tonight we turn in our bibles to romans chapter 15 and a few sermons left here in romans and we conclude our our study in romans so tonight we're in verses 14 through verse 21 14 through 21 that last um stanza we sung out to the lord that law i never can forget oh save me lord for i am thine. I think that's very appropriate for tonight's passage, that law I can never forget. Let's consider tonight Romans 15, beginning at verse 14. This is the word of the Lord. I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder because of the grace given me by God. To be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, to those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. One of the things that I have realized about the gospel ministry is that there oftentimes in the course of ministry can be a disconnect between the pastor and the people. A pastor and the congregation don't always understand each other. We're a definite different breed. I understand that. But sometimes it may seem that the pastor is just kind of cranky. Sometimes it may seem that the pastor is, you sit back and you listen to the message and you say, you know, honey, I don't know. Is he okay? Is he doing all right? I've heard that. Heard that in course of ministry, both up there and here. Is he okay? And, you know, I think it's an interesting question because I'm always interested in perception. Is he okay? Congregants don't always understand the challenge of ministry and the struggle that a pastor has to go through when he has to confront certain things in the life of the church. You know, he has to confront issues like sin. He has to take on issues when there's error in the life of the church. And he has to confront things. And I mean, think of the prayer tonight, not my will, but your will be done. How is that will made known to you? Well, often the Lord wants that will communicated. This is how he wants that will communicated to you through the preaching of the gospel. And if you're asking for him to correct things in your life, guess who is the guy who gets to do it? It's the pastor. He's the postman, remember? I used that comparison years ago where when a postman delivers, what kind of postman would he be if he took all your bills and threw them in the trash and just gave you the love notes that came? You'd be in a little bit of trouble, wouldn't you? Because of that, people may begin to wonder sometimes when the pastor's a little more direct and a little more hard-hitting, does he have their best interests in mind? Is the pastor's goal for the congregation a good one? Does he really care? And there may at times be, I'm thankful for this congregation, a wonderful, responsive, positive response to the messages. But there may be times that you don't feel that way. There may be times that you feel frustrated with the message. One time long ago, I was really sensitive to any kind of criticism early in my ministry. And I remember an old veteran minister pulling me aside and says, you need to get used to that. I got roasted at Sunday coffee times all the time. I thought, interesting. Maybe I do. But you know, that's not the way a pastor should look at the church. People may begin to think wrongly about intentions, and so there can be a disconnect between the congregation and the pastor and his goals for ministry. They may not understand it. And what I love about tonight's message, what I love about tonight's passage, excuse me, and I know I say that a lot. I love passages. I say that all the time. I can't stop. But what I love about this particular passage is that it helps us to understand what the design of Christian ministry should be, and it gives you some insight into this kind of struggle that often the pastor goes through. And it promotes something really healthy and beautiful for the life of the congregation. It promotes trust in the life of the ministry. Because as I study this, and I preach this tonight, I'm confronted to make sure that the intentions and goals that I have for you have to be in a line with what's here. And you have to trust that. So there's this great blessing and fruit when we can go forward in that kind of confidence together and understanding the bigger picture of what the Lord is actually doing. And sometimes we're not able to look at the bigger picture. Well, that's tonight's passage. Paul is explaining the Christian ministry to this church, and he does it right after this very long section of doctrinal teaching. And we went through the whole thing, guilt, grace, gratitude and he knows that there may be some misconceptions about him. He knows there may be some confusion about him and what he's saying and what he's doing and he's helping this congregation to understand how he feels about them and what he thinks about them and why he's been at times very bold in his teaching and very combative in his teaching. And so the whole goal here tonight is to help the church understand the nature of Christian ministry and the goal of the Christian ministry. And that's the beauty of this. This is the inspired design. And I love the relationship that is here shown. I mean, this is something that I want in this place. This is the goal that we should have. And we should understand the big picture, the intention of gospel ministry And when we do that, and when there's a healthy relationship from this to you and you to this, it is a beautiful, beautiful, healthy environment that is created, and people see that. And you know, contra that, when there is a disconnect here and when there's nothing but conflict here, it has an awful witness, and it's not beneficial for you. So if there is a divide between the pastor and the church, let there be a misunderstanding. between the pastor and the church. Let there be a lack of trust and intention and purpose. Let those things govern the ministry. It's a recipe for disaster. And that's why tonight is important. Paul is opening up his own heart personally here. And you really do see a pastor. And that's what I love about the book of Romans. Yeah, it's systematic in many ways, but it ultimately is a pastoral epistle of concern, and that's what comes out here tonight. He's concerned about certain issues. That's why he's given this exhaustive treatment. But what he is doing here is showing us that burden tonight to encourage the congregation. And encouragement is very important in the life of the church and in the life of the ministry. It's important for the pastor to encourage the congregation and a desire for the people of God to understand the ministry when at times they don't feel as encouraged as they want to feel and so tonight we enter this last section of romans and i always find that the most neglected areas of a book like this are some of the most exciting to preach we all know the the you know romans 6 and 7 and we spend a lot of time in that but how often do we ever go to romans 15 and consider stuff like this very very exciting stuff look at verse 14 i myself am satisfied about you my brothers verse 14 is is really look at that i myself am satisfied about you my brothers that you yourselves are full of goodness filled with all knowledge and you're able to instruct one another and then he goes on in verse 15 but on some points i have written to you very boldly by way of reminder now that's a interesting contrast you kind of come to that and you think well why why is he feel this great burden upon him to really encourage the congregation and then he tells you Why? Because there were times when he wrote this epistle, he was really bold. There are times when the ministry, you're not going to feel comfortable and you may even feel that the pastor's aimed it right at you. I've been told I have a line of fire. Don't be in the line of fire. I don't try to have a line of fire, but if you get in the line of fire, it's never directly at you. But there are times when it may not feel comfortable. And Paul says something here. I want you to know, dear brothers, notice the affection here. I'm very satisfied with you. What a remarkable encouragement. It's a very tender response. It's a very pastoral response. It's a very caring response. It's a loving response. I am at ease about you. I'm confident concerning you. I'm really certain about you as a church. And he didn't always say that. He didn't say that to the church in Galatia, which kind of helps us get to one of the main issues, doesn't it? The church in Galatia, he started out by saying the opposite thing. I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Here Paul is showing the issue and that this church, he had real confidence and real ease about their reception of it. you have to ask why is paul saying this well he's concerned about wrong perception as you read through the epistles oftentimes there are things he knows people are saying about him in the community and people are saying about him as a pastor that he's constantly addressing he is addressing that and he's saying listen god's my witness i pray for you god's my witness i love you it seems to me that he had gained a little bit of a reputation for being hard-nosed why do i say that well we know that paul uh in the first epistle to the corinthians some people just didn't like him he was known as being a little too hard-hitting and a little too dogmatic in fact peter would even say you know paul wrote many things that are hard to understand and unstable and untaught people twist those things they do whatever they want with those hard things that he wrote about. Paul was direct, and I always think the best kind of preaching gets to the conscience. It's never surface, it's direct. The best kind of preaching makes you feel like it's hitting you. It got to you. It's not over here, it's not over here, it's not confusing. It got to you. That was Paul. And that's not always easy. It's not always comfortable. In fact, he says in verse 14, I know that I've written to you very boldly. When you come to that, you think, well, what are the things he's thinking about that he was very bold about in Romans? If you were to summarize the heart of this epistle, what is the single great doctrine he worked to and worked from? One doctrine. It's justification by faith alone. that's the doctrine it fills this epistle he worked to it and then he worked from it and you'll remember in those first chapters to work to it how hard was he he leveled he leveled he said all your righteousness is just filthy and he said none of you is good you know you know and he says and anyone after all the hypocrites which a certain measure of hypocrisy fills everyone. You hypocrites, you look at the homosexuals out there, but God sees what you're doing. And then he, I mean, he really stripped righteousness. He really went after to make everyone feel uncomfortable. If you went through chapters one and two in the middle of chapter three, and a pastor was preaching and never made you feel uncomfortable about sin, he didn't do his job. And he said, you practice such things are going to face judgment. Now, after doing that, what did he do? He then poured out and explained the escape. The way a sinner is right with God. And he said something that back in Romans 3, that I can find it. This is it. But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. I can't imagine the offense to Jews when they heard this. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all, for all who believe, for there's no distinction, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift. Apart from law, law-keeping. He wrote real bold. This was bold writing, and he went on to show that Abraham was wicked. God justifies the wicked, and what two examples did He use? Abraham and David, of all people. That's bold stuff. And that God takes a filthy sinner and he clothes them in the righteousness of Christ. And guess what? He's doing it for the Gentiles. God justifies the ungodly Gentiles. Bold. And elsewhere, Paul was known as saying this. If anyone teaches you any other doctrine, let them be anathema. Cut off a curse from God. So to get people to there, You've got to have some measure of boldness, don't you? You can't just be the American nice guy. You have to be bold. And you're using the law as a weapon. And when you use the law as a weapon, you're doing it with the goal of doing what? Driving people to Jesus Christ. That's the goal. But see, people don't always understand that goal. And Paul would say that his goal in ministry in Colossians chapter 1 is that everyone would be presented perfect in Christ Jesus. That's the goal of gospel ministry. But people may, along the way, as they're hearing all this confrontation, forget that that's the goal. And you may think that the pastor's insensitive. And I believe Paul's opening up here to the Romans after all of this. And he's saying, I know that I've been really bold in stripping you and making known your sin that you would be cast upon Christ. This is the heart of the book. And when a pastor does that, he may be misunderstood or he may be characterized that he's not very soft or not very affectionate or not very loving to people. I believe Paul struggled with that. I found this in the biography of Donald Gray Barnhouse. He was an interesting guy. And I want to read something that is said there. Barnhouse says this. This was recorded. For all my life, I have faced the same psychological dilemma. When God established the genes and the chromosomes of my makeup, there was not put into the mixture anything of effervescence. That simply means there's nothing bubbly about me. It's impossible for me to wear my heart on my sleeve. There's a little of John in me and a lot of Paul. There may be many Christians who have been accused of pride or arrogance or dogmatism who know deep down in their hearts that they're seeking in every way possible to have the Lord Jesus Christ magnified in their being. They love with an intensity that hurts and which manifests itself in a hardness of attitude. Though at the same time, like Paul, they may say, love, I pray without ceasing for you, God is my witness. I like that. I think that captures it a little bit. One of the great perceptions in preaching the doctrine of justification properly is that all that it takes to get there is that, and this can be an error, that God may begin to think, both God and the pastor may begin to think, one of the perceptions you may have is that you are absolutely worthless people. One of your perceptions in this may be that you begin to think, God and the pastor think that you're absolutely worthless and can do nothing. Well, in the doctrine of justification, you can't do anything to earn it. That's true. But Paul is essentially saying here, I had to show you how corrupt you are, sinful you are to get you to him. But you need to understand something. All that boldness in doing that doesn't make me think less of you. When you receive Christ by faith, you have everything you need, but you need to know how I do think of you as believers. You need to understand that. You need to know how a pastor does view the flock. You need to know how God does see his people. I don't look at you as dead in trespasses and sins anymore. It's really powerful when you think about what he's saying here. I am looking at you as a church according to how you are as God's people. Simultaneously just and sinner, yes. But he says something beautiful. After all this instruction, what is the thing he says? I'm satisfied about you, my brothers. Now listen to this. That you are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, able to instruct one another. Now, I am that confident that as a body, you are full of goodness. Whose goodness? God's goodness, sure. But it's goodness that He has brought to you. And as you are sanctified, that goodness is being acted out. I'm not preaching in a way as to make you doubt. Have you ever been under that? That there is a kind of preaching that really does. It holds out that God did His part, just maybe, just maybe. You're not really a Christian. Unbelievers need to be confronted. Christians need to be confronted. But I also think it's important here to notice how god's people are being treated god is my witness paul would say this you know here's my struggle i want you to know he said this in in chapter one i pray for you and i'm confident that you're full of goodness you have hearts circumcised that the fruits of the spirit love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control I'm confident that these things are manifesting and showing themselves in you, that you have received a gospel by which you are justified. And now, what is happening in you? These attitudes, these fruits of the Spirit are bearing fruit in you. I'm confident. I want you to know that, he says. I know you're full of good works. I see that. I'm confident too that you're filled with knowledge, this is really remarkable, the renewing of your minds, he talked about knowledge, that I believe that you as a church are constantly growing in the truth, you care about the truth a lot, you care about knowledge, you care about growing in understanding, that this whole idea that it's not about knowledge, no, no, I think positively of you, that you do care about knowledge and you do care about his word. You know, we can take a kind of attitude as pastors, oh, they just don't get it. And I don't think we could ever assume all the time. I mean, we have to constantly teach and constantly teach these doctrines. But I can think you have a positive view of the Lord's working in the life of the church. And a positive view that God's people, of what was said in the new covenant, that the Spirit would work and help to understand and grow and know and be renewed in the truth. God's people are. That you're filled with knowledge. And I'm also confident that you're able to admonish one another. I know that you care so much about this that you know you will pull somebody aside and you will go to them and you'll hold them accountable and you will go after the wayward. I'm confident you would do this. And what a beautiful thing when a pastor sees these things in the life of a church. It's a beautiful thing that should be acknowledged. It's a beautiful thing that should be said because when we're preaching the heart of what we do, we're confronting sin and we're confronting people's ignorance. That has to happen. At times that will be uncomfortable, but this has to happen too. This encouragement has to happen too. Now, after this encouragement, he closes this here and he goes into an explanation of the nature and the goal of Christian ministry. Why is he doing this? There was one major charge against the Apostle Paul that he was constantly dealing with, constantly had to fend off. You know what it was? It's that Paul was an antinomian, constantly. He was running around, they said, preaching to these Gentile dogs that they don't have to keep the law. Antinomian, preaching justification apart from the deeds of the law to the Gentiles. The Judaizers were constantly banging him over the head with what they called a strange doctrine. That he was undermining the law of God. That he didn't love the law of God. That he was overturning the law of God with this strange doctrine of justification by faith alone. Free grace. That that would produce, they all said, no drive to keep or honor the commandments of God. That was the charge. That charge flies around so loosely today. It's a great heresy if that's true. And no one should level it easily. Because not only is it serious, but to run around saying that somebody doesn't care about the law of God is to reject God himself. Martin Lloyd-Jones in his day said something powerful. There are many preachers who never preach justification by faith at all because they do not believe it. They regard the New Testament message as no more than an ethical system. They're always exhorting people to live better lives and to stop doing this and that. They apply this in a more general sphere, and so they're always making protests to governments and other powers. They talk unceasingly about applying the Christian ethic. We can say without any hesitation that such men are not preaching the gospel. That's a bold statement. Now, when you preach like that and you say those kind of things, the common charge is going to be that you are killing any application and motivation for doing. It really doesn't matter. Jesus plus nothing is everything, so therefore, don't do anything. That charge, you know, when people say gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, that there is no interest in obedience, Paul wants to make the church understand that's not true. That is not true. He was falsely slandered for this. that was why the ministry of boldness he's dealing with. I have written more boldly by way of reminder. Look at verse 15. Because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. I'm doing all of this. Listen to what he says here. Christ pulled me out and he made me a minister to the Gentiles, specifically set apart to the Gentiles to preach this gospel. But then he uses a very provocative word here that I think is intentionally provocative to the Jewish listeners. I am doing this in the priestly service of the gospel. Whoa. What do you mean? Paul wasn't out offering up the blood of bulls and goats. Paul wasn't out offering animals to make atonement for sin. The priestly service of the gospel? You're transferring the priestly service of the gospel to these dogs? What is the priestly service of the gospel? Verse 19 from Jerusalem. Round about the lycraeum. I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And then he says it again to make sure we get it. My aim is to preach the gospel. That's the priestly service. That's the priestly service. Gospel is this great news that God has given. And I am only speaking, verse 19, the things that he's accomplished. Did you notice this? I'm only going to talk about what he accomplished. That's what I am as a priest. I am making known him to the people. and paul says this so many times in the new testament i know nothing among you to preach jesus christ except to preach jesus christ and him crucified now people today say that oh what does that mean you just preach jesus and everything no that's not what he's saying what he's saying is i preach jesus alone as the way that somebody's right with god and that is the heart of my message that's the central part of my message that's what i'm working with in my message. That's not boring, by the way. That's the most exciting thing I could ever do. Because I want to tell you now, says Paul, what happens when I do that? I'm not preaching Jesus plus good works. I'm not preaching him that way. Then he quotes Isaiah, when he was not accounted, they shall see. And those who have not heard, they shall, When he was not announced, they shall see, and to those who have not heard shall understand. Here's the heart of what he addresses, what he wants to say. It's as if he says, do you know what the fruit is of this? And this is where it all gets corrected right here. I have made a conscious choice in my ministry, and I want you to know it's priestly service, to preach the gospel of free grace. Conscious choice. I do it everywhere. I speak only of His righteousness. Let me tell you what that produces. Let me tell you what that accomplishes. Everyone look at verse 16. He says it twice. I'm preaching the gospel of God so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. What offering? Well, that's Romans 12. Presenting their bodies as living sacrifices in the service of God. I am preaching this gospel so that when they come and serve in the kingdom, it's acceptable. Without it, it'll never be acceptable. See? And then he says something that everyone should highlight in verse 18. I am preaching the gospel to bring the Gentiles to obedience. That's not an antinomian. That's what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3, that when we have the ministry of righteousness, there are fruits to that. What does it accomplish? It accomplishes justification. Somebody's declared righteous once and for all. And then he goes on right after that and says, but guess what the other fruit of that is? The other double blessing of that is he says we're being transformed more and more and more into the image of Jesus Christ. That's the fruit of that. And then he goes on to say, so then I'm going to preach Christ. So the blessing of gospel ministry, the blessing of this message is it gives us both. And from that message flows this. It's going to produce this. It's a whole gospel that includes justification and sanctification when I preach Him. And so at times, Paul had to rebuke and convict and refute those who contradict. At times, he was showing what the human nature was like in very strong language, what we're like before God, and Paul wanted this church to understand the whole goal of it. The whole goal of it is to lead them to the Savior. The whole goal of it is that they would be found in Him not having their own righteousness. The whole goal of it is that they would be sanctified by the Spirit as Christ is their all in all and shown in them His life. That's the goal. That more and more we and you as we preach this ministry, as we show forth the riches of Him on the pages of Scripture, that you would be obedient. Sure, that's a goal. And Paul is saying, we would love the law. As he said in chapter 2 and 3, that we would establish the law in our lives. That's why I will never forget your law. That's what we sang out tonight. That doesn't change. It's just now I'm redeemed and have an understanding with the law of God, how to live. So Paul says, I won't think wrongly of you. So you know what? Don't think wrongly of my ministry to you. Isn't that beautiful? I won't think wrongly of you. Don't think wrongly of my ministry to you. My intention is the best for you. I can say that tonight. I can say that in good conscience. That's my intention for all of you. That you would enjoy the riches of what you have in Jesus Christ and that you would enjoy being His obedient children by the grace that you've received. You see, that's how Jesus is magnified in our lives for His glory. And then we can say, without sounding so arrogant, we have a real boast. I can talk about pride and boasting. Who is my boast in? Him. And that's the right kind of boast, isn't it? I hope you can share with me tonight a confidence in this ministry. Let that kind of trust be built between the pew and the pastor, and you will see a church full of people who are glorifying God in service with their bodies, presenting their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, obedient children who've been called out by grace for His name and for His glory. And for that, we have much to thank Him for tonight. Let's pray. O Lord our God, we bow in thanksgiving that it is a whole gospel that includes A life of justification that once we are announced and acquitted, that we have also the gracious gift of sanctification. Help us to believe that. And may we be your obedient children since you have done such a wondrous work for us in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We bless your holy name and may we then go out into another week treasuring and valuing your law. treasuring and valuing what you love because we are justified and have been redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in His name we pray, amen.