Romans 15 and verse 8. Now I say that Jesus Christ was
a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm
the promises made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify
God for his mercy, as it is written, For this cause, I will confess
to thee among the Gentiles and sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice,
ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all
ye Gentiles, and laud him, all ye people. And again, Isaiah
saith, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise
to reign over the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust. Now the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost. Amen and may God bless to us
this reading from his word. I mentioned Last week, I believe,
how admirable I felt it to be that the Apostle Paul repeatedly
uses the Lord Jesus Christ as his example when he's writing. And we looked at a number of
occasions in which he had done that throughout the Book of Romans
and in other places. Because the Lord Jesus Christ,
and it is good for us to remember this, The Lord Jesus Christ is
our great example. And verse 3 was the particular
verse that we looked at last week when we saw that when the
apostle was encouraging and admonishing the people of God about the way
in which they were to be gentle and careful and considerate and
kind to those who were weaker in the faith and not to please
ourselves. He drew from the testimony of Christ, the example of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
please himself. Nor should the personal pleasure
of ourselves be our motivation in the things that we do. Christ
is our example. Christ was the picture that the
Apostle Paul set before us. And again, Here the Apostle Paul
is drawing upon the Lord Jesus Christ in the few verses that
we've read together this evening. And again I say how much I admire
the way that the Apostle takes us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, the Apostle was a fine minister of the Gospel and he
endured much. We've been thinking on the Lord's
Day with some of the verses that we've been reading
from the beginning of Acts with the youngsters, how that the
Apostle Paul was called to suffer much as a preacher of the gospel,
as a minister to the church. But it's the Lord that he holds
up before us, not himself. And we shouldn't hold up men,
or women indeed, as being those that we endeavour to emulate.
Our eyes should always be beyond, beyond ourselves, beyond those
around about us, and to be focusing upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I thought it was just a lovely phrase when I was reflecting
and preparing to speak to you this evening. I thought it was
a lovely phrase that we find here in this eighth verse of
Romans 15, where the apostle says, Jesus Christ was a minister. And I just want to pause for
a moment and think about that. Jesus Christ was a minister. He was a minister. and his service
was to the people of God. Service is an admirable quality
and I fear in many respects it is a quality that is being forgotten
today and I know that that some Retail outlets or commercial
enterprises emphasize service, service, service, service. But
in truth, if that's what we think service is, is not having to
queue for too long or having a smile on the face of the person
behind the counter or who's taking our order in a restaurant, well,
that's really a very poor notion of what service is. Service is
much deeper than that. It's much more profound. It is
much more entering into an attitude of mind, a commitment towards
those that we are called to serve. And as I was thinking about that,
I was reminded that it is, for example, the King's role to serve
his people. It is the Queen's responsibility
to serve her people. And while we serve the King or
serve the Queen in one sense, it is also that monarch's role
to serve his people. And we might think about a prime
minister, or we might think about a president, or a governor, or
some elected individual. That individual is placed in
that position, has the recognition and the respect that he has,
and in return there is a service. that is given to those who serve
him, and there is a mutual relationship there. I think, unfortunately,
we have discovered that the idea of service has been forgotten,
and that way in which we serve one another. The Apostle Paul
elsewhere said that the love of money is the root of all evil. And I suspect that what we are
discovering more and more today is that service is only given
for the motivation of the love of money. But a soldier serves
his country. Not for his pay, not for his
salary. He serves his country out of
a commitment to that country. A doctor serves her patients. We sometimes talk about above
and beyond the call of duty and undoubtedly there are going to
be those in healthcare over the next few weeks and months, days
perhaps. who will be called to serve their
patients in a way that they may never have served before. A teacher
serves her pupils, or his pupils, and takes the responsibility
of the well-being of nurturing those young minds seriously.
And it's more than just a job, it's a calling. It used to be
that to be in service was an honourable employment. Some of
you who watch these period dramas that come out of England, I don't
know what they're called really so much. We go back to a day
when there were people in service who looked after those who were
in charge and served them, whether it was the butler or whether
it was the maid or whether it was the cook or the gardener.
Being in service used to be an honourable employment. And it may well be that hearkening
back to those days finds us rowing against the current. But is it
not the case that the Lord's people are called to serve? To serve God, to serve the Lord
Jesus Christ, to serve one another in the church, to serve our brothers
and sisters, and to serve in the community of which the Lord
has made us a part. And it is an honourable principle
in every position in society, from the highest to the lowest,
to consider ourselves as servants of one another. And it is certainly
a guiding principle in the society of believers, in the body of
the church, that we should be servants to one another. In Matthew chapter 20, the Lord
Jesus built upon this principle when he said to his disciples,
he called his disciples unto him and he said, You know that
the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they
that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be
so among you. But whosoever will be great among
you, let him be your minister. And whosoever be chief among
you, let him be your servant. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
serve. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
serve. and by his own words he came
to minister to others. Perhaps one of the greatest ways
in which that is exemplified to us is in the way in which
the Saviour washed his disciples' feet. Now, In our church, we don't do feet
washing as a ritual, but there are some churches who practise
feet washing. We don't do that. We see that
what the Lord was doing was establishing a principle of service, and we
realise that if we perform that as a ritual, then we would just
use the symbol as a ritual and it would become meaningless to
us. We see beyond that and we see that we are called to serve
one another, to do in principle what the Lord did by example. And he says that to his disciples
and he says it to us in John chapter 13 verse 15. He says,
I have given you an example, an example of caring for one
another that ye should do as I have done to you. So again,
Christ came to serve. By his own words, he came to
minister to others. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
King, that King of glory, who stooped to be a carpenter and
to make wooden objects for his neighbours. The Lord Jesus Christ
was that Prince who stooped who knelt and washed his servants'
feet. The Lord Jesus Christ was that
one who served bread at the table and who looked on with pity and
compassion to his people. But I want you to come with me
to what the Apostle Paul is saying here in Romans chapter 15, and
rather reflect upon the fact that the way in which the Lord
Jesus Christ served is epitomised in that ministry which included
the greatest service and the greatest sacrifice The Lord Jesus Christ tells us
in Matthew chapter 20 and verse 28, but to minister and to give his
life a ransom for many. The Lord Jesus Christ is a minister. He ministers to his people. He
ministers to our souls. He ministers to our needs. He
looks after us constantly. And well might Paul say Jesus
Christ was a minister. We sometimes say that the Lord
Jesus Christ had a three-fold role, a three-fold office in
his mediatorial capacity, in his capacity, in his office of
coming into the world in order to fulfil the obligations of
God's covenant of peace, his covenant of grace, his promises
to his people. The Lord Jesus Christ had this
three-fold office of prophet, Priest and King. The Lord Jesus
Christ is equal with God. The Lord Jesus Christ is very
God. The Lord Jesus Christ is King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. but he made himself of no reputation. He took upon himself the form
of a servant, and he gave his life. That ultimate service,
because no other price satisfied the demands of a holy God. No other price, but the life
of the Lord Jesus Christ, but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
satisfied the demands of a broken, transgressed law. The glory of
God, the will of God, the word of God, contravened breached,
broken, transgressed, required satisfaction and nothing but
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ could satisfy the needs of his
people. That was a costly price that
must be paid and there was no lower price, there was no less
price, there was no bargain opportunity here for some other way to be
found. save the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, that Lamb who was slain
upon the altar of God's justice, that blood that was shed as the
only way of reconciliation and peace for the gathering in and
for the bringing together of God who had been offended and
that people who had rebelled. And notice this, that when we
think about the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, we think about
the service of the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of his people.
It isn't only on behalf of his people, because Christ's ministry
is both to God and to the church, returning again to that prophet,
priest, and king. The Lord Jesus Christ was God's
prophet to minister and reveal the will of God to his people. But the Lord Jesus Christ was
also a priest returning, as it were, into the presence of his
Father in that mediatorial role as the one mediator between God
and man, that one person who could breach that gulf, who could
cross that great chasm of separation. and bring us through that blood
which he offered, through that sacrifice which he made, through
that service which he accomplished, back into the presence of God. So the Lord Jesus Christ's ministry
was both to God and to the church, a two-way ministry. He paid a
ransom price to satisfy justice, and he bought atonement to set
his people free. The Lord Jesus Christ says that
he gave his life a ransom for many. That was the verse that
we read together from Matthew 20, 28. Even as the Son of Man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And we're looking
here at the fact that the Apostle Paul calls the Lord Jesus Christ
in Romans chapter 15, verse eight, a minister. Jesus Christ was
a minister. And so when he came to minister,
that ministry that he effected, that ministry, that service that
he performed, because to minister is simply to serve. And that
service which the Lord Jesus Christ put up in his priestly
capacity, offering his blood before his Father, That ministry
was to give his life as a ransom for many. Now a ransom is a price
that is paid for someone or something that is imprisoned. And it's
a lovely way in which the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is described
and revealed to us. That ransom was vital. It was necessary. He gave his
life as a ransom. That was the price that had to
be paid. And there's something also about
this which is vital and I'm sure you would not expect me to pass
it by, that it explicitly falls from the lips of the Lord Jesus
Christ that this ransom was for many. It was on behalf of many. And we are Rejoicing in that,
that there is a many, that there is a breadth, that there is a
width in this ransom that was paid. The Lord Jesus Christ laid
down his life for many. The Lord Jesus Christ shed his
blood for many. And we know that it is a great
congregation that the Lord is calling to himself, that it is
people out of every nation, every tribe, that the Lord God is gathering
to himself a people from the four corners of the earth and
that those angels are sent forth to preach that good news of the
gospel and to gather from the four corners of the earth such
as should be saved. It is many who are saved and
we rejoice that the Lord Jesus Christ has many people that are
his, who do not bow the knee to the idolatrous age in which
we live, but who are kept, who are upheld, who are sustained
because of the efficacy of the ransom that was paid for their
liberty and for their salvation. But equally, we find that in
that word, many, for which the ransom was paid, there is also
this teaching of a particularity. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
die for all. He gave his life a ransom for
many, shed his blood, served the well-being of many. This is not a universal redemption. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
did not redeem everyone. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
did not ransom everyone. This is not a universal atonement,
a universal reconciliation. It was done for certain individuals. The blood of Christ was shed
for the chosen of God, for the elect of God, for those that
God has set his mark upon. And that blood was sufficient
for all those for whom it was shed. and it is efficient to
secure and accomplish the salvation of all those for whom it was
shed. But it was not shed for everyone. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
is precious blood. It's precious because it forgives
sins. We have forgiveness through the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is precious because it cleanses
sins. We are cleansed from our sins
by the blood of Jesus Christ. Forgiveness and cleansing. These
two great principles of reconciliation show us the power that is in
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that blood makes us holy. It sanctifies us. It's the blood
that sanctifies the people of God and it brings us to God. It unites us with God. We are united to the Lord Jesus
Christ as our head and we are brought together into that relationship
with the Godhead through the God-Man. the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we are told that we are
made nigh by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It forgives
our sins, it cleanses us from our sins, it makes us holy, and
it brings us to God. Such is the preciousness of the
blood that the Lord Jesus Christ shed. Such is the service, the
ministry that the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled for the salvation
of his people. And the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ purges our conscience from sin. That's a
wonderful thing. We've remarked before about how
our conscience is afflicted and affected and seared by the sin
that we have committed. We can look back in our lives
and we shake our heads and drop our eyes because we know the
things that we have done. We can remember the places and
the people and the actions and the words and the thoughts that
have afflicted our souls through many years of waywardness and
sinfulness and that wickedness and that sin is stored up in
our conscience until we see the power in the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ and we see that the sin that we have committed
is not only forgiven by God, not only cleansed away in the
view and in the sight of God, Not only has it been so far removed
from the sight of God as to make us acceptable in the sight of
God and bring us to God, but it has an application in our
own consciousness. And our conscience is purged
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friend, I know, because
I am one with you, that we have walked in places we ought not
to have walked and we have said and done things that we ought
not to have done but when Our guilt rises in our soul. When Satan brings those allegations
against us, when the accuser of the brethren comes and says,
look at your life, look what you've done, look at the consequences,
look at the trouble and the hardship that you caused, we turn our
eyes upon the blood of Jesus Christ. and it cleanses our conscience
and purges us and it gives us that confidence and that peace
that the Lord Jesus Christ in his service and his ministry
has effected such a transformation, such a conversion that we have
peace with God and we have peace in our own souls. The Lord Jesus
Christ gave his life a ransom for many. And we must, we must
if we are honest men and women, we must if we are careful for
the study of the Word of God and for the testimony of the
Holy Scripture, we must strongly and unapologetically believe
in limited atonement. Because that blood of which we
have just spoken, that forgiving blood, cleansing blood, sanctifying
blood, that blood which makes us nigh to God and purges our
conscience, that blood cannot be powerful to save if all of
those graces and all of those privileges are based upon my
will. How can it be that we obtain
forgiveness by our will? How can it be that we get cleansed
from our sin by our will? Or we are holy before a holy
God by our will? Or that we are brought into the
presence of Almighty God right into the very presence of His
court in heaven and in glory with the holy angels by my will? and how can I purge my own conscience
for the things that I have done by my will? Willpower is an oxymoron. Our wills are corrupt and perverse
and weak. If you try to will to do something,
just see how difficult that is. And you will only will to do
what you think and imagine you are capable of doing. And your
will won't get you to heaven and my will won't get me into
heaven. I need a saviour who is powerful. I need a saviour who is able. I need precious blood that will
cleanse and forgive and sanctify and bring me to God and purge
my conscience. I need a saviour, not a good
idea. Our Saviour's ministry continues
for us today. And this is a wonderful thought
also, that the Lord Jesus Christ not only ministered to us at
the cross and in His death, but the Lord Jesus Christ ministers
still. He is ministering. He is serving
for us still. And here, surely, is something
that is almost contrary to our thinking and our language. But that one who is glorified
now, that one who sits at the right hand of God, that one who
is adorned in all of the glory of heaven, who is worshipped
by angels, continues to minister for me right now, continues to
minister for you if you are a child of God. He is speaking your name
before the face of his Father every day, interceding on our
behalf, mediating on our behalf to his Father. For the supply
of our every need, The Lord Jesus Christ served us once and he
serves us still. He is our servant king. Think about that. our servant
king or perhaps rather we should say he is our king who serves
us still. So Paul is continuing in Romans
chapter 15 and he speaks of Christ's ministry and he says here that
Christ was a minister to the circumcision. He says, verse
8, Now I say that Christ Jesus was a minister of the circumcision
for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. You see the Lord Jesus Christ
when he came was fulfilling these great promises of the prophetic
Messiah. It is Christ who was the anointed
one of God and that's simply what Messiah means. The chosen
one, the anointed one, the one to whom the responsibility was
delegated by the triune God in his covenant purpose of salvation
for his people. It was Jesus Christ into whose
hands these great responsibilities were placed. And as such, he
entered upon that role of the Anointed One for the deliverance
of his people, the Messiah. And the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
all of the covenant promises that had been made to the fathers. And by the fathers, we mean those
individuals to whom the promises and the covenants of God in the
Old Testament were particularly made. The scriptures are a a
flow, a progression of unfolding covenants. Not that these are
all separate covenants because they are all contained in the
eternal covenant purpose of God. Though they were stage by stage
for the frailties and for the limitations of our natural ability,
unfolded and revealed to individuals at various different times and
in various different ways. So the fathers had promises given
to them. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
David, individuals to whom covenant promises were given, all the
time unpacking and unfolding God's everlasting plan of salvation,
hearkening, looking forward to that time when the Messiah would
come, when David's greater son would fulfil all of the obligations. So the Lord Jesus Christ came
in that capacity, in the covenant capacity that had been given
to these fathers to fulfil those promises of God for the children
of Israel particularly. And that's what the reference
there is to the circumcision. Those that carried the mark in
their bodies of those promises and that relationship that God
had with those particular individuals. Now, although there was a cut
in the flesh, that was a spiritual promise that the Lord Jesus Christ
was coming to fulfil. And it had an outward manifestation
in times gone by in those Old Testament days. but it always
spoke about a spiritual reality which undergirded and was the
foundation upon which these physical ritual religious practices and
promises were based. And we can see that the Lord
Jesus Christ took this ministerial role to the circumcision seriously. Because during his own ministry
he purposefully restricted his ministry, his service to Israel. And they always say that it's
the exception that tests the rule. And we see that with very
few notable exceptions, the Lord Jesus Christ dedicated his whole
life to the ministry, his ministry, his earthly ministry amongst
the Jewish people. I tried to think about some of
those exceptions, and let me just bounce a few off you, and
undoubtedly you might be able to think about others. But the
Syrophoenician woman was not a Jew, and yet she had attested
over by the Lord Jesus Christ that she was a woman of faith. The Lord ministered to that woman
also, as she was drawn to him and by the Holy Spirit given
faith to trust him. Perhaps the centurion in Matthew
chapter eight who comes with respect to his son or is it his
servant and speaks to Christ about the healing of that son
or servant. Again, we can see that that centurion
was probably not a Jew. And the woman at the well is
known to us as a Samaritan. And so these exceptions show
us that for the vast majority of the ministry of the Lord,
it was to the circumcision that he was sent. And we see that
even in the way in which the Lord directed his disciples. In Matthew chapter 10, verse
five, after the disciples had been called and chosen and appointed
as his disciples, the Lord sent them forth. He sent forth and
we're told in verse 5 of Matthew 10, these 12 Jesus sent forth
and commanded them saying, go not into the way of the Gentiles
And into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ principally saw his role with respect to the circumcision. And that's the point that the
Apostle Paul is here making in this letter to the Romans. Remember,
the Romans had both the Jewish believers and Gentile believers
in the congregation. And he is showing how as he has
shown before in the epistle, that these two have been brought
together, melded together, and how the Jews who had received
the promises of God, the oracles of God, and the Gentiles had
been brought in and grafted in and the wall of partition had
been removed and they had been joined together. And later we
see graciously the Lord Jesus Christ acknowledging this in
his own ministry when having died for the sins of his people,
all his people, all the elect, he says to his disciples that
they are now, now, not only to go into the way of the Gentiles
and into the way of the Samaritans, but they are to go to the ends
of the earth. Go ye into all the earth and
preach the gospel. Graciously, here we see that
ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ being extended through the work
of his disciples, the apostles, taking that message of the gospel
to the ends of the earth. which according to the Old Testament
prophecy, which had been given only to the Jews in those days,
exactly fulfilled those prophecies concerning the gathering of the
Gentiles. And then in the verses that follow
from verse 8, We see here that the apostle
draws from those Old Testament scriptures as evidence, perhaps
to the Jews amongst those believers at the church in Rome, the evidence
that the Old Testament prophets knew full well the revelation
of God had shown it. that the Gentiles would indeed
be called as they now were being called, both through the ministry
of the other Apostles and the ministry of the Apostle Paul
himself. And so he says in verse 9, for
this cause, and this is the first one, for this cause I will confess
to thee among the Gentiles and sing unto thy name. That I, in that verse, for this
cause I will confess. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's another one of these Messianic Psalms where it's the Lord Jesus
Christ that is speaking. And what we're being told here
is that the Lord would speak amongst the Gentiles. These prophecies are taken, a
couple of them from Psalms, one from Deuteronomy, one from the
book of Isaiah. And it's showing us that while
the Jews were initially blessed with the revelation and the promises
of God in the covenant that came to the fathers, Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob and Moses and David and others, it was always known,
always attested that the salvation of the elect would reach beyond
the borders of Israel and extend to the ends of the earth. So
there were no grounds for jealousy between Jew and Gentile. And
equally there was no grounds for boasting between Gentile
and Jew, because all of them together had been made one in
Christ. We read that in Galatians chapter
3 and verse 28, that these two different groups, the one that
had been blessed in olden times with the revelation of God, the
oracles of God, and those who had been kept in darkness, who
had been imprisoned in darkness for so long, the son of righteousness
arose upon them. And the Lord Jesus Christ called
his people out of darkness to the glorious light of the gospel. That's Peter, Peter speaks about.
So Christ himself is the one who would sing among the Gentiles. Isn't that a lovely thought?
That here we are, we have, though our forefathers dwelt in the
darkness of their heathen idolatry, We have been called by the grace
of God, by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to taste and
see that the Lord is good. And the Lord has brought that
gospel message to us. And maybe that's a reference
to those apostles that went out and sang the glory of God in
the preaching of the gospel. Or maybe it's a picture of the
Gentiles who believed. praising God in our congregations
as we do every week in our hymns and praises, our psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs for that salvation that has been granted
to us. Or maybe it's just the Lord Jesus
Christ in his spirit singing of the beauty of his bride and
his delight at having that church gathered for him, that beautiful
bride in all of her purity and righteousness and holiness, that
is his bride and to whom he is united. We are Christ's body
and his body sings the praise of the triune God who has bestowed
mercy upon us. These other references, Deuteronomy
and the Psalms, they also speak of the fact that the Gentiles
will be called. And Isaiah, in verse 12 there,
brings another lovely thought to bear in this context. He says,
there shall be a root of Jesse. and he shall rise to reign over
the Gentiles. Again, we're not talking about
David here. We're talking about someone greater than David, someone
to whom David himself spoke, that he looked forward to in
faith. And while he is a root of Jesse,
yet he shall reign over the Gentiles. In a way that David never did,
though he ruled in Israel, he never ruled over the Gentiles
in this way. In him shall the Gentiles trust. This root of Jesse, this root
and offspring of David, because the Lord Jesus Christ was of
the house of David, of the tribe of Judah. He was the Lion of
Judah, the Messiah, the Christ, the called one. he would rise,
he would arise certainly in the family lineage of David, but
he arose in his resurrection as a victorious saviour. He rose
in order to rule, he rose as a king, having served his people,
having served them to the cross, having served them to death,
having served them in the laying down of his life. He rose to
rule and reign as king over his people. And that people includes
Jews and Gentiles, melded together, formed together, made into one
body. who will trust in Him. And this is lovely. This is the
beauty of faith. This is the beauty of the gift
of faith which we have been given in Christ, be it Jew or Gentile. As the gospel goes forth and
the Holy Spirit applies it to the hearts of men and women,
He gives that gift of faith by which we trust in the Saviour.
And trust is to commit our need. It is to entrust all our needs
to the Lord Jesus Christ, to the God who can save through
the work of Christ. It is to trust our cares to God,
our anxieties, our concerns. It is to place them at the foot
of God and be prepared to leave them there. Can we do that with
our anxieties? Can we do that with our worries?
Can we take them to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? That
is what it is to trust Him. And that is what the Gentiles
were prophesied that they would do. This root of Jesse would
rise and the Gentiles would trust Him. as the gospel of his accomplishments
was applied to their hearts and souls. It is to commit our state,
the state that we are sinners, the state that we are lost, the
state that we are rebels against God, and to leave to God's judgment,
to God's grace, to God's mercy, our eternal state and well-being. Sinner, friend, do you need a
saviour? Then Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners. Have you an emptiness in your
soul? Then go to the Lord Jesus Christ
for he will fill that emptiness. Do you recognise that fearful
state in which your soul is in before a holy God? The world
is on tenterhooks at the moment. The world is fearful about the
spread of this virus that is going to be going around every
nation under the sun. Judgment is coming. Wrath is coming. It is coming
soon. This is a warning. Are you fearful
for the state of your soul? Go to Jesus. Go to Christ. Trust Christ. Trust the efficacy
of His work. Trust what He has accomplished.
Trust what He has effected. Trust the accomplishments of
His death. See that in Him. Not in our will, not in our willpower,
not in our choice, not in the fickleness of man or woman, but
in the power of His victory over sin, over death, over the grave. Who else would you entrust with
your eternal soul? Who else would you give your
soul to? Trusting, I think, is more than
believing. But maybe I'm just being pedantic. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs. But I have this feeling that
trusting is more than just a head knowledge. I can believe things
that I'm told that I've never seen and can never prove for
myself. And I weigh up the rationale,
I weigh up the logic, I weigh up the credibility of the person
that is speaking to me, and I settle upon a belief system. But trusting
is more than that. Trusting is heartfelt. It's not
simply some cerebral agreement to a doctrine. but it is confessing
that we have nowhere else to go but to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is confessing and feeling
and understanding in the depth of our being that the Lord Jesus
Christ alone has the words of eternal life, that I've tried
every other way and found them wanting, but in Christ I have
found life and peace and joy. And here is that glorious, positive,
and comforting conclusion to the testimony of Paul here in
these verses. Who is this God? Who is the God
of hope that he speaks of in verse 13? He says, now the God
of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Who is
this God of hope? that the apostle is writing to. But Christ, he is the one, the
root of Jesse, that has risen to reign over the Gentiles, and
in whom the Gentiles trust. They trust in that one. He is
their hope. He is the God of their hope. We trust in Christ, and Christ
gives hope to the hopeless. We trust and we enter into communion
with Him in our trusting. We connect with the Lord Jesus
Christ. We interact with Christ in our
trusting. We converse with Jesus. We walk and we talk with Jesus. This is not a theory. This is
a relationship. This is not a doctrine. This
is a person. This is new life. This is new
meaning. This is a new view and new experiences
that we have as we are bound together with the Lord Jesus
Christ, united to Him. This is a new beginning and we
are new creations. He is our God of hope. We go needy. and he supplies
our need. We go empty and he fills that
space, that vacuum. We go anxious and he gives us
peace. The apostle says, the God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace. Joy and peace are not
just for Christmas cards. Joy and peace are the believer's
possession in Christ, a real possession, not just a warm feeling
at a certain time of year when somebody remembers us. This is
our relationship with Christ, and joy flows from a settled
confidence in Christ. Peace comes to us in that settled
assurance that the promises of God are certain and will be fulfilled. That in the Lord Jesus Christ,
all the promises of God are yea, and in Him, Amen. John chapter
six says, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. and
him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Come to
Christ, come to Christ. If you trust him, if you believe
him, if you have been given to see him, then we lay our hope
upon him. We believe in him as the Gentiles
would, and he fills us with joy and peace in believing. Paul
prays that the blessings of joy and peace will be our portion. Sometimes in our troubles, in
the trials of life, in the disappointments, in the bereavements, in the hurts,
in the challenges, in the doubts and anxieties, we lose sight
of these comforts, of these promises. of this joy of the Lord, rejoice
in the Lord, and again I say rejoice, and this peace, that
peace that passeth understanding, because it cannot be logically
assessed, perhaps by those who are grieving and in tears and
weeping over the hardships of the providences and judgments
of God. And we lose sight of the comforts
but Christ never loses sight of us. That's a promise. Lo, I am with you always. God never overlooks us. How can he? Our minister King
is interceding constantly for us in the Father's presence because
Jesus Christ was a minister. Thou God seest me. Christ is our hope. God the Father
is the giver of hope. Having given us Christ, even
our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting
consolation and good hope through grace. Christ is our hope and
God the Father has given Christ to us. and God the Holy Spirit
is the bringer of that hope to us. You see how the triune God
is engaged in this covenant purpose, in this blessedness? You see
how our faith, our trust, our hope, our joy, our peace, and
everlasting wellbeing is a work of power and grace and divine
purpose? By the three in one, kind of coming to an end really
of what I had to say to you this evening. But we get to close
this passage reflecting upon this beautiful prayer that the
Apostle Paul made for the church at Rome and which we all can
take as the people of God for our very own. Ken Williams, I
mentioned him in the introduction when I was thinking about the
fact that he was getting ready to leave the Air Force. I don't
know whether you're here tonight or not, Ken. I hope you are,
because then you'll hear what I've got to say about you. But
Ken is formally leaving the United States Air Force and tomorrow
was to have been the leaving event at which he would be recognized
for the years of service that he had given to the military. And I was invited. Thank you,
Ken. I was invited to go along, which
I regarded as a great honour. And I was invited to give the
invocation. Well, I have to confess, Ken,
that I had to come home and look up what invocation meant. And
I'm pleased to say that it's just a prayer. It's just a prayer
asking for God's blessing on the affairs, on the events, on
those circumstances that transpire. So it's okay to talk about an
invocation and I would have been happy to do that for you and
I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to this evening because
like the Apostle Paul to the church at Rome, I could not give
a more delightful or precious invocation on your behalf or
on all our behalves as the Apostle Paul gave here in this 13th verse. So I'm going to leave you with
that. Here, Paul is speaking to God on behalf of the church. He is invoking the blessings
of God for the people of God. And I say this for Ken and I
say it for all of you who are listening to us this evening. Despite our trials, despite our
troubles, despite our fears and anxieties, the questions that
we have about the future for our own lives and wellbeing and
health and the lives and wellbeing and health of our friends and
our neighbours and our family and those that we care for, May the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in believing, in trusting, in looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. May he fill you
with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost. Amen. And amen. And thank you very much for your
attention this evening and for listening to what we had to say. I'm just going to read another
hymn over and then I will put the stream off. This is another of John Newton's
hymns. We read one of John Newton's
hymns on Sunday past and this is speaking about the priesthood
and the perfections of the Lord Jesus Christ and in a sense it
has a particular suitability for the things that we've been
talking about this evening. So let me read it to you, if
you will. Christ bears the names of all
his saints deep on his heart engraved, attentive to the state
and wants of all his love has saved. In him a holiness complete,
light and perfection shine, and wisdom, grace and glory meet,
a saviour all divine. The blood which as a priest he
bears for sinners is his own. The incense of his prayers and
tears perfumes the holy throne. In him my weary soul has rest,
Though I am weak and vile, I read my name upon his breast, And
see the father smile. May the Lord bless us this evening
and as we go to rest, may we know that joy and peace of believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ and the great things which he has
accomplished for his church and his people. Thank you very much.
Good night.