We're gonna be looking at verse
eight to start off with, where the Apostle Paul, in writing
to this group of believers in Rome, he says, first, the first
thing that he wanted to bring to their attention is, I thank
my God through Jesus Christ for you all, and that your faith
is spoken of throughout the whole world. Thanksgiving, that's the
issue here. I believe that more than anything
else that marks the Christian life in our words, in our attitude,
and in our actions, that the word that covers it more than
anything else is gratitude. Thanksgiving, not just Thanksgiving
Day where we eat turkey, but talking about our whole lives.
that motivates a believer in the obedience of faith, motivated,
as I often say, by grace, which means this, that means that we're
not trying to earn our salvation from God. It's a free gift that
we didn't earn and didn't deserve. So grace motivates us. If you're seeking, if you believe
salvation is conditioned on you, and that God will only bless
you if you meet certain conditions, then you've denied grace. That's what people need to understand.
Mercy and grace cannot be earned, cannot be deserved. Grace reigns
through righteousness, but not mine or yours. It reigns through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And
so we have the gift of God's Son, it's His grace, and then
love. Paul said, the love of Christ
constrains me. That's what I believe he's talking
about there in 2 Corinthians 5, is Christ's love for us. It's an unconditional love for
us. Because there's nothing lovely
about us. In God's sight now, now you understand
what I'm talking about. I mean, I look at my two grandchildren
and I love them. And there's something lovely
about them to me, but I'm talking about salvation now. I always
watch to see that the program, our TV program, comes on to make
sure, because sometimes they'll preempt it and everything. And
one of the things as I was watching what I was saying there, I was
talking about goodness, that there's none good, no not one.
Well, that's talking about how God sees us, not how we see each
other. And I made the statement, I said,
on this vertical plane. I don't have to go back and correct
that. That's not a vertical, that's a horizontal, see? So,
that just popped into my head. Vertical's that way. But when
I'm talking about love, I'm talking about there's nothing lovely
about us on that vertical plane that God sees in us. See, when
the Bible says there's none good, no not one, there's none lovely,
you could say, no not one, we're talking about how God sees us,
not how we see each other. You see, you cannot measure God's
view of us by our view of each other. You can't do that, you
have to go by his word. And what his word says, there's
none righteous, no not one, and there's none good, no not one.
Okay? So the righteousness and the
goodness and the loveliness that we need to be right with God
cannot be found within us naturally. Okay? It's found only in Christ. His righteousness. See, that's
why we talk about imputation. I'm gonna talk about that in
just a moment. His righteousness is imputed. It's not mine. In
other words, it's not of my making. It's not of my working. It's
not even of my experience in and of itself. It's what Christ
did alone by one offering. And so when he talks about grace,
when he talks about love, and then when we talk about gratitude,
that's what it's all about. We sing a hymn sometimes. Thank
you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me thy great salvation, so rich and so free. And so our whole
lives are to be marked with gratitude. And that's what Paul's saying.
I thank God for you. Paul knew that he didn't save
these people. God did. Salvation's of the Lord. And
even though we can thank each other, I mean, I thank God for
the men that I heard who first preached the gospel for me. I
even thank them. But the ultimate thanks and gratitude
goes to God. Isn't that right? Because salvation's
of the Lord. If it weren't for God, all of
their preaching would have continued to fall on these deaf ears. But
God gave me ears to hear. He gave me eyes to see, he gave
me a new heart, okay? So when he says this, I thank
God for you all through Jesus Christ. We are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus, see, unto good works. And then he
says that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
Now what is that talking about? Well, are they talking, well
first of all, the whole world, now who is that? That's the Roman
Empire. That's the known world. That's
the places where Paul had gone to preach in the Gentile world
and other ministers had gone. And they were talking about this
local congregation in Rome. Now, why is that so significant?
Well, think about it. The Roman Empire. What is Rome? It was the capital. It was the
center of the Roman Empire, which was one of the most immoral,
corrupt, idolatrous governments that ever was planted on the
face of this fallen cursed earth. We talk about the corruption
in Washington. Okay, there's a lot of it. But
my friend, I don't know, how does that compare with Caesar?
and the Roman Empire. Caesar was a man who claimed
to be a god and demanded people worship him. But think about
it. God, in his power, in his sovereignty,
do you think, is God going to save his chosen people? You bet
he is. Even in Rome. Caesar couldn't stop it, the
Roman Empire couldn't stop it, there was a local congregation
of believers in Rome, and we learn, I think it's in the book
of Philippians, if I'm not mistaken, we learn that there were some
in this church who were members of Caesar's household staff. I think, yeah, Philippians 4.22. Some of Caesar's servants had
heard the gospel and been converted by God to believe in Christ. And you know what? That was against
the law in Caesar's day. You didn't worship anybody but
Caesar. Or at least, you might worship other gods, but you had
to put Caesar up there too. And you see that over in the
book of Revelation where one of the pastors of the churches
or the elders of the churches was killed because he wouldn't
say that Caesar is Lord. But God in his sovereign mercy
and power had established a church there. And it says their faith
is spoken of. The fact that they believed was
a miracle of God's power and grace. And that's what people
talk about. There's a church in Rome. There's
a church of believers, true believers who believe the doctrine of Christ,
who believe salvation by God's grace in Rome. That's something
worth talking about. Well, we didn't think that could
happen because look, oh yeah, God's going to save his people
from their sins. God is the originator. He's the power. to raise up his
people. And then Paul says in verse nine,
for God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel
of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always
in my prayers. Paul, and well, what he's saying
here is simply that God knows my heart. God knows my sincerity
in this matter. He says, I serve God with my
spirit. What he's talking about is he
has spiritual life by the power of the spirit that motivates
him by the grace of God and gratitude to God to preach the gospel,
to preach Christ. It's not a popular message. It's
not the message of the majority. Majority turned thumbs down on
it. It's offensive to the natural man. The natural man received
it, not the things of the spirit of God, neither can he know them.
It's, it's the message of light, which those who dwell in darkness
hate. And yet I'm sincere in this matter. I know it's true. Paul was saying
God is my witness. I can't fool God about these
things. I had a man tell me up in Ashland
that he was leaving the church because he didn't feel like I
preached from my heart. And I told him, I said, well,
how do you know my heart? I said, are you God? God is my
witness. You know, I don't want messages
to be dead, cold, and dry, as they say. I don't want them to
be mechanical. And I'm trying to tell you what
I believe to be true. God knows my heart, and I serve
him with my spirit in the gospel of his son. And then Paul says,
without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers.
I pray for you. We pray for each other in the
gospel. That's an act of fellowship and
love. Listen, I pray for lost people. I do, don't you? I have family members who are
lost in their sins. They don't know and believe the
gospel, and I pray for them. I pray, God, save them. God,
get the gospel to them. Bring them to faith in Christ.
But when it comes to my brethren, my brothers and sisters in Christ,
I pray for them in a different way, see? I pray that God will
keep you, that God will bless you, that God will prosper you. We're going to look at 2 John
and 3 John. I'm going to look at 2 John today
in the message, 3 John next week, Lord willing. But John tells
the people in 3 John, he tells Gaius, a man in the church where
he's writing to, he says, I pray that God will give you good health.
There's nothing wrong with that. Now, God may not give you good
health. It may be God's purpose to take you out, or to take me
out. I think about, you remember,
if you've read about any of the old divines, I think about Augustus
Toplady, who wrote Rock of Ages, and everything that I've read
by Toplady has been pretty sound. I think most of you would agree
with that, but he was taken out at an early age. and an early
age. Well, some of these false preachers,
they live to be 100 years old, you know. We don't know what
God has planned, but we know that we're to pray for each other.
Pray that God would keep us, that God would bless us, and
that's what Paul's saying. But look at verse 10. Specifically,
he mentions to them, making request, if by any means now at length,
I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto
you. Paul wanted to go and visit with these people in Rome. It
was his intention to go. On several occasions he had intended
to go, but God had other plans. And Paul was willing to submit
to God's will. He said, have a prosperous journey
by the will of God to come to you. And he says in verse 11,
for I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual
gift to the end you may be established. Now, why did Paul want to go
to Rome? He wanted to meet them, he wanted
to enjoy the fellowship of them, and he wanted to be a helper
to them in order to help them grow in grace and in knowledge
of Christ to be more established in the truth. You see, every
true believer knows the gospel. and is settled in the gospel
by the power of God, but as we grow in grace and in knowledge
of Christ, we become more and more established. In Hebrews,
that's mentioned, you know, how some people are tossed to and
fro by every wind of doctrine. I know people like that, don't
you? They claim to believe the gospel, but they're here, there,
and everywhere with the truth. And they can pretty much blend
in with everybody. See, that's the thing about Christianity.
You don't blend in. If you blend in, there's something
wrong. And I'm talking about with the world. And it's religion,
you see. Somebody told me one time, he
said, well, I can have fellowship with everybody. Well, that's
a problem. Because not everybody believes the truth. We're going
to find out in 2 John there, he talks about love, but love
in the truth. That's a special love. We'll
talk about that later. But Paul said, I want to help
you. Now, how's he going to help them?
He says, I want to impart unto you some spiritual gift. Now,
these are the gifts of ministry that he's talking about. Back
then, the apostles and other evangelists had special gifts
of ministry. that would promote and support
the word of God, the gospel. The main issue was the gospel.
It wasn't, listen, the gifts of ministry. He mentions them
in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, because many of them had been
given gifts of ministry. You talk about the gift of languages. You can talk about the gift of
healing. You can talk about other gifts, you know, that the Bible,
the gift of wisdom and discernment, all kinds of those gifts, all
right? And the reason those gifts were given is this, they did
not have the written word of God as we have it today, okay? They couldn't say, now you Romans,
turn to Romans chapter one. Paul's writing the letter here,
see? He's dictating the letter. And they couldn't say to the
Galatians, now you turn to Galatians chapter three, like we can. They
were writing these things and speaking these things as God
revealed them by inspiration of the Spirit, and these things
were being recorded. And so the question will come,
well, how do I know you're saying of God? How do I know you're
preaching with that kind of authority? And they had gifts of ministry
that would support them. That's what Mark 16 tells us,
all right? And so now somebody says, well,
now we don't have those gifts today. Well, we have certain
gifts. We have the gift of preaching. The gift of communication, but
now the special gifts for that time, like the gift of languages.
Now you know what that was. That was a gift that either the
speaker could speak in a language unknown to him, but was known
to some of his hearers in order that they might hear and understand
the gospel. It'd be like if God brought in
10 Mexicans here who did not speak English, and all of a sudden,
and I don't know Spanish, I don't know the Mexican language, but
all of a sudden I started speaking in the Spanish language. And
they would hear what I'm saying. Now y'all wouldn't unless you
spoke it. So we'd have to have, Jim may have the gift of interpretation.
He'd get up and he'd tell y'all what I'm saying. But there was
a communication. It wasn't just some kind of a
heavenly gibberish. It wasn't some kind of tongue
that nobody understood. Because Paul said it in 1 Corinthians
chapter 14. He said, to speak without understanding,
you might as well get up here and bang a big old gong or blow
a big trumpet. It means nothing. Another way
that gift of languages came is that if we had like 10 Mexicans
there, and I was still speaking in English, but they could hear
in their own language. That's what happened, I believe,
at Pentecost. So those were spiritual gifts.
Now somebody says, well, do we have those gifts today? Well,
a lot of people say we do. Don't argue with them. Just find
out one thing from them. What is the gospel? That's all
you gotta know. Some guy comes along and says,
well, I can heal the sick. Well, okay, heal me. But here's
the problem. What gospel do you preach? And
if you don't preach the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace
in Christ, it doesn't matter if you heal the sick or raise
the dead. You understand what I'm saying? Or speak in 50 languages. If it's not the gospel wherein
the righteousness of God is revealed, it means nothing. And that's
where we have to go to. Well, here in verse 12, or verse 11, rather, we have
one of the, what, three times, I think, that you find the word
impart. You see the word impart there.
Impart and imparted are found in our text and two other times
in the New Testament. I've got them listed for you.
And I think it's a golden opportunity to talk about imparted and imputed. Okay? So let me just, let me
get a little technical here. Somebody asked me one time, said,
well, why do you want to get so technical? Well, these are biblical
words, folks. The word impart. It's found here,
and then, like I said, two other times in the New Testament. The
word impute is found about nine times in the New Testament. What does impart mean? Paul said,
I want to impart some spiritual gift to you. Well, when you think
of the word impart, it means to share. I've got it here in
your lesson. It means to share. It means to
make known. It means to communicate. That's
what impart means. And think about it like a teacher
in a classroom. Think about it like what I'm
doing here. When I study the scriptures,
I want the knowledge that is contained in the scriptures to
make it to my mind. I want it imparted to me. I want
to know what I didn't know before or I want to have reinforced
what I've already been taught. Okay? I want it in my mind. I want it in my affections, in
my will. I want that knowledge to change
me. It'll change me. It'll either
enlighten me to where I know more than I knew before, or it
will establish me more. That's what Paul's talking about,
spiritual gifts. Spiritual knowledge, spiritual
gifts were imparted, they were shared, they were communicated.
Just like a teacher in a classroom, a teacher, he or she wants the
knowledge that he or she has to get into the heads of the
students to change them, to make them either more intelligent
or at least more knowledgeable. Okay, that's what imparted means.
Now, imputed is a different word. Imputed does not have to do with
anything that's infused, like the word imparted might be infused,
might be, one guy used imbued, you all remember that. All right,
same thing. Well, knowledge, spiritual gifts,
can be imparted. But righteousness cannot be imparted. Now knowledge of righteousness
can be imparted. You understand what I'm saying?
Righteousness, think of imparted, think of it as a teaching term.
Trying to get knowledge from here to there. From my head into
your head. Imputed is not a teaching term. Imputed is a legal term or a
commercial term. Think about being in a courtroom.
and you're charged with a crime. That crime is imputed, charged
to your account. Or in a commercial setting, like
buying and selling goods, you go into a store, you buy something,
and you charge it. It's put on your account. That's
what imputed is. Well, righteousness is imputed.
That's the work of Christ as the surety of his people. What
is a surety? A surety is one who takes accountability,
responsibility for the debt of another. Put it on my account. And that all took place in Christ
before we ever knew about it. Before we ever had any knowledge
of it. So the work of Christ in righteousness
is imputed to his people. Now we're gonna, that's the righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel in Romans 1, 16 and 17. And Paul expounds upon it in
Romans 4. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputes righteousness, accounts, charges righteousness without
works. So righteousness is perfect satisfaction
to God's law and justice. That's the work of Christ in
his obedience. It's charged to my account. And
that happened before I even knew anything about it. Do you understand
that? And it cannot be imparted. Now,
what is imparted? Well, spiritual life in the new
birth. A new heart. He said, I'm gonna
put within him a new heart. That's imparted. I'm going to
give them a new knowledge. I'm going to give them a new
desire. I'll give them a conscience that's cleansed, all of that.
That's what's imparted. So think about that. I know sometimes
people get mixed up there, but you'll hear a lot of people today
talk about imparted righteousness. The Catholic Church, one of their
main tenets is justification. That is being made right with
God, not guilty righteous, by an infused righteousness. That's
something the Holy Spirit does within you. That is not the gospel. The Holy Spirit's work within
us is necessary, not to make us righteous, but it's necessary
for our new birth to let us know about what Christ accomplished
in righteousness. Righteousness is totally the
work of Christ outside of us. And as a result of his work outside
of us, the fruit of that is the work of the Spirit inside of
us, we might say. And that's what's imparted. Well,
that'll take some thought, but that's what he's talking about.
I want to impart some spiritual gift to you, Paul says. I want
to be able to teach you. I want to be able to encourage
you. I want to be able to help you in the ministry of the gospel. So in verse 12, he says, that
is that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith,
both of you and me. We believe the same thing. This
is the mutual faith. We believe we're justified before
holy God based on the imputed righteousness of Christ. And
the reason we believe that is because the Holy Spirit has given
us spiritual life. He's imparted life, knowledge. We have been brought by the Spirit
to faith in Christ. And it's our mutual faith. It's
the same faith. It's not one faith for this denomination
and another faith for that denomination. It's the same gospel. It's the
gospel of God. that shows us how holy and righteous
God is and how sinful we are. It shows us that here's the main
problem of the whole human race. God is righteous and we're not
righteous. And if God ever looked upon us
to give us what we've earned or deserved, it would be eternal
damnation and death. We're sinners. It shows us that
we're in order to be right with God, The sin problem has to be
solved, has to be cured, and we can't solve it and we can't
cure it, only God can. It shows us in order to be right
with God, to be accepted with God, to be blessed of God, we
have to have a righteousness we cannot produce. And then it
goes on to show us the way that God and His sovereign majesty
has freely provided and given and purposed to do all that for
His people, and that's by His sovereign grace through the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's the only way. It shows
us that all of our salvation was conditioned on Him, and He
came to this earth, walked this earth as God in human flesh,
and fulfilled all those conditions, all those stipulations, all those
requirements on our behalf as our surety and our substitute.
He put away my sins by his death. He brought forth righteousness,
which God has imputed to me, whereby I can be justified, declared
by God legally not guilty and righteous in his sight. And out
of his death comes life. He was raised from the dead.
And he sends forth his spirit to bring us under the preaching
of the gospel, and give us life, that's impartation, the new birth. And he keeps us, he preserves
us, else we'll be damned. That's right. If God doesn't
keep us, he saves us by his grace, he keeps us by his grace, and
if he doesn't keep us, we'll be lost. And he brings us to
glory. And he gives within us a new
desire. to follow him and to obey him
and to fight the flesh and the warfare of the flesh and the
spirit. That's the mutual faith. It's not denominationalism. It's not up for vote. It's not
up for debate. It's the gospel. And if anybody
preaches any other gospel than this, let them be anathema. That's what Paul wrote in Galatians
chapter one.