Sermon Transcript
For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again it says, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles.
In him will the Gentiles hope. I myself am satisfied with 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 Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offerings 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 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, those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand. This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain. And to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints, for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contributions for the poor among the saints of Jerusalem.
Our cultural moment can sometimes be at odds with itself. I’ll give you some examples. On the one hand, almost everyone has opinions and freely shares them about how people ought to live. We are saturated with moral lectures, parent this way, Don’t use plastic, drive electric, social media will rot your brain, right, on and on. We are inundated with someone trying to convince us of something.
It’s like everyone is an evangelist for what they think matters. At the same time, at the exact same time, we also hear that we are not supposed to push our beliefs on anyone. Your truth is yours, keep it private, no proselytizing, don’t try to convert someone to your point of view. It can be the same people who are saying everyone should keep their beliefs to themselves. This is how you ought to live.
Those are contradictory narratives, and our culture seems to embrace, we’ll say, both of them. But that’s not the only layer to this complexity. I’ll give you another one. On the one hand, we want to be caught up in something that is real and that matters, that gives our lives meaning beyond, we’ll say, the superficial American dream. Especially for younger people.
Younger people have sensed the hollowness of the, we’ll say, standard progression of upper-middle-class American life. They were told you got to get good grades so you can get a good job so you can pile up enough money for retirement so you can die.
That’s the dream. And the younger generation asks, What’s the point? Why push myself so hard for that? It is not a compelling vision for their lives. But they want something to live for that’s real.
They’re searching for it. They love the idea of being caught up in something epic. This is why these movies are so popular. We want to live in the story that we are participating in something that changes the world, something bigger than ourselves, maybe even taste the supernatural if it’s there. But then here’s the hitch.
Let’s say we find something actually worth living for, a story bigger than us that actually would do something for the world. You know, our sense of purpose, meaning, it’s ignited. We found it. But if it had a spiritual element to it, would we feel like we could share it with anyone else? Would we feel freedom to invite others into the thing that we found?
Or would we feel we need to keep quiet so that we don’t offend anyone? Only speak in vague terms so that our reputation won’t be compromised? Would we feel stifled about sharing whatever it was that ignited our sense of meaning? If so, if we would feel stifled, then we’re in this predicament of wanting to be fully invested in a movement that will alter the course of the entire earth while also hoping that our allegiance to that thing will just stay in the private walls of our own hearts and minds. Those are conflicting narratives.
You can’t have it both ways. If it’s bigger than us, then it can’t be private. If it’s only private, then it’s not bigger than us by definition. It’s just within ourselves. We want the grandiose.
We want the monumental. But we also feel pressure to stay quiet about it. You see the conflict? One last layer of complexity, if we didn’t have enough already. Let’s find— say we find the thing worth living for.
Let’s, you know, it is somehow, you know, compelling enough that we overcome our hesitation, that we talk about it with others. We might still become disheartened because we feel too small to make any actual difference. We can wear ourselves out, never feel like we’re moving the needle. And then if we feel like we can’t change anything, what’s the point in doing anything? Be gridlocked.
So here’s a summary of where we are. We long for a faith in something large enough to renew the world, yet if we find it, we’re often reluctant to speak about it because we’re surrounded by voices that on the one hand despise conversion and evangelism, But on the other hand, those same voices try to convert others to their various points of view all the time. Meanwhile, we carry a weariness about if we could actually make any difference if we tried.
That’s our moment. It’s contradictory with itself, but it’s where we live. So what are we going to do with that? Well, here comes Paul with Romans 15. If you weren’t with us back in the spring, we were studying through the book of Romans before taking a break over the summer.
We started with Romans 1, we got all the way to the first part of Romans 15, and now we’re back. So today and next week we will finish Romans. Paul, who wrote Romans— he’s the author of this ancient letter— Paul doesn’t have any of our modern hang-ups. He feels passionately on mission. Empowered to live something bigger, for something bigger than himself.
He isn’t crushed by his smallness. He’s confident. He’s participating in something that matters in a way that will have some kind of result, and not because he hasn’t thought it through. He’s not naive. He knows he’s one drop in the midst of a huge ocean.
How can he feel like he’s part of something that matters and that his efforts will somehow count? Well, we’ve said throughout this series that Romans is really about the gospel. The gospel is what Jesus has done on our behalf to bring us to God, to forgive us, to remove our shame and guilt, to redeem us, to give us a future, to provide us with God’s favor and blessing, to make us secure, to eliminate our fears and worries, to make us whole, to give us a significance and a status that can’t be removed, to conquer evil, conquer evil both that’s out in the world and the evil that’s in us, To set everything right, to set everything right. The gospel is how Jesus earned all of that for us through his death and resurrection. That’s the gospel.
His death and resurrection provides all of that or will provide all of that. That’s what we’ve talked about all these weeks, connecting the dots between the gospel and all of those outcomes. This is what undergirds Paul’s sense of mission. It’s given him a faith bigger than himself that is worth sharing. It’s shown him that his efforts matter.
He’s part of something that matters, and he’s compelled to act. In other words, again, Paul doesn’t have our modern hangups, which means we can learn from him. So as we look at this text, we will see how the gospel takes the pressure off of us, you know, answers the question about if any difference can be made. Then we’ll see the scope of the gospel’s redemptive work. Is it big enough to alter the whole course of history?
And then lastly, how we join the effort. Is there anything for us to do? How the gospel takes the pressure off of us, the scope of the gospel’s redemptive work, and then how we join in it. So first, how the gospel takes the pressure off of us is that Jesus carries the load as a servant. Our passage begins with verse 8.
Christ became a servant. So how will the world be redeemed? How will the broken pieces be put back together? Christ became a servant. In other words, it’s not our project, it’s his.
Meaning the question of how can little old me make a difference? Answer: It doesn’t ride on you. God himself is at work. This is Christ’s effort. He’s the one responsible for completing it.
Paul doesn’t start with a to-do list of how— what do we need to do to change the world? He doesn’t say it’s up to us to bring light into the darkness. He says light has already arrived. God became a servant. That’s how the world will be redeemed.
It’s not us, it’s him. He’s going to do the grunt work to make it happen. He will bear the scars to get it across the finish line. This is the best kind of team to join, with a leader like that where success is guaranteed. I imagine it’s quite a bit different than what projects we may have worked on with teams and failures not tolerated, and if something does go wrong, everybody starts blaming each other.
The leader on the top sure isn’t going to be the one who looks bad. It might be projects that we’re used to, but Jesus isn’t like that. Jesus says he has more skin in the game than we do. In fact, any failing of ours, he covers for it. He’s the one who sacrificed himself to make it happen.
He’s putting the whole thing on his back. In one case, literally, he carried his cross. Jesus has gone all in. This is where Paul starts. Jesus came as a servant.
To pay our debts, to give us status, to give us a future, to end evil. Jesus does it for us. He is so unique among the gods of other religions. So unique. Okay, first of all, big picture, other gods just aren’t as concerned with, with redeeming the world, healing all that’s broken, setting all the wrongs right.
That’s just not really the focus of other gods. In other religions, the dynamic between God and humanity is mostly what humanity can do to, like, please the deities, avoid wrath, gain favor. You know, it’s up to us to impress the gods of other religions. I mean, first get their attention, then impress them. And most of the time we don’t.
It’s like the kid in the swimming pool who’s like, Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!
Watch me jump in! And the dad never looks up from his phone. That’s the general dynamic between humanity and the gods in many other religions. Largely, those gods are not proactively working to restore the world, generally. But even amongst the ones who are benevolent to humanity, none of them become a servant to redeem the world.
None of them take our burdens onto themselves to lift us up out of them. None of them sacrifice everything for us except Jesus. This is how Jesus serves. Philippians 2, when Paul— same author as Romans— Philippians 2, when Paul describes Christ as a servant, he goes in a little bit more detail than he does here in our text. He explains the apex of how Jesus served us.
Was by going to the cross. It’s in verses 7 and 8 of Philippians 2. Jesus emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant. There’s our word. Being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
The idea is that Jesus gave up everything so we could have everything. Jesus took on himself the future that we deserve— death and separation from God. Jesus embraced our hopeless future so we can have the future that he deserves— eternal glory, infinite status before the throne of God. Jesus bore the sin and pain of the world so that one day the world could be free from that sin and pain. That’s the ultimate way that he was a servant.
This is how God got behind his redemption project. He’s all in. And if God is behind this project like that, if the one who spoke the universe into being and continues to uphold it by the word of his power, Hebrews 1:3, if God has given himself fully to this, then it will succeed.
So you want to feel like you’re contributing to something that matters? This is it. You want to be part of something that makes a difference? This is it. You want to be part of something that echoes into eternity?
This is it. God is going to get it done and you can be part of that.
Now second, the scope of the gospel’s redemptive work is all peoples. Paul makes it explicit that yes, while Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah, verse 8, he wasn’t only for Israelites. Jesus is for everyone, Jews and Gentiles. And Paul backs this claim up by quoting from all the different sections of the Old Testament Jewish Scriptures. This is verses 9 through 12 what we’re looking at.
The Israelites organized their Scriptures into 3 sections: Law, Prophets, Writings. Law, Prophets, Writings. The Law is the 5 Books of Moses. 10 Commandments are in there. Law.
Prophets are the prophets, uh, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, etc. And the writings include what is called the wisdom literature, Psalms and Proverbs. And writings also include some books of history. And Paul quotes from each one of those sections, each one, how the Gentiles will be included with the Jewish Messiah. He’s trying to prove by quoting from each of the sections of the Old Testament that it is really the witness of the entire Testament that it was always the plan for the Gentiles to be included.
The point is even in Jewish scriptures it was never only about the Israelites, it was always about everyone. So what does that mean? Well, who can have their sin forgiven? Who can have their guilt removed? Who can have their past paid for?
Who can have a bright future? Who could receive eternal glory? Who could be given a status and a name that will endure forever? Who can be honored before the throne of God? Who?
Anyone. Anyone. People from every nation, tribe, and tongue, not because of what they’ve done, but because Jesus earned it for them. Anyone can be included in this redemption. It’s for the whole world.
Again, there’s not a bigger mission to be part of. So, um, what’s our role if this is God’s project? If he has thrown his full weight in behind it and he will accomplish it, does that mean we’re just spectators watching it all happen? Can we stay on the couch while he’s doing whatever it is he’s doing?
Well, if we really understand what God has done, we won’t want to stay on the couch. When we see that Jesus hasn’t just thrown his full weight behind redeeming the world, he has thrown his full weight behind redeeming us. He sacrificed everything for us. He gave up everything for us, spent all he had, went all in for us. When we see him leverage himself for us, How we participate, how we want to participate, is we want to be all in as well.
This is what Paul does and what the other people do in the passage who he refers to. If you read through this, uh, second half of Romans 15, you get the idea. Paul is nonstop go. He has traveled all the way around the eastern side of the Mediterranean. He’s traveled so much, in fact, that he says he’s run out of places to talk about Jesus.
Which probably sounds unrealistic because that does— does that mean he talked to every single person on, you know, that half of the Roman Empire, covered every square inch of real estate between Jerusalem and Rome? Uh, no, that’s not what he means. What he’s referring to is his strategy, which was to focus on urban centers. He visited all the big cities and got something going in each city. He seemed to believe that if he reached cities with the transforming power of the gospel, then that message would naturally spread from the cities to all the more rural areas where he hadn’t visited.
The idea is you reach the city, you reach the region, and then he can say, well, I’ve covered everything because I’ve got something going in each city. That seems to be his strategy, which, if that’s true, What an opportunity to be in Silicon Valley.
Because what if, what if the tech influencers were also people, were also still doing their job, but they also discovered that their worth is not measured by their followers, by the valuation of their company, by their resume or their next big idea, but instead they were people who exclusively tied their their worth to what Jesus had done for them so that they always felt worthy even if they had a massive failure? What if that was the tech influencers? What if their identity was settled in Christ and their greatest ambition was the glory of God? What if they increasingly used their influence for the flourishing of others instead of maybe building their own kingdom?
What if the people shaping the future of technology were themselves being shaped by Jesus? What if? How far in the world could that reach? What effects would that have? What would be the ripples throughout the whole world?
This was Paul’s strategy. Get to the center of influence, get churches going there, then go to another center of influence.
So next question, what did he do in these centers of influence where he was getting something going? Well, he tells us, verse 18 and 19. Word and deed, signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit. Essentially, he’s explaining everything he says, word, everything he does, deed, he wants it all to point to Christ, represent Christ, share what he has found in Christ, which freedom from guilt and shame, a status and worth that can’t be shaken, a future that’s secure, certainty that evil, pain, and suffering, and even death will eventually be eliminated. Paul says everything he says, everything he does, he wants that to tie back into what Christ has done for him.
He says, verse 18, he ventures to speak of nothing except what Christ has accomplished through him. He breathes it, right? It’s word and deed. And then he expects unbelievable things to happen, signs and wonders. He knows this mission will succeed.
It’s by the power of the Spirit. His efforts matter because he’s— he knows he’s contributing to the winning team. Like, God’s got it, and he’s on God’s bus. Like, he’s— it’s gonna happen. He’s going to contribute in a way that matters.
It’s his whole life. He’s all in. But it’s not just him who is all in. Paul describes the situation where Christians in one area are giving money to help the poor in another area. Like, those with resources are sacrificing what they have for the benefit of others and the glory of God.
So these churches that Paul’s in communication with, they are also all in. Now, they aren’t all in in the exact same way as Paul. They aren’t doing the same things. Paul’s traveling and speaking across the known world, whereas people in these churches presumably staying in one location, but they’re both all in. They’re both leveraging what they have to participate in Christ’s redemption, but in different ways.
So, we have the freedom in how we participate. You know, you won’t look the same as me. We won’t look the same as each other or people next door. But if we understand what Christ has done for us, what he is doing in the world, something will resonate in our hearts where we want to participate. Paul says, verse 15, he’s doing all of this because of the grace given to him.
And these churches that we’re sacrificially giving, Paul explains they were pleased to do it because they had received these spiritual blessings. So neither of them are compelled out of guilt nor are they compelled out of, oh, the whole thing will fall if I don’t do anything. No. Instead, the picture for both of them is they are compelled to go all in because Christ went all in for them. They are pleased to live for others because Christ lived for them.
Listen, this is the natural response when someone goes all in for you. It’s how human hearts work. You want to reciprocate. You think you’re 100% for me. Okay, I’m 100% for you.
I’ll give you an illustration.
Many of you know, though not all of you know, I’m sure, that my mother recently passed away. And last weekend we were at her funeral in Ohio. If you didn’t know that, I’m sorry for the blunt delivery. And I wouldn’t talk about it except the more I thought about it, it serves as a good illustration for this point. And it also gives me an opportunity to kind of say to everybody at once so I don’t have to say it 1,000 times, we so appreciate the cards prayers, meals, DoorDash, uh, thank you.
Um, it helps. You’ve all been very encouraging. I’m grateful for you and this church, so I’m glad I can just tell you all that at once. But as far as the illustration, one of the things I said at the funeral, uh, that my mom was the personification of sacrificial unconditional love. Um, it’s like Sally Lloyd-Jones describes God’s love for us as never stopping, never giving up, always and forever love.
That’s God’s hesed love in the Old Testament, Hebrew word for unconditional love. That was Mom’s love. I have a million examples, okay? I’ll just share a few. Mom never missed an opportunity to spend time with me if she saw a window for that opportunity.
When I was in high school and college, I often needed to perform maintenance on our family cars because Dad always had cars that required work. So many weekends I’d be, you know, laying underneath the car doing something, and she would get out of— she would get a chair, and she’d sit in the garage and talk with me while I worked. She said I was a captive audience when I was under the car. I couldn’t go any— I couldn’t walk away, so it was a great time for us to talk. When I got older, moved out of the house, college and beyond, Mom continued to want to talk to me every day, and we did talk most days for my entire life.
She had a deal with her friends. If she were talking with one of them on the phone and I called or my brother called, she would hang up with them and talk with me. Like drop everything to prioritize me or us. I’d say, Mom, you don’t need to do that. She’d say, my friends will be available later.
You may not be.
She’s a huge encourager of my life. She was more proud of me than anything I did than I ever was. Graduation, career opportunity, achievement, if I was recognized for something and I told her about it, she’d be so excited her voice would raise 3 octaves. She was in my corner, and I knew it. She’d get excited about the little things as well, you know, like, what’d you have for dinner?
Did the boys eat it? Right? It’s like the totally inconsequential details. Of our lives. She genuinely cared.
And I’ll tell you, having someone care about the utterly insignificant made me feel significant, like I matter. Put a lot more wind in my sails than I realized. She helped with our kids just about as much as she possibly could. We lived in Atlanta. She’d babysit our older son a couple days a week.
Loved every minute of it. We moved to California. California, she came a lot, like a lot. Some of y’all would ask me, your mom’s here again?
And I would say, yeah, she’s going to do that. She wants to be here as much as she can. And then when I would thank her for all of this, when I say, Mom, thank you for coming to see us to babysit, you know, so Beth and I can get away for a few nights. Thank you for encouraging me. Thank you for being proud of me.
Thank you for wanting to be involved. When I thanked her, she would say, I had a good teacher, meaning her mom. My grandma was very involved in our lives when my brother and I were little, before she passed away. And Mom would say, I’m the kind of mom I am because of the kind of mom that I had. And then she would add, Dan, you have to do that for your boys.
As my mom was for me, so I was for you, and now you will be for your boys.
Sure thing, Mom. I’ll try.
But to our point for today is I want to do that even though I will fail. I already have. I fail all the time living up to her legacy, but I want to. Why? Because of guilt?
Because I feel pressured to do it? No, not any of that. It’s because she did that for me. That’s why. She went all in for me.
And if somebody gives you everything they got, it changes you. Again, I want to carry on her legacy, represent her again, even though I know I’ll fail, but my life will trend that direction. I can’t even imagine a scenario where, you know, Mom said, now, Dan, you take care of your boys. And there’s no possibility I’d say, eh, I don’t really feel like it. That’s not how the human heart works.
If we’ve received the never-stopping, never-giving-up, always and forever love, it compels us to action. It can’t not. So how much more, if we understand what Christ has done for us, will we live for him?
Because at infinite cost to himself, he freed you from guilt. He gave you a future when you had zero future. He gave you the future that he deserves, that will never be in jeopardy. He gave you a worth that cannot be shaken, a status and significance that outshines and outlasts any other status that we could ever earn on our own. He took the weight of your sin.
He took the weight of the world’s sin. He put it all on his back. And now we get to be part of what that same guy is doing in the world? Like, hallelujah! What else would we want to do?
Of course we want to spend our lives making much of him. We want our words to point to him, our work to point to him, our money to point to him, how we treat people to point to him. We want everything about our lives to point to Him who’s done everything for us. Like, everything we got, all the time, all about Him. Why?
Because He was all about us. Everything He had, all the time, for you.
Let’s pray. Father, thank You for Christ.
That a God like you would go all in for people like us, Lord, never ceases to astound me. I pray that it would get down deep in our hearts and it would change us to be people who reflect you, who don’t hesitate to speak of you, the mission that we get to be part of. We use our words, our actions, our money, our lives, everything to glorify you. Knowing that yours is the mission that’ll last and we get to be part of something that really, really, really matters. Pray those things in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
