If you remember, we spent a little
bit of time last week reflecting upon the great burden that the
Apostle Paul had to preach the gospel where it had never before
been preached. And we're going to continue to
look at some verses in Romans chapter 15 with the continuation
of this passage showing us how Paul was desiring to visit Rome
and speak to the believers there in the church that was in Rome. So we'll read from, let's just read from verse 20. The Apostle Paul says, Yea, so
have I 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. Then the apostle
goes on to speak about his desire to visit Rome. And he says, for
which cause also I have been much hindered from coming to
you. But now having no more place
in these parts and having a great desire these many years to come
unto you, whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come
to you, for I trust to see you in my journey. and to be brought
on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled
with your company. But now I go unto Jerusalem to
minister unto the saints, for it hath pleased them of Macedonia
and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints
which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily,
and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been
made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to
minister unto them in carnal things. When therefore I have
performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will come
by you into Spain. And I am sure that when I come
unto you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the
gospel of Christ. Now I beseech you, brethren,
for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit,
that ye 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. We've remarked already in the
introduction about the fact that the Apostle Paul had this great
desire to preach the gospel where it never yet had been preached,
opening new routes, taking the message across borders into new
territories, new towns and villages. Following certainly the leading
of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit brought the message of
the Gospel to those elect sheep that Almighty God had placed
into the hand and care of the Lord Jesus Christ, and through
whom the gospel being preached would be brought to fruition
by the powerful application of God the Holy Spirit. And the
Apostle Paul were told, had desired to meet the saints that lived
in Rome and to preach the gospel to them, but had for many years
been hindered in doing this. In fact, if you recall with me,
when we think about the opening verses of the book of Romans,
we discovered there that the apostle was so desirous to speak
at Rome that he says in verse 11, for I long to see you that
I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end ye may be established. He had wanted for a long time
to go to Rome. And he goes on in verse 13, Now
I would not have you ignorant brethren, that oft times I purposed
to come unto you, but was let hitherto, that I might have some
fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am a
debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the
wise and to the unwise. So that as much as in me is,
I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. From the beginning of his epistle,
as he wrote this letter to the church at Rome, to the very end
we see this desire, this passion, this affection that the Apostle
Paul had for the church at Rome and his desire to be there to
worship with them and preach the gospel amongst them. And
it seems as if what he's saying in these verses in Romans 15
is that he had been hindered much because of the work that
he had in preaching in these different places, hindered much
from coming to visit them. And we see the personal desire
coming through in these words, that the apostle is looking for
every opportunity, he's endeavouring to seize an occasion, almost
to the point of fitting things in. And I suppose some of us
who do a little bit of travelling from time to time know what that's
like. We think, well, we're going somewhere. I wonder if it would be possible
for us to take a little detour and just spend a little bit of
time with this person, or maybe take a couple of days and spend
some time in another place as we make our journey. And it seems
that the apostle was endeavouring to work circumstances in such
a way as he might be able to visit the church in Rome, particularly
because this overriding principle, this overriding burden that he
had to preach the gospel in new areas, new Gentile areas, was
leading him into the land of Spain and into what we now call
Portugal. That area at the edge of the
Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, which is called the Iberian
Peninsula. It's right at the edge of that
south-western side of Europe. And this is where the apostle
wanted to go next. And he says to the church at
Rome that he longed to go and visit them. I don't know how long the Church of Rome had been
established, nor do we know who was the preacher who established
this church. It seems clear that there were
a number of Jews at the Church of Rome and also those who were
Gentile believers. And it may well be that this
church was a very early church as far as the gospel was concerned
because we do know that there were people from Rome, Jews and
proselytites at Rome on the day of Pentecost. And it seems as
if the Apostle, when you look at his words in verse 24, is
saying that he had for many years desired to be with the Lord's
people there in Rome. So we find that the apostle is
desiring to go and visit these believers, and he is endeavouring
to fit it in on his way to Spain. But then in verse 25, he says, and what was causing me to hesitate
there was that it was actually verse 23 where he said that he
had wanted for many years to visit the church at Rome. But
then in verse 25 we discover that there is another strand
to the apostle's thought because much as he is saying that he
desires and delights to preach the gospel to the Gentiles in
areas where Christ had never been preached. And much as he
desires and delights at the prospect of visiting this church at Rome
in order to minister to them and encourage them and be encouraged
by them, in verse 25 he says that he must rather go to Jerusalem
at this time. So here is the apostle. He's
probably up relatively close to Italy. We thought if he was
still at this Iconium that he would be on the other side of
the Adriatic Sea in those lands which are today called Croatia
and Serbia. And now he was saying that he
was going to go back all the way to Rome. He was going to
be heading east and he would spend time at Jerusalem. Sorry, he would go back all the
way to Jerusalem. He would spend time at Jerusalem and then having
spent time at Jerusalem, he would head westward again towards Spain
and call in at Rome on his way there. First of all, he had this
obligation to go to Jerusalem and minister to the saints. And
it does appear for some reason that this visit to Jerusalem
weighed heavily upon the apostle. And true it is, he was carrying
a gift. He tells us that he had a gift
in verse 26, for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia
to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are
at Jerusalem. So the churches that were in
Macedonia and Achaia were the churches of Philippi, the churches
of Thessalonica and the churches at Corinth. And these churches
had gathered a gift. They had collected money in order
to send that to Jerusalem, that the church in Jerusalem might
be sustained and might be helped and might be blessed, might be
cared for and comforted by the gifts of these Gentile churches. and the Apostle Paul had undertaken
to carry this gift from these Gentile churches all the way
back to Jerusalem. before heading towards Spain. And one might wonder, why the
impulse? Why the great burden on the apostle
to make this journey? And it's perhaps simply the case
that having received the gift, he had promised to take it personally. And surely the apostle would
preach as he was going back along that route towards Jerusalem. But the question remains. Was
this a task that should have fallen to an apostle? And indeed
an apostle like Paul. An apostle who had a ministry
of preaching, a ministry of taking the gospel to the edges of the
known world, carrying the message of the Lord Jesus Christ to the
Gentile peoples where he'd never been preached before. Could it
not have been one of Paul's helpers. Could it not have been one of
those that travelled with him, one of the young men perhaps,
Titus or Timothy or Luke, that took this gift back to Jerusalem. And yet it seems as if the apostle
felt this great weight, this strong conviction that he had
to be the one to take it back to Jerusalem. And I've wondered
a little bit about that as I was thinking about this passage.
It may well be that the apostle realised that the Gentile churches
needed to be represented at Jerusalem by someone of his stature. He realized, obviously, from
what is said in this passage, that those who had benefited
spiritually from the going forth of the apostles and the carrying
forth of the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth at that
time had benefited spiritually. The Gentiles had benefited spiritually
from the Jews. And now when the Jews were in
these troubled circumstances, that there was a propriety, there
was an appropriateness of the Gentiles helping the church at
Jerusalem, who perhaps, and indeed very likely, had impoverished
themselves in order to send the gospel out by numerous preachers
to the Gentile nations. And I also wonder whether the
apostle realized that the Gentiles may not be very well received
back in Jerusalem. Because I think that Paul perhaps
understood that this question of the law was still an unresolved
issue in the minds of many Jewish believers. And I feel that this
is part of the reason why the apostle felt it so important
that he should take this gift back to Jerusalem. Indeed, he
says in Acts chapter 20 and verse 22, he says, behold, I go bound
in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall
befall me there. If you have your Bibles, just
turn with me please to Acts chapter 21, because I want to read a
little bit about the way in which the Apostle Paul thought about
what was going to happen to him here and what this trip to Jerusalem
contained for the apostle. So in Acts chapter 21, if you
look at verse 10 with me please, this is him, he is on his way. If we had read through chapter
20 of Acts, we would have discovered that he had begun his journey
and that he had come down through Corinth, he had visited with
the elders at Ephesus, they had stayed for a little while at
Miletum, and then they had taken, at the beginning of chapter 21,
ship and passed through a number of islands and and little cities,
little towns. And then when he gets back to
Judea or Caesarea, we encounter him here at the house of a man
called Philip the Evangelist, possibly the very same Philip
who had preached to the Ethiopian eunuch. And in verse 10 we're
told, As we tarried there many days, there came down from Judea
a certain prophet named Agabus. And when he was come unto us,
he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said,
Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind
the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the
hands of the Gentiles. And when we heard these things,
both we and they of that place besought him, that's Paul, not
to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, What mean
ye to weep and to break mine heart? For I am ready not to
be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of
the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be persuaded,
we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done. And so here's
this situation which is unfolding before us. The apostle, desiring
to go to Spain to call in and see the church at Rome, to whom
this letter is being written, says, but first I must go to
Jerusalem. And then as he begins to make
his way to Jerusalem, He encounters people who are sorrowful and
sad and weeping and warning about what he is going to encounter
when he gets there. And as we read here in Acts chapter
21, so it would be. The Apostle Paul would be assaulted
in the temple at Jerusalem. He would be chained by the Romans. He would be pursued in a plot,
an assassination attempt on his life by more than 40 Jews. Afterwards, he would appeal to
Caesar, and there he would be taken to Rome in chains. And so what we see here is that
Paul's hope, which he speaks of in verse 24, The apostle is hoping that he
is going to have the opportunity to visit the Romans on the way
to Spain. But in fact, what is going to happen is he is going
to end up in Rome in chains because he has gone to Jerusalem in the
meantime and in the interim. And I just, as we think about
this history that is being set out before us here, this, as
it were, addendum, this PS to the apostle's letter where he
is writing about some of his desires and his hopes and his
travelling plans to the Romans to whom he had written this beautiful
letter of doctrinal truth, What I think we can see in these words
is that things don't work out as we hope they might. It's just
a reality of our lives. And that even for an apostle,
even for the Apostle Paul, things don't work out as we hope they're
going to. Now, there are a number of expressions
that are sometimes used to describe this and we've been thinking
about them just today. We've been thinking about some
of the things that have happened over the past few weeks. where
particular individuals have been disappointed, the hardship of
the circumstances of this time have come upon them, and the
unforeseen events, the unexpected circumstances that have befallen
them have brought trial and tribulation and disappointment and sometimes
hurt. because our expectations have
been denied. Our hopes have been thwarted. The things we planned to do have
been changed, not because of anything that we want, but because
that's just the way the Lord, in his providence, has decided
things will be. And here we can see that this
word, providence, has an important meaning for the Lord's people.
Because we understand in the word providence, the fact that
God provides for his people, even in the midst of those challenges
that we face when things don't go our way. and we are called
upon knowing that this is not just random circumstance, this
is not just chance at play, this is not just the events of this
world conspiring against us in some unforeseen way, but it is
God. who is taking control and providing
for his people and calling on us to have confidence in him
and to trust him. And the Apostle Paul, in turning
direction and heading towards Jerusalem instead of going straight
to Spain, was committing into the hands of God that burden
that he felt for what he needed to do and going in the hand and
care of his Saviour. We're told in Romans 8, verse
28, that all things work together for good to those who love God,
to those who are the called according to his purpose. And that knowledge
that all things work together for our good, even when we can't
see that good in them, Even when we are called to rest upon a
peace that passes understanding, that is beyond our comprehension,
because it's beyond what is naturally possible from our perspective. The apostle says in verse 29,
he says in Romans 15 verse 29, It does appear as if Paul's hope,
the trust that he had that he would get to see the church at
Rome, the believers at Rome, was a long time hope that he
had. And it seems indeed more of a
conviction. And it was a conviction that
would afterwards be confirmed by the Lord, because when he
went to Jerusalem, and the troubles that transpired there, we discover
that he was put in chains. He was locked up partly for his
own protection. But in the night time, the Lord
stood by him and told him that he would preach the gospel in
Rome, just as he had preached the gospel in Jerusalem. I don't know whether Paul ever
got to Spain or Portugal, But he did get to Rome, but he didn't
get to Rome as part of a detour in his itinerary as he went to
preach the gospel to the Gentiles. He went to Rome in chains and
he went to Rome in order to defend himself and the gospel for his
life. But the interesting thing about
the apostle is what he says about that trip to Rome. He said that
he was sure of the fullness of the blessing of the gospel in
it. And it's this point that I want
us to note. In the midst of all these apparently
unforeseen events and random circumstances and trials and
tribulations and problems, the believer holds on to this fact
that In the providence of God, our God is in control. In the
providence of God, our Lord Jesus Christ loves us, and he will
ensure that the fullness of the blessing of the gospel attends
his people, even when the outward circumstances seem to conspire
against us. And I want us to note this well. I know that some of us are challenged
right now. I know that there's concerns
and anxieties in some of our hearts. We're just a little fellowship. We're just a little group. The
numbers that we have are so small, and yet here we are with these
challenges right in our own hearts, in our own breasts, in our own
minds. But we can have confidence that
the presence of the Lord is not in the ease of natural things,
but in the gospel of Christ. The fullness of the blessing
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ should cause us to lift
our eyes to him, away from the immediate disappointments of
our day, and to find comfort in our hearts. What are those
comforts? Well, they're the things that
endure. They're the things that are foundational, the things
that are solid and steadfast. They are the things of the gospel
of Christ. They are the things of the fullness
of that gospel, the sound doctrine. that the message of salvation
unto eternal life, the blessings of grace that are revealed to
us and set forth in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
these were the very truths that the Apostle Paul had been setting
out in his letter to the Romans in the previous 14 chapters of
this book. He had been setting out the fact
that believers have justification by the righteousness of God.
That we are justified by divine righteousness imputed to us. That in order to lay hold upon
the blessings of that imputed righteousness, we are given the
gift of faith. We are given especially the knowledge
of the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are led there to appreciate
the forgiveness of sins. Our conscience is eased because
of the application of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
see that in the death of our Saviour on the work of the cross,
that a peace has been forged and a reconciliation has been
effected. and we see that there is salvation
and eternal life granted to those who come to the Lord Jesus Christ
in faith. You know, we might get punched
in the gut, but justification is still by the righteousness
of God. We might get put in prison, but
it is still Christ's faith that upholds our faith. We might have
to go through the slough of despond and the darkness of depressions
and the illnesses and the sicknesses that are part of this life. And
the providences of God might bring loss to us, great loss,
perhaps the deepest losses that are possible upon this earth. But God is still upon his throne. God is still in the chariot of
his majesty, riding upon the clouds. And the Lord Jesus Christ
is coming soon. And even in our disappointments,
there are blessings there for the people of God. This is the
fullness of the gospel. This is the fullness of the gospel
of Christ that Paul was talking about when his own aspirations
and desires and expectations and ambitions were turned upon
their head. He knew that the fullness of
the gospel of Christ would still be there because it was founded
not upon the circumstances of our daily life, but upon the
eternal truths of our sovereign God. There are disappointments in
this life that we have to face. The Apostle Paul had to face
them, and we will have to face them. But look at the next point
here. Look at verse 30 with respect
to this man, Paul. He requests prayer support from
the church at Rome. This letter is going to Rome.
The letter will go to Rome, it will head westward and he will
turn and travel eastward because he has to take this ministry,
this gift from the Thessalonians and the Corinthians and the Philippians
all the way back to Jerusalem. So what does he do? He asks for
help. He asks for prayer support. and look at what he valued. In verse 30 he says, Now I beseech
you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love
of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers
to God for me. I think this is lovely. I think
the fact that the Apostle Paul could pen these words is something
very important and contains something important for us to note and
understand. Here is a man who had been taken
up to the third heaven. A man who had experienced what
he calls an abundance of revelations, who had seen things that perhaps
no other man had ever seen before. A man who spoke personally, face
to face with the risen Christ. These ought to have been great
comforts to him. He ought to, in some sense, have
been able to draw upon these experiences. The third heaven,
what did he see? What did he hear? Things that
were too wonderful to be recounted. An abundance of revelations,
seeing Christ face-to-face, hearing Christ speak to him at his shoulder,
in his ear. Knowing the risen Christ personally,
You know, we should never be too full in our comforts and
never too empty in our losses because the Lord Jesus Christ
is that one who calls us to labour in this world. So the apostle
says, strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. And that tells me two things.
It tells me one, that Paul, despite all of these blessings that he
had, strove in prayer. Do you know that word means to
wrestle? It means to fight. It's the picture, perhaps, that
we can call upon from the Old Testament where Jacob wrestled
with the Lord, and they wrestled all night. And that's the picture
here, that the Apostle Paul was so anxious about the things that
he would face in Jerusalem, that he strove with the Lord in prayer,
and he asked for the church at Rome to strive with him. in his
prayers, in their prayers to God on his behalf. When we strive, it's because
we really mean business. And I fear that we only really
struggle in prayer and we only feel conflict in prayer and we
only really have earnestness in labouring in prayer when we
perceive that the situation that we are in is dire and dreadful. I wonder why that is. I wonder
why it takes great hurt and great loss and great fear and great
anxiety to bring us close to the Lord in prayer and bring
us to strive with him in prayer. Paul says, pray, pray for Christ's
sake. Pray for the sake of the gospel. Pray for the church, pray for
the sake of the body of Christ, pray for the testimony of the
Lord Jesus Christ, because he knew that these were the important
things. These were the things that Christ
valued and cherished. These were the things that we
too should value and cherish. The Apostle Paul was saying,
pray for me because of what I have to face, what I have to endure,
what I have to do. and pray for the love of the
Holy Spirit. Pray for that bond of love that
we share together in a common cause, the common cause of the
Gospel. Let our prayers for one another
be this, that the Gospel be upheld, that the Church be blessed, that
the Lord Jesus Christ be glorified, that our testimony concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ be faithful and true. Let these be the underlying
principles upon upon which our fellowship is founded. And pray
for me as I face the challenges that I must endure at Jerusalem. I think it's humbling to hear
the Apostle Paul ask for our prayers. Ask for the prayers
of the people at Rome, probably never met them before. And yet
he opens his heart, he opens his soul, and he asks that they
would help him, the great Apostle Paul, that they would help him
by praying for him. And surely that should inspire
us to pray for one another. If he needed his brethren's help
to do what he had to do, do we all not need such help? Is this not the theology of the
body of Christ, that we're all different parts of the one body,
but we all need one another and we all hurt when one hurts, we
all rejoice when one rejoices? and that there is this experience
which unifies us as we recognise the things that are dear to the
Lord Jesus Christ, the things that we do together for his sake. So the Apostle Paul knew disappointment
in his own life, and we see that in the face of that disappointment,
he asked for the help of his brethren. And the last thing
that I want you to notice here is that in the final verses here,
that the Apostle Paul specifies the areas where he feels prayers
are needed. And I feel as if each of those
areas where Paul asks for help reveals something of the burden
that Paul carried with respect to this journey to Jerusalem. And if we were pressing on in
the later chapters of the book of Acts, we would discover that
he had those anxieties with good reason. First of all, he says,
pray that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea. Verse 31, that I may be delivered
from them that do not believe in Judea. That was his request
to the believers at Rome, that they would pray for him. And
Paul seems to have been aware to some extent of the level of
opposition that faced him when he went back to Jerusalem. And
yet it did not deter him from going, despite his friend's protestations,
despite the tears and even the fact that this man Agabus came
and prophesied from the Holy Ghost that this is what is going
to happen to you, Paul. He was a brave man facing the
things that he anticipated he would have to face. You know,
sometimes we find ourselves talking about religious militants these
days from other religions around the world and the trouble that
they cause and the anxieties that they foster. That's what
was going on here. These were religious militants. in number greater than 40, who
vowed that they would neither eat or drink until they had Paul
dead at their feet. The second thing that he prays
for is that the gift that he has taken, again verse 31, that
my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints. And I think that there's a deeper
aspect to this. He's saying, look, I want this
gift that I'm carrying to be accepted by the saints at Jerusalem. Well, surely they would accept
it. Surely they would not show ingratitude? Paul, having travelled so far,
carried this gift for their impoverished state so far, and these churches
that they had never met or never even known of, digging deep into
their own pockets in order to help support and sustain the
church back at Jerusalem. Why would there be any question
about whether or not his gift would be accepted of the saints
in Jerusalem? For this reason, that Paul was
anxious about the Gentiles being rebuffed by the Jerusalem church. You see, all of these years later,
it seems to me that the lesson of Cornelius had not yet been
fully learned by the church at Jerusalem. And while they saw
that there were Gentiles being converted, they still regarded
there being two different camps, two different groups. There was
the pure Jews who followed Christ, and then there were these Gentiles
who were also being converted. I think that one of the most
serious verses that we have in this context is found in Acts
chapter 21 and verse 20. When we discover that Paul enters
Jerusalem, He goes to see James and the leaders of the church
there in Jerusalem. And James says to him something
very strange. He said, The Apostle Paul started
to speak to them about the way in which the Gentiles had been
converted and all of the wonderful ways that the Gospel had come
to the Gentiles and the Spirit had fallen upon them and they
had been blessed and they were believing the same things as
the church at Jerusalem was believing. And James says, And when they
heard it, they glorified the Lord and said unto him, Thou
seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe,
and they are all zealous of the law. We expect to hear James
saying that they are all zealous of the gospel, but he says they're
zealous of the law. And the Apostle Paul undoubtedly
feared that the message that he had just preached and written
to Rome was not yet understood in Jerusalem. And this was a
great worry to the peace-loving Paul. I suspect that the situation
in Jerusalem was even worse than Paul realized and that there
was still this racial religious discrimination that simmered
there in the hearts of the professing believers in Jerusalem. This whole question of law versus
grace, law versus gospel had not yet fully sunk in in the
minds of these weaker brethren. so that the Apostle Paul could
testify and say, for example, in the book of Galatians chapter
two, verse 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have
believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the
works of the law shall no flesh be justified. And then again
in the next chapter he says, For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. Here was the big problem
that Paul faced. Not only did he have people that
were endeavouring to take his life among the Jews, he had a
church at Jerusalem who was still completely without understanding. with respect to the nature of
law and gospel, certainly to a great extent. And they were
incapable and unable even of receiving the generosity of the
Gentile churches and the gift that they had sent to aid and
support the poverty of the church at Jerusalem. And so the apostle
says, pray for me brethren, 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. And finally he
says, and pray that I may come unto you with joy by the will
of God and may with you be refreshed. Of course, he could not come
to Rome if the Jews had killed him, so he was praying that he
would still be able to come. Nor could he come with joy if
the Jerusalem church had rejected that Gentile gift. And there
in the midst of his dilemma, the Apostle Paul resigns himself
to the will of God. And I think that this is a lovely
way for us to conclude our thoughts this evening. As we come to the
end of this chapter, as we come to this second last verse, he
says, that I may come unto you with joy by the will of God.
And this is where we all have to come to. I think this is a
beautiful little passage from the Apostle Paul's pen, because
it seems to me that he draws aside the cloak, if you like,
and we get to see his heart. We get to see in this letter
that he wrote to the Romans and sent off in one direction as
he turned around and went in the other. some of the anxieties
that he felt, some of the disappointments, some of the challenges that he
faced. But at the end of it, he says,
nevertheless, let the will of God be done. And that's what
we say. What else can a believer do?
Where else can a believer go? In the disappointments of this
life, in the challenges, in the hurts, in the trials that we
face, we worry. We pray, we seek intercession
from others on our behalf, and then we leave it at the throne
of God. We say, thy will be done. We leave it in the hands of the
God of peace. The God of peace, who has reconciled
his people to himself. who has sent that peace from
heaven to earth in the person of Jesus Christ that a way might
be opened up for the salvation of his people, who on the basis
of that reconciliation calls upon his people to be content
and to know something of the peace of God that passeth understanding
and to learn in whatever state we are in therewith to be content. and to share that peace with
one another. Whether it's Jew or Gentile,
whether it's old or young, whether it's rich or poor, whether it's
wise or foolish, the body of Christ is one. We are reconciled
to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the foundation
of inward contentment in the promises of God and in the doctrines
of the gospel and in the work of Christ. And we are to share
these things together for the well-being of one another. I
trust these thoughts will be of some help to us this evening
and we might glean some sweetness from this insight into the mind
and the heart of our beloved brother Saul and Paul. Amen.