. When the Lord gives rest roundabout,
there ain't no more working. He read straight on about, "...according
to all that he swore unto their fathers, and there stood not
a man of all their enemies before them, and the Lord delivered
all their enemies into their hand. There fell not out of any
good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel,
all came to pass." Do you believe that? Do I believe that? That all of our enemies are defeated. Sin, death, and hell, they're
all defeated. That all of the good promises
of God to his people, of his word, all have and shall come
to pass. Do you rest in his purpose, in
his will, in his accomplished work? And do you rest from your
own work? That's patience if you do. That's
patience. What's a good example of this?
Peter walking on the water. He bid our Lord, he said, Lord,
let me come to you. You bid me, I come to you. And
Christ said, come hither, Peter. Come on. Come out to me. Boy,
Peter walked with cheerful endurance across that water, looking to
Christ, didn't he? With patience, he walked on that
water, looking to Him. But what happened? Whenever he
looked to those bolsterous winds, instead of looking to Christ.
Do I do that? He began to sing, didn't he?
Patience, cheerful endurance, is looking to Christ. That's
what the Hebrew writer said, let us run this patience, run
with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus
Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. I'm back in our
text here in Romans 15. The next word here is comfort.
Comfort. It says in verse 4, Romans 15,
4, "...for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures."
What is true comfort for the believer? True comfort. Bold, underlined, highlighted.
True! What's true comfort? For we are not afraid, we're
not scared, we're not nervous about this world, about the world
to come, about the judgment seat of God. Why? Salvation is of the Lord, not
of me. If I had anything to do with
the saving of my soul or the keeping of my soul, I have some
serious concerns, I have some justified worries. That's legitimate. Because I can't do it, but Christ
can. He is able. He is able. That is comfort. That is rest. I cannot add to the finished
work of Christ. And there's no need for me to.
It's accepted. Perfectly accepted of the Father.
What's the beginning of this comfort in the soul? Where does
all this start? What does the Scripture say about
the act of eternal grace and love? How does it come about?
How does it begin? Do we do that? Paul told a certain
Philippians, being confident of this very thing which hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. Who started that work? The Lord
did. He hath begun it. That's the
beginning of it. What's the continuance of it?
Our perseverance through this life that we live in. That living
grace. What does the scripture say?
What's written to us? It says, for it is God which
worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Who
does the will and to do? Is that up to me? It's God who
works it in you. What about the end? The dying
grace we're given. Comfort in the scriptures. Do
we have that? We read that recently. Christ is our inheritance. Those
workers in the vineyard. That one that got there early.
I mean, just labored all day long in a hot sun for 12 hours.
He got a penny, didn't he? And that one that showed up 10
minutes before quitting time. He got a penny, didn't he? Everybody's
so worried about going to heaven. I see bumper stickers all over
this place. Ain't one person worried about getting a present
to Christ. He's our inheritance. He's the penny. If I've got to labor for 12 hours,
I've got to labor for 12 minutes. I don't care. I want Him. That's
where I want to be. In His presence. The prophet
spoke of Him. We've got the scripture saying,
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished. Unless it's going to be, or it
ought to be sometime soon if you do something, it is accomplished.
That her iniquity is pardoned. Don't mess up. Oh, it is pardoned. Ain't got nothing to do with
us, does it? For she hath received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sins. Is that a comfort to you? Can
I cheerfully endure knowing that my salvation is accomplished
and that I hath received the robe of Christ's righteousness?
Everything that's required for me to be and stay in the presence
of the Father, of Almighty God of heaven and earth. It's done. Christ's done it for
His people. I want to read some It Is Writtens
for you concerning comfort. We can have comfort knowing that
those that Christ died for are loved by the Father just as Christ
is loved by the Father. Did you know that? How much does
He love His children? The same as He loves Christ.
Did you know that? Christ is speaking to the Father
in John 17. He said, Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved
me." Think about that. Consider that. This almighty,
all-powerful, all-sovereign God, He loves His children the same
as He loves His firstborn elect, Christ. We can have comfort knowing
that even though we were once dead in sin, we were ungodly,
that the faith of Christ is given to us, that is counted as an
act of a holy nature. It is written. It's righteousness.
But unto him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. You know,
is counted, that's imputed. Meaning, he's got it right now.
He hath. It's in their account already,
righteousness. There's comfort knowing that
the Father loves us just as He loves the Son. That we already
have the saving faith that's counted to us for righteousness
and that it is fully and totally accepted. We're not given righteousness
and we just hope, we wish that it's good enough whenever we
meet the Lord. Just as Christ our righteousness
is accepted, our righteousness is accepted. It is written, to
the praise of the glory of His grace, where it He hath made
us accepted in the Beloved. That makes me want to run a marathon.
Does that get the heart pumping, any? To the praise of the glory
of His grace, where it He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.
In Christ, I'm accepted to God. I got cancer. I don't care. I'm
accepted to God. There's comfort and endurance,
patience, coming from the scriptures, teaching us that in that eternal
love of God, in the righteousness of Christ, in the acceptance
that we have in Him, we are forever complete in Him. That's not the
jumping off spot. That's complete. It's forever.
He says, as it's written. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him." That's
right now. Right now. John said, here in
His love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day
of judgment because as He is, right now, as Christ is, so are
we in this world. Right now in the eyes of the
Holy God. His people are holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in His sight. I can't wrap my head around that.
There's a whole lot of people who have a lot of theology things
just sorted out. Boy, they got that figured out. Figure that
one out. How does that work? What a God
we have. Who does this patience and comfort
in the Scriptures apply to? There's a whole lot of cheerful
endurance and comfort there in these Scriptures, aren't there?
Who's it to? This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptations. That Christ Jesus came into world
to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Are you a sinner? Truly. Not while I've sinned. I ain't the greatest person to
ever live. I've had a couple bad days. I got a parking ticket
one time. Is that all that you are, the noun? That's all I'm
capable of. If so, then Christ came to save
you. Does that give you cheerful endurance? Does that news give you comfort
in knowing that there's peace, true peace between you and the
God you sinned against? If you're a true sinner, there
is patience and comfort in these Scriptures. Because every page
concerns my prophet, the one who wrote these Scriptures. Every
page concerns my priest, My mediator between me and God. Every page
of these scriptures includes and concerns is about my King.
Rules and reigns in my heart. He rules and reigns in my life,
in my faith, in my birth, and in my death in this mortal body.
That's a Lord. These scriptures are about my
Lord. They're in Romans 15, 4. It says, "...for whatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." I won't keep
you long. I know I'm droning on a ways,
but I want to talk to you just a second about hope. In case
somebody hoped to have some hope, I'm going to tell you something
about it. That word hope there is El Pese, to anticipate Usually
with pleasure. You're cheerfully waiting. You're
cheerfully anticipating. An expectation or confidence.
It's faith or hope. That's what the word hope means.
There in Romans 8. That's just a couple pages. We
turn there. We all see these things. Romans
8 verse 24. Romans 8 24. For we are saved
by hope. Whoa, this might be important.
We are saved by hope, not by hoping, but by the confidence
in Christ, in the Word. For we are saved by hope, but
hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, what doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see
not, then do we with patience, there's that word again, then
do we with patience wait for it. I'll tell you three things
about hope. Hope has something to do with
the future. Something that's coming. Hope is certainty. It's confident. It's not hoping.
It's not wishing, as we use the word today. It's not wishing.
There's an expectation. It's in the future. There's an
expectation. And if you see it, it's not hope. What have I just been telling
you that Christ is in me? My righteousness. everything needed
for God. Guess what? I don't see it. I don't see it in me. In the
future, I have a hope that I stand just before a holy God. And I
sure don't see it in this body of death. But I have a hope that
I am perfect and forever will be in Christ who saved me. That
is where my confidence is. He is who my expectation is for. I anticipate Him with cheerfulness,
with pleasure. When you read these scriptures
and you see what your true condition is before God by nature, and
then you see what is done by Christ for and in His people,
do you have hope? If you're a sinner, you do, don't
you? I hope that's a blessing to you.