Let's open our Bibles again to
Romans chapter 15. I titled the message this morning,
Fully Preaching the Gospel. I have looked at that very, very
prayerfully and carefully this week because of how much I desire
to fully preach the gospel that we might know the Lord Jesus
Christ. I took the title from the end
of verse 19 where Paul says, I have fully preached the gospel
of Christ. And that brought two questions
to my mind. Number one, what is the gospel? And number two, what is it to
fully preach it? How can you fully preach something
that's eternal? That's a good question, isn't
it? What is the gospel? What is it to fully preach the
gospel? Now the gospel, the word Paul uses here, gospel, means
a good message. It's the gospel of God. It's
a good message of who God is and how God saves sinners. Verse
16 calls the gospel the gospel of God. Paul says that I should
be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering
the gospel of God. The gospel of God is good news
that tells us, declares who God is. God is holy. God is love. God is gracious. God is just. The gospel of God
tells us of God's glory, the majesty of his person, that God
must be worshiped, his glory, his majesties. You cannot tell
how high above us he is. The gospel of God compels us
to worship God. The gospel of God tells us how
God can save sinners like us. and still be just. How can God
save a sinner and not violate his holy justice? The gospel
tells us that it's through the death of a substitute, through
the righteousness of another, the righteousness of Christ,
our representative. The only way we can know that
is if God declares to us, tells us who he is in his gospel. It's
the gospel of God. But look back at Romans one member
quite some time ago, we began the studying Romans. The gospel
is the gospel of God, but it's also called the gospel of Christ.
Paul said, I fully preached the gospel of Christ. In Romans one,
verse one, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an
apostle separated into the gospel of God, which he had promised
to for by his prophets in the holy scriptures. The gospel of
God is concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made
in the seat of David, according to the flesh. and declared to
be who he is, declared to be the son of God with power, according
to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
Now the gospel concerns, the gospel is all about God's son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. You know what that means? The
gospel's not about us. The gospel's not about us. The
gospel does not tell us what a wonderful plan God has for
your life and what God wants to do for you. No. The Gospel
is concerning. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Gospel does not tell us how
to be good moral people. The Gospel is all about the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Savior, who Christ is, what did Christ do,
why did He do it, and where is He now? That's what the Gospel
is. The Gospel is all about what
Christ has done. Now, without a doubt, Christ
did come to save a people. I mean, his work was done for
a people and he did save them. He did indeed save them from
their sins. But in order for him to do something
for those poor, wretched people, he first had to do something
for God, didn't he? He had to satisfy God's holiness
and work out a perfect obedience to the law that he could give
to those people. He made those people righteous by keeping the
law for them in order to satisfy his father. In order to save
those people, Christ first had to satisfy God's justice for
the sin of those people. He had to make the sin of those
people. He had to make that to be his sin. He had to take it
away from them and make it his. And he had to suffer and die
to satisfy God's justice for all that sin. He had to first
do something for God, didn't he? To take away that sin that
made God angry. And he had to be raised from
the dead. because his sacrifice did indeed satisfy God's justice. It did put away all that sin.
And we don't contribute one work to that salvation. God's people
are justified because of the work Christ did for them to satisfy
all the requirements of his father. Salvation is in what Christ has
done. And the gospel tells us how wonderful
he is and tells us about all the wonderful things that he
did. Not just that he did it, but like we read to open the
service in First Corinthians 15, how that he died. According
to the scriptures, he died to what purpose? To satisfy his
father and to put away the sin of his people. It's the gospel
of God. It's the gospel of Christ. The
scriptures call the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom. Christ
is king, isn't he? He's sovereign. He's king in
a kingdom. He does as he will. That's good
news. He came to save somebody. He's
going to do his will. He came to please his father.
He's going to accomplish it. He did his will to please his
father. It's the gospel of the kingdom. Acts 20 verse 24 calls
the gospel the gospel of the grace of God. The gospel tells
us how God's gracious to sinners in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't
you love to hear grace? The gospel is the gospel of grace.
It's not of works. Oh, it's a gospel that gives
rest. It's a gospel of grace. Romans 10 verse 15, Paul calls
the gospel, the gospel of peace. Tells us how Christ made peace.
You don't have to make peace with God. Christ already beat
you to it. He already made peace with God
through the blood of his cross. Now that's the gospel. They're
just one gospel. The gospel. And to fully preach
that gospel is to preach all of it. and not hold back anything
that's offensive to the flesh. Brother Henry told me one time,
this was good advice. He'd been gone, I'd preached,
and when he was gone, he came back and told me that was a good
message. And then he waited a minute, and then he came back and he
said, you know, you don't have to tell everything you know every time.
I think he was telling me, Frank, shorten it up a little bit. To
fully preach the gospel is not to tell everything you know every
time. To fully preach the gospel is to not hold something back
because you know it's offensive to the flesh. That's fully preaching
the gospel. Remember when Paul was leaving
those Ephesian elders, he knew he'd never see their face again. Big moment, isn't it? Big moment.
He knows when he leaves, grievous wolves are going to enter in
to that church, those people that he loved, those people he
preached to. And he told them, you know this, I've not held
back anything profitable to you. I've showed you publicly from
house to house. I showed you from God's word.
I hadn't held back anything that's profitable to you. I've told
you how wretched you are. I told you the vileness of our
flesh. I've told you who the Savior, I didn't hold back anything
because it might be offensive to you. He said, I've not shunned
to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. I hadn't held
back anything from you. I knew it would make you mad.
And that makes me innocent of the blood of all men. I told
you everything you need to know in order to know God. I showed
you that from the Word. Look over at 1 Corinthians chapter
1. To fully preach the gospel is
to preach it boldly, plainly, and not hold back anything because
you know it's offensive to the flesh. Here's an example of that. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize.
Now Paul's not speaking against baptism there. The Lord commanded
us to believe and be baptized, didn't He? Confessing Him as
our Savior. He's not speaking against baptism.
What he's saying here is Christ didn't send me to get results.
Christ didn't send me to see how many people I can baptize.
He sent me to preach the gospel. Not with wisdom of words. lest
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. To preach
the gospel and the wisdom of words is he's talking about preaching
the gospel and the wisdom of the flesh, not the wisdom of
God. We must preach the gospel in
wisdom, right? The wisdom of God. But it's not
the wisdom of the flesh. It's not phrasing things so that
the flesh will believe it. If the flesh accepts our preaching
and believes it, something's happened. We had to change it. We had to change the gospel in
order for the flesh to believe it. And if we do that, we've
made our message utterly powerless to save. That's what making the
cross of Christ of none effect. It's to make the gospel powerless
to save because we changed the truth of it. If we change the
truth of the gospel and somebody believes it, they're going to
go to hell because they believe in a lie. That's how important
it is fully preach the gospel of God, to not hold anything
back. This gospel is the gospel of
God, the gospel of the father. To fully preach the gospel is
to not hold back anything offensive to the flesh about the father,
but actually declare, fully declare who he is. This is the truth
father elected a people to say. Now, to hold back that truth
or to change it, to to speak about it in wisdom of words so
that the flesh might believe it, is to make the cross of Christ
of none effect. And I'll give you an example.
Here's how you preach this in the wisdom of words. Christ died
for everybody who will believe on him. True statement, isn't
it? True statement. But to leave
it there and not declare the truth that Christ died for his
elect, and he died only for those people And those are the people
who will believe. I think it was last week I had
an article in the Bulletin about whosoever will. I believe in
that entirely. And I know who will come. I know
who those people are. It's the people that the father
chose. The people that the son died for. The people that the
Holy Spirit drew. See, to just leave it there,
Christ died on everybody who would believe on him, makes it
sound like salvation is up to our decision, isn't it? And that
makes the cross of Christ in effect. The gospel is the gospel
of Christ. So to fully preach the gospel
is to declare the truth of who Christ is and not hold any of
it back because it's offensive to the flesh. The truth is this,
Christ died for his elect and he died only for those elect.
That's what he said right before he went to the cross. He said,
Father, I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them that thou hast given me, for they're thine. So to
say, Christ died for everybody. Because He wants to give you
a chance to be saved if you'll just believe on Him. Well, that's
a lie. That's preaching in the wisdom
of words. And nobody's ever going to be
saved by believing that lie. Because that lie will make them
believe on another Jesus. Not the Lord Jesus who came to
save His people from their sin. Now, preaching it that way will
get more people in the baptismal pool. It'll get more results.
But Paul said, that's not why God sent me. It'll get more people
in the pew, but Paul said, that's not why God sent me. God sent
me to fully preach the gospel of Christ because that's the
only way anybody's going to be saved. It's got to be the gospel. Is that what James told us? James
1 verse 18. Of his own will begat he us half
with the word of truth. Not something phrased so that
the flesh can understand it, but with the word of truth. 2
Thessalonians 2 verse 13. We're bound. To give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has
from the beginning chosen you unto salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit in what? Belief of the truth. The truth. That's fully preaching the gospel
of Christ. To fully preach the gospel, we
must declare the work of God, the Holy Spirit, equal with the
Father, equal with the Son, because He is God. The Holy Spirit comes
and gives the new birth to His people. And that's vital. That's vital. You must be born
again. God must give you a new nature
because your original was ruined in sin. You must be born again.
And to fully preach the gospel is to not hold back anything
about man. I was looking over my notes this
morning and tried to think of words that I could use to accurately
depict how totally depraved, how filthy, how disgusting we
are in the sight of God. And the only words that I could
think of are words you ought not use in mixed company or when
you're being recorded for the world to hear. I mean, just,
this is how disgusting we are. We're helpless and we're hopeless
in ourselves. We're ruined in sin. And to hold
some of that back and say you could do something for Jesus
is a lie. That's not fully preaching the
gospel. Look over at Psalm 40. If any of you men are ever called
on to preach, to teach, Awful good example is our Savior,
the Prince of Preachers. Look what He says here in Psalm
40, verse 7. He then said, I, lo, I come,
and the volume of the book is written of me. I delight to do
thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is written within
my heart. Now, you know that can only be talking about one
man. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one all the scriptures
are written about. This is Him. And He came preaching. Well,
he says in verse 9, and here's what he preached. Here's his
outline. You know, if Christ did something, he did it fully.
He did it perfectly, didn't he? But here's fully preaching the
gospel. I've preached righteousness in the great congregation. Lo,
I've not refrained my lips. O Lord, thou knowest. I've not
hid thy righteousness within my heart. I've declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation. I've not concealed thy lovingkindness
and thy truth from the great congregation. Had to fully preach
the gospel. This is what our Savior did.
He fully preached the gospel. He didn't hold anything back.
But he declared righteousness. Now, whose righteousness did
he declare? He said, thy righteousness. The righteousness of God. Whose
righteousness are we declaring? Whose righteousness saves? Well,
it's not ours, is it? No, it's the righteousness of
Christ. His righteousness imputed. His righteousness imparted, it's
Christ's obedience that makes us righteous, not our obedience
to the law. That's fully preaching the gospel.
To fully preach the gospel is to declare God's faithfulness. Right now, really, whose faithfulness
is it to say? Well, it's not ours. I mean, we ought to be faithful,
but let's face it, we're not. Our faithfulness is very fickle.
To fully preach the gospel is to declare thy faithfulness.
to declare God's faithfulness. Salvation comes from God's faithfulness
to do everything He promised to do in order to save His people
from their sin. Salvation comes from Christ's
faithfulness to come and obey the law for His people and to
willingly become the sacrifice for the sin of His people that
He might put their sin away. It was His faithfulness to do
that. To fully declare the gospel is
to declare the Holy Spirit's faithfulness. He comes and gives
life, grants faith and repentance to all of God's elect. Then to
fully preach the gospel is to declare God's salvation. God's salvation. Salvation is
the salvation that the Father purchased, that the Son purchased,
that the Holy Spirit applies. It's the work of the salvation
of the whole Godhead. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is a work that God does for his people and in the hearts of his
people. Now, you who attend here, you
know this. I have never tried to get you to do something, never
try to get you to make a decision, never, never, but simply declare
God's salvation. God will apply it. That's just
fully preaching the gospel, being confident. He'll apply it because
salvation is not our decision. It's not our works. It's a work
of God and fully preaching the gospel just declares this. What
wonderful things God has done for his people. That's the gospel.
The fully preach the gospel is to declare God's loving kindness. Oh, what a what a precious truth
to preach God's loving kindness. The holy God, the just God, the
one who dwells in a light that no man can approach unto. has
the capacity to love sinners. What good news? Salvation is
not me deciding to love God. The flesh never loves God. Anybody in the flesh says they
love God is lying to you. That's not so. Salvation is in
God's capacity to love sinners and still be holy. To fully preach
the gospel is to declare God's truth. To declare the truth of
the whole Bible And you don't have to, when you declare the
truth of the Bible, you don't have to bother trying to explain
it to the flesh. Because who can understand it anyway? I mean,
come on. Who can understand the Trinity? We just talked about the Father,
Son, Holy Spirit. I fully believe that, don't you? Who can understand Christ being
made sin? I can't comprehend it, but I
believe it. How can I understand how, when I look at myself, all
I see is sin. Yet I believe I'm perfectly righteous.
I can't understand that. Who can understand anything that
God does? Now, we just, what we're called on to do as preachers
is unapologetically declare the truth of the gospel. So that's
the only way God's going to be honored. And that's the only
way sinners are going to be saved. God will see to it His people
see what they cannot see. He'll see to it that they'll
hear and believe what they cannot hear and believe by nature. That's
fully preaching the gospel. Now, I hated this when I was
a kid. I hated when the preacher said
this. That's a long introduction, but now I've got a few points
on it. I promise you I'll be brief. That's a long introduction,
but that's the gospel. That's fully preaching the gospel.
Now I want to give you five marks. of the gospel being fully preached.
I won't be too long, I assure you. Number one, to fully preach
the gospel is to constantly remind people of the same things. The
song we just sung, Tell Me the Old, Old Story. Jane loves that
song, Tell Me the Old, Old Story. Just tell it to me over and over
and over again. That's what the Apostle Paul
did. He told the Philippians to write the same things to you.
To me, indeed, it's not great. But for you, it's safe. Everywhere
Paul went, he just kept repeating the gospel. That's what he says
to the Romans here, verse 14, Romans chapter 15. And I myself
also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that you also are full
of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one
another. Nevertheless, brethren, I've
written more boldly unto you in some sort as putting you in
mind because of the grace that is given to me of God. Now, Paul
said, I know you already know these truths, all these truths
of the gospel, these fundamental truths. You're able, you know
them and God's gifted you to be able to teach them to each
other, to admonish one another. And that word admonish means
teach. It doesn't mean to correct and
chastise and be mean to one another. It means to teach. God's gifted
you, you know that. He said, I know you're filled
with goodness. You're filled with the goodness of Christ,
with his righteousness. You know, it's not your goodness,
but it's Christ in you. You know this, that you're completing.
You know that. And I know this about you. You're
filled with the fruit of the Spirit. You're filled with love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, kindness.
You're filled with those things. And since that's true, I can
write even more boldly to you, even more plainly to you. Someone
told me recently, I'm just amazed how comfortable you are, just
so boldly preaching this gospel. Well, what Paul says to the church
at Rome, I say about y'all, I know these things about you. So I
can be bold. I can be bold. I do not have
to worry that I'm too harsh killing the flesh. No, no, you love it. Believers love kill the flesh. Show me how sinful I am. So I'm
forced to look to Christ and depend on him. Show me that.
Now, You already know these truths. I'm not telling you something
you've never heard before. You've heard it over and over and over
again. We rejoice to be reminded of these truths, don't you? And
aren't we glad? I mean, honestly, how often do
you have to be reminded that God's suffering? Do you ever
get tired of that? God's suffering over everything
going on in your life, over everything going on in this world. Isn't
that a comfort? Did this thing get in an accident
and it hadn't happened because I'm dumb? No. God's sovereign
over this. How often do you love to be reminded
God's merciful? Oh, God be merciful and be a
sinner. God's merciful. Do you love to
be reminded of that? Do you love to be reminded God's
gracious to sinners? He saves sinners by grace, not
because they've done something to deserve it. God's going to
keep his people. I mean, we think If we know anything
about ourselves, I know this, if God lifts His finger off me
for a second, I'll fall away. So how often do you love to be
reminded God's going to keep His people? They will persevere
to the end because God's going to keep them. How often do you
love to be reminded God will comfort the hearts of His people?
He will comfort them with His presence. How often do you need
to be reminded of that? because of how easily we forget.
So we need to be reminded. And the man who fully preaches
the gospel will constantly remind us of the truth of the gospel,
saying the same things over and over and over again from God's
Word, from different texts in God's Word. We need to be reminded.
All right, second, when the gospel is fully preached, God's people
will be saved. Verse 16. that I should be the
minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel
of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable,
being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. I have, therefore, whereof
I may glory through Jesus Christ and those things which pertain
to God. For I will not dare speak of any of those things which
God hath not brought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient by
word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power
of the Spirit So that from Jerusalem and round about unto Iconium,
I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. Now Paul went out
preaching and these Gentiles were saved. When were they? When were they sanctified? When
were they made holy in the new birth? When they heard the gospel
being fully preached. When they heard it and believed
it. Now don't be confused by this word Paul uses, acceptable,
here. We're not, the believer is not
made acceptable in Christ. We're accepted in the beloved,
accepted in Christ. And I wonder why he used that
word acceptable. Well, actually Paul didn't use
the word acceptable. The word that he uses here means
approved or well received. And normally it's translated
accepted. I don't know why the translators
chose acceptable there, but normally the word is translated accepted.
The same word is used at the end. of verse thirty one, he
says that my service, which I have for Jerusalem, may be accepted
in the sights of the saints is the exact same word they should
have translated accepted or accepted in the beloved. And when the
gospel is fully preached, sinners are going to be saved because
it's pleased God by what men call the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Now this thing of believing,
when the Gentiles believed they were saved, this thing of believing
is not just giving mental agreement to some obvious facts. Believing
is bowing to and surrendering to Christ the Savior. Paul says
when the Gentiles heard the gospel fully preached, God made the
Gentiles obedient. Obedient, they obeyed. Well,
what did they obey? Did they start keeping the Jewish
law and the Jewish dietary requirements and the Jewish Sabbath? No. What
did they obey? They obeyed the command of the
gospel. To repeat. To turn from those
things that you're trusting. Quit looking at those things.
Quit trusting those things and turn and trust Christ. To believe
Him. Look at Acts chapter 17. Here's
the command of the gospel. Here's Paul preaching in Athens. Wouldn't you love sitting there
listening in on this message? Verse 30 he says, In the times
of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men
everywhere to repent. This is the command of the gospel.
God commands all men everywhere to repent. But what a gracious
commandment. What a gracious commandment.
Turn from these idols that can't save anybody, that can't do anything
for anybody, and turn to Christ and trust Him. What a gracious
commandment! The Apostle John said this is
his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son,
Jesus Christ. And we should love one another,
as he has given us commandment. Now what a commandment! What
a commandment to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
What a commandment to love Him, to love our brethren. That commandment's
not grievous, is it? Oh, what a gracious commandment.
And Paul said the Gentiles, when they heard the gospel fully preached,
he said they were obedient in word and deed. They were obedient
in word. They publicly confessed they
believed Christ. And they believed in deed. They
quit trusting in anything other than Christ and just rested in
Him. They quit trying to work to satisfy God and just rested
in Christ. That's obeying indeed. Obeying
indeed in action is actually to quit working and rest in Christ. And all that came from hearing
the gospel fully preached. And you know the story of the
Apostle Paul's travel. He travels and preaching. He
saw the Lord save many people. And he says, I don't take any
credit for that. I'm not taking any credit for
that. How can you? How can any preacher take credit
for what God does? We can't. The preacher is nothing
more than ambassador. We're not coming up with our
own ideas and our own thoughts and ways and programs. The ambassador
just goes out and says what the King says. Just delivers the
message of the King. And that message is successful.
When you see God save His people, when you see God cause His people
to be strengthened in Christ, you glory in God. in His graciousness, in His mercy,
in His power, what He does through the preaching of His gospel.
When the gospel is fully preached, sinners are saved. All right,
here's the third thing. Fully preaching the gospel builds
God's people up in the faith. The exact same message that saves
the lost will build up the believer in the faith. Verse 20, Paul
says, Yea, so I have strived to preach the gospel. not where
Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation.
But as it is written, to whom he was not spoken of, they shall
see, and they that have not heard shall understand. Now, Paul was
a missionary. He wasn't a pastor. He was a
missionary. And he went and preached to people
who had never heard the gospel. And he says, where the name of
Christ was not named, people never heard the name of Christ.
They never heard the gospel. And Paul went to those places
as a missionary to preach the gospel. And as he preached, what
he was doing was laying the foundation of faith. People there, if they
believed and the church was raised up, well, now the foundation
is laid. And Paul would ordain a pastor,
and that pastor would stay and build on the foundation. And
Paul would go on to the next place where they'd never heard
of Christ. But that pastor who stayed after Paul left, he didn't
preach a different message. He preached the exact same message. The same message that lays the
foundation of faith. builds up the walls of faith.
The message that's for the youngest child is the same message for
the oldest believer. It's the message of Christ. And
the example I think of about that is our Bible school. We
have Bible school here in the mornings. The first thing we
do is all the, everybody, all the children, all the teachers,
we all in here. We sing some choruses and I got
about 10 or 15 minutes to talk to the kids. It's some of my
favorite minutes of the year to get to spend that time teaching
our children. And I've worked very hard to
try to, the older I get, the more intimidated I am by trying
to teach children. I forget, you know. And I work pretty hard
at that. And if Lord gives me something
and I think it's something good for the You know who always is
so thrilled with it? The adults, the teachers. That
tells us something about preaching, doesn't it? Just preach to the
little ones. Make it where the little ones can understand it.
The oldest believer will thrill in it. I remember the first time
I taught my, substitute taught for my dad's class. The class
he taught for many years was the What did he say? Experienced ladies? I can't say
older, but the ladies. And I went, I taught the children's
classes, you know, I went in and teach that class and buddy,
my knees were knocking. I thought these ladies have forgotten
more gospel than I am. What am I doing teaching them?
And they told me, remember how you taught the little, the little
children teach us the same way. Teach us the exact same way.
That's what we need. Cause you know what they said?
We forget. It goes back to that first point,
preaching the gospel fully is saying the same things over and
over and over again. And the message that lays the
foundation is the exact same message that builds the walls.
Look over at 1 Corinthians 3. Paul says in verse 7, So then neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth. Somebody lays the foundation,
somebody builds the walls. Both of us were nothing, but
God that giveth the increase. He that planteth and he that
watereth are one. They have the same message. And
every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.
For we're laborers together with God. You're God's husbandry. You are God's building. According
to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master
builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon.
But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, or wood, hay, and stubble,
every man's work shall be made manifest. Now the foundation
is Christ. Other foundation can no man lay.
That's the foundation of our faith. But you know what? Other
walls can no man build either. The walls are Christ too. So
you see how you build upon this foundation. Gold, silver and
precious stones. That's the deity of Christ, the
preciousness of Christ, the beauty of Christ. That's how you build
upon the foundation. Do you who believe he is precious? He is precious. It's Christ that
saves and it's Christ who builds his people up too. And we keep
fully preaching this gospel, the best that the Lord will enable
us to do it, because it's what everyone needs. Everyone, from
the youngest child to the oldest person in this room. This is
the message everybody needs. The gospel of God, the gospel
of Christ. All right, here's the fourth
thing. Fully preaching the gospel of Christ causes God's people
to fellowship together. Verse 22, back in our text, Romans
15. For which cause also I've been
much hindered from coming to you. Paul had all these missionary
travels at the Lord had sent him on. I've been hindered from
coming to you, he says. But now having no more place
in these parts and having a great desire these many years to come
unto you, whenever I take my journey into Spain, I will come
to you. I'm going to come see you. For
I trust to see you in my journey and be brought on my way thitherward
by you. At first, I'd be somewhat filled
with your company. Now Paul had never seen many
of these believers here at the church at Rome, but he sure wanted
to. He knew some of them, many of them he hadn't seen, and he
wanted to see them. He wanted to come there and preach.
He wanted to sit down and break bread with them, fellowship together
in Christ with them. He says, what I want is to be
filled with your company. It's not, I'm not just wanting
to come and dispense all my wisdom, you know, from the ivory tower
down to the poor masses. I want to be filled with your
company. I want to have this fellowship together with you. And that time
that believers can spend together like that is a blessing. That's
what fills our heart. That's what encourages us. And also, we might pick up something. We might learn something from
our brethren. That's a blessing. And that's what Paul says he
wants. I want us to be filled with your company. And the blessing
he's talking about is union with Christ. Union with you. If we
get together to fellowship, if we would do that this afternoon,
You know one thing we're going to talk about? If you're going
to be with me this afternoon, we're going to eat lunch or something
together, we're going to talk about basketball. We're going to talk about the
NCAA basketball tournament. I mean, I'm just thrilled. But
quickly, we're going to pass on from that. And our conversation
is going to turn to the Savior, because that's our fellowship.
It's in Him. And I tell you what, we miss
a real blessing when we do not seek fellowship with our brethren.
We miss a blessing. Look at what Paul says, verse
28. Here's the fullness of the blessing he's talking about.
When therefore I perform this, when I bring this gift, I've
sealed to them this fruit, I will come by you into Spain. And I'm
sure that when I'm come unto you, I shall come in the fullness
of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. He's talking about
there, certainly the blessing of preaching it and believing
it. But he's talking about fellowshipping together. When the gospel of
Christ is fully preached, God's people have fellowship together.
People who don't have anything else in common but the gospel
fellowship together around it. All right, and here's the last
thing. When the gospel is fully preached, the gospel is put into
practice in people's lives. Verse 25. For now I go into Jerusalem
to minister unto the saints. For I have pleased them, a Macedonian,
a Chai, to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are
at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily. and debtors they
are. For the Gentiles have been made
partakers of their spiritual things. Their duty is also to
minister unto them in carnal things." Now Paul says, you know,
he went out and he fully preached the gospel to the Gentiles and
they believed. They believed Christ. God saved
them. And then you can tell that God saved them because they put
the gospel into practice in their life. How did they do that? They
became generous givers. They recognized their debtors.
Now all of us are debtors, aren't we? We're debtors to God's grace.
We're debtors to each other. I'm a debtor to you. I owe you
a debt of love. We're debtors to one another.
And that's what the Paul says. He said the Gentiles felt like
they were debtors to the Jews. But why? It was because the Jews
went out from Jerusalem preaching the gospel. When God sent that
persecution there, They were scattered out from Jerusalem,
and they went into all the world preaching the gospel. These Gentiles
heard the gospel from a Jew, and they felt like they were
in their debt. They reaped such spiritual blessing, they benefited. And so they felt like, I want
to give to them. Their suffering, materially,
in the flesh, their suffering, I benefited from them spiritually.
I want to give and help them carnally. And it pleased them
to do it. It pleased the Gentiles. Yes,
it was a debt. Yes, they owed it to them. But
it pleased those Gentile churches to take up an offering and send
to their Jewish brethren who are suffering so much. It was
a joy to them. And I thought of this church.
Nothing's changed. This is the result of preaching
the gospel fully. They put it into practice in
people's lives. This church is so giving, giving
of physical things to support a pastor, to support the ministry
that ministers spiritual things. Giving is a joy. It's not a debt. It's not something, you know,
you feel sorry you have to let go of that money. Giving is a
joy that every believer can enjoy, no matter how much or how little
the Lord enables us to give. And the only thing you can attribute
that to is the work of the Spirit. Aren't we selfish by nature?
Now we are, we're selfish by nature. So the only way somebody
like us can find it such a joy to give is God's given us a new
nature. And it happens through the gospel
being fully preached. The gospel being fully preached
tells us salvation by grace and not by works. But when the gospel
is fully preached, it will affect the believer's walk. God's people
don't just sit around like bumps on a log. Resting in Christ does
not mean you sit around like a bump on a log. God's people
are active. They're active in giving. They're
active in serving the Lord. Verse 30, Paul says, Now I beseech
you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love
of the Spirit. This is not in order to be saved. This is not
in order to earn something from God. It's for Christ's sake and
for the love of the Spirit that you strive together with me in
your prayers to God for me. that I may be delivered from
them that do not believe in Judea, and that my service, which I
have for Jerusalem, may be accepted of the saints, that I may come
unto you with joy by the will of God and may with you be refreshed. Now the God of peace be with
you all. Amen. You see how God's people here
are active in serving the Lord, aren't they? The work of the
ministry is not just for pastors and elders. No, it's for everyone. We're to strive together in the
ministry so that the gospel can be preached. And that applies
to what we're looking at our giving, giving an offering. But
it also applies to the giving of ourselves. I want you to think
what talents and abilities God's given you. God's given everybody
here talents and gifts and abilities. Then use them for God's service,
whatever it is. If God's given you the ability
to teach, then teach faithfully, do it fully. If God's given you
the talent to do things, to take care of this building, so people
have a place they can come worship, then do it with everything you've
got. You've got the talent to give kind words of encouragement. Just show somebody you care when
they're hurting. Then give those words generously.
Do it with all you've got. And here's something everybody
can do. Everybody can pray. Paul says, strive together with
me in prayers to God. We can all pray that the Lord
bless His word. We can all pray that God save
His people. We can all pray, God, give me
a hearing ear. Give other people a hearing ear,
but give me a hearing ear. Cause us to grow in grace. We
can all pray for that. That's being active in serving
the Lord in this ministry. I don't know what the Lord's
will is, but it could be. It could be that the Lord be
pleased to bless His people right here. Could be. But I want to
be faithful to fully preach this gospel to you. Lord bless you. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father,
how we thank You for this gospel that You've given to us. A gospel
that declares full, free salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
give us the faith and the grace to fully preach it and to fully
believe to fully believe and rest in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his precious name we
pray. Give thanks.