ROMANS: The Fruit of a Long Obedience

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Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and uh open it up to Romans chapter 15.

Romans 15 · chapter mention

And uh as you know, we're going to the book of Romans uh and we're coming to the last couple of chapters.

And uh I'll begin today in Romans chapter 15, verse 22.

Romans 15:22

And if you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row there somewhere.

I'm on page 950.

Page 950.

How was your spring break?

Have a good spring break?

That was pathetic, by the way.

Just for the record.

If I had if I had a great spring break, I would feel guilty right now after that tepid response.

Don't make me take my belt off and whip all y'all right here in front of the visitors.

Anyway, I want to if you're visiting right now, you're going, what did he just say?

I want to talk to you this morning about the fruit of a long obedience.

The fruit of a long obedience.

And you say, What do you mean?

I think it's necessary that every chance we get that we point out what a well-lived life looks like.

And so if you're 50 or 60, if you're in your 50s or 60s, it's real tempting for you to let church become kind of like a little league game.

You go sit in the bleachers and you're there for everybody else, but you don't get that much out of it.

And the Bible says, don't let it get that way, okay?

But if you're 10, anybody in this room 10 today?

Would you raise your hand?

Anybody?

Any 10-year-olds in here?

Hello?

Yes, I see one over there.

Yes, yes, my man right there.

Hey, if you're 10 years old, and by the way, all these ancient people around you, they were 10 once, my man, okay?

They were.

50 years ago, but they were.

Okay, but here's the deal: it's easy as a 10-year-old to kind of listen and kind of go, whoo, that was right over my head.

No, it won't be.

You can understand the Bible.

And the earlier you start not only understanding the Bible, but experiencing what the Bible says, it's just compounded favor upon your life.

We'll talk about that just in a little bit, okay?

But just don't check out if you're 10 or if you're 15.

You just begin to think, hey, God's inviting you to live a life.

It's kind of like compound interest, but God invites you and I to live a life that the longer we do it, the more consequential it becomes.

Pretty soon, it's like a city set on a hill.

It's what Jesus said.

No one lights a lamp, it puts it under a bushel, they put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to the whole room.

The fruit of a long obedience.

What does that look like?

Well, the Bible tells us, starting in Romans 15, verse 22, Paul says, This is the reason why I've so often been hindered from coming to you.

Romans 15:22

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 little while.

At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints.

For Macedonia and Achai have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.

They were pleased to do it, and it indeed, and indeed they owed it to them.

For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought to also be of service to them in material blessings.

When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you.

I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.

May the God of peace be with you all.

Amen.

What do we mean when we say the fruit of a long obedience?

Well, basically there's five things in the text, and I just want to point them out and call your attention to them this morning.

The first one is the fruit of a long obedience, is it is a life that requires explanation.

A life that requires explanation.

If you're not careful, you can go to church long enough, and one day you look up and you're just sitting around drinking coffee with the already convinced, and there's nothing about your life that you have to explain.

And yet the Bible says that we see in the life of Paul that there's some things that he lived in such a way he had to explain some things.

For example, look at verse 22.

He says, This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you.

What is he talking about?

Look up earlier in verse 18 and you'll see what he's talking about.

He says in verse 18, he explains the reason.

He says, For I will 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, and by the power of the Spirit of God.

Now let me ask you a quick question here that's not really off-task, but uh, anybody in this room, you're in a relationship with somebody that's not a believer, you're somebody you work with, a coworker, a friend or a neighbor, they're not a Christian, and it seems like whatever you say, it doesn't really get through.

They just kind of look at you like, eh, anybody got somebody in your life like that?

Can I see your hand?

Hold it up real high.

Yes.

And so so here's what I want you to do.

I want you to look at those.

Paul lists about three or four things there.

Uh it in the end of verse 19.

He says, that God, you basically, he says, I won't speak of anything, it's that what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience, to bring these unbelievers to faith.

And then he has a little dash there and he offsets it.

He says, by word and deed.

You need to be praying.

Whoever this person is in your life, you need to be asking the Holy Spirit, do they need word or do they need deed?

Like I live on a kind of a at the beginning of a cul-de-sac, and not everybody on my street is a Christian.

I know it's crazy in Sugarland because I thought we all were, right?

Uh but there's a widow that lives two doors down from me, and my family and I take care of her yard and her hedges and everything, and I don't say that to brag, or just that's the most spiritual thing I get to do.

And so, but my neighbors see me over there, and every time they're like, hey man, are you like her yard boy?

Pretty much.

That's exactly right.

So whatever happens, yeah.

If something happens in her house in the middle and something breaks, she'll call me and say, Neil, could you come down here and fix this?

Yes, ma'am, shaking the bush, boss.

I'll be right down there.

But here's the thing: I got people that live across the street from me and down the street from me.

They don't believe in Christianity.

They're not bad people, they're really good people.

They just like, man, it's never really been that important to me.

And so they know that I talk about it and I talk about it to them.

So for me, sometimes it's word and sometimes it's deed.

Like yesterday I was down there and I was like, hey, I want to redo your flower beds and take all this eclectic collection of junk you've got in here.

You can't really see anything.

You got these flat stones, and she's standing out there in her moo-moo.

You know what a moo moo is?

Get you some of that.

She's out there barefooted in her moo-moo, standing there, and she goes, Oh, I don't care, Neil.

You just do whatever you want to do.

I don't go back in the house and watch TV.

And one of my buddies was across the street, and she walked in, and I was like, Okay, I said, Well, I won't do it today, but I'll get on it Sunday afternoon and we'll I'll finish it later this week.

And I walked off and he said, Hey man, what all you gonna do for this woman?

Whatever she needs done.

Why do you do that?

Not because I'm a good person, not because I'm a cre uh a preacher, not because I need karma, but because this is the type of people, the Bible says that you become the Jesus turns you into.

He says you no longer live for yourself.

And he's just like, see, he don't understand words, but he can't deny deeds.

And Paul goes on, he says, Hey, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.

What am I saying?

Don't just rely on your words.

Ask the Holy Spirit and pray those things.

Just say, go, Lord, what's gonna break through to this person?

When would you just would you do something?

We need the power of the Spirit of God at work in this person's life.

He goes on, he says, so that from Jerusalem all the way around to uh lyricum, 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.

And then he starts in in verse 22 this is the reason why I've wanted to come to you, but I haven't been able to come to you for such a long time.

Why?

He says, I've been going where nobody wants to go.

Before Star Trek was boldly going where no one had gone before, Paul's like, I was there.

Okay?

I didn't just go find a church that needed the preacher.

I went and found a region of the country that needed the gospel.

And there's a vast difference in that.

So, what do you see when you look at Paul?

You see a life that requires explanation.

Let me ask you a question.

When's the what's the last spiritual behavior you had to explain to somebody?

What's the last time you did something and other people were kind of like, Wah, what?

Also, just kind of let me just draw your attention to one little word that's not a good word in our culture.

In verse 23, he says, but now since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, have you ever gotten up and just thought, I'm all out of work?

That's right.

This past week was spring break.

Have you ever?

I mean, I've never gotten up and thought, well, I don't know what I'm gonna do today.

This past spring break, I have two children, you know that, a 16 and a 10-year-old.

And I don't shame my, I told my kids, sleep as long as you want.

My 16-year-old at 2 o'clock, we had to go wake her up every day.

Now, if you're I'm almost 50, if you're almost 50, you're just kind of like, but my youngest, my 10-year-old said, Dad, why do you wake up early on Saturday mornings?

I try to sleep in.

My wife says to me every Friday night, sleep in tomorrow.

And I said, I wake up about 6.15, about 6.30, and my mind starts thinking two things.

Number one, I got a lot of work to do.

I starts just going through the list of things I gotta do, I gotta get done.

And secondly, my mind thinks there's a coffee maker in the kitchen and it works.

You put those things together, sweetie, it's a powerful tonic.

Your dad just gets up.

It's not a good or bad thing, it's not a spirit.

I wish I could sleep in, but there's just always something to do.

And she looked at me and she said, I don't know what that means, but anyway.

And it's great.

I don't want my kids to know what that means.

I want them to be kids.

I want them to be 10, I want them to be 16 or whatever, but I'm almost 50, so when I wake up, I'm like, okay, I got nine things that Paul says, I'm all out of work in these regions.

But I don't even want to draw your attention to that.

I just want to I had a seminary professor who used to tell us this, us little preacher boys, he said, now men, by the way, Paul referred to ministry as work.

And the way you define it determines the way you do it.

So don't always call it ministry because ministry is for sissies and work is for men.

And I was just like, I want to take my shirt off and let's get John Wayne and thaw him out and let's just go.

He said, Because when you stand up and preach on Sundays, you're looking into the eyes of men and women who've worked all week, and it would help you relate to them if you've done some work yourself.

I was like, Oh, I wish I had a slim gym right now.

Oh, it's just awesome.

Paul says, Hey, I'm all, and by the way, I got up yesterday morning, and there's nothing really interesting on TV at 6 45 in the morning on a Saturday morning.

So I'm drinking coffee, flipping around the channels, and I come across a pound discussion of three CEOs.

One of them is a CEO of Applebee's, and he made a profound statement.

I got up and kissed my TV.

You should pray for me.

Because if someone was looking in our window, they're like, that guy's a kook, man.

Look at him.

I did.

I just like because he was talking about work, and there's this big debate about minimum wage and how we got to get in.

And he made this profound, simple statement.

He said, You know what?

The problem with Americans and American workers today is work used to be years ago, work was a place where you brought your skill set and you demonstrated to your employer how their company was better because they had you and they paid you a wage for that.

Work is no longer about work, work now is about the employee's need.

And I just found myself, oh, just come here, let me hold you.

He said, No, it's not about you.

The employee no longer has to prove himself to the employer.

The employee has needs and feelings, and somehow I'm responsible for all of that.

Oh, yes, just don't let go yet.

Just hold me.

Uh went back, sat back down, and I just thought, maybe I'm not crazy after all.

Hey, I mean, you go, I go, you go to work tomorrow.

You can't go to your boss and say, hey, you know what?

My tummy hurts a little bit, and I think I'm just gonna turn out my lights and put my head on my desk for an hour.

There are companies in America where you you gotta do that.

You just gotta do that.

He the guy says, Hey, I'm the CEO of a restaurant chain and we've been very successful, but I'm just telling you, he says, This is a minimum wage thing, we're gonna drive ourselves into poverty because we are trying to meet everyone's need, and the responsibility is for the worker to demonstrate their skill set.

And he says, Here's what we're gonna find out nobody has a skill set.

Oh man.

I just and I just sat there and watched, how boring is that.

So finally, my 10-year-old gets up, comes tumbling out about 9:30, and she says, Dad, what are you doing?

I said, Well, I've read half a book and I've been reinforced in what I think about work that won't be good for you and your sister.

You may now watch cartoons.

But Paul says, Hey, it's work.

And by the way, I've done it, I've approached it this way to such a degree that guess what?

I have no longer have any room for work in these regions.

I've worked myself out of a job.

See, you see, a life that requires explanation.

Secondly, the fruit of a long obedience is more planned than life.

More planned than life.

What do you mean?

Most of us are gonna die long before we're gonna quit living long before we die.

Because you're gonna run out of something to give yourself to.

And that's the great thing about Christianity and the gospel.

It's always bigger, better, and beyond us.

The apostle Paul, we read here in Romans 15, he had all kinds of plans.

Look at what he says, starting in the latter part of verse 23.

He says, I've I've 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've enjoyed your company at a little while.

At present, however, I'm going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints.

He says, Hey, I'm longing to come to you, but it's just a pit stop for me because I'm going on to Spain.

And by the way, it's before I do that, I got to go the exact opposite direction over a thousand miles to take this money to these to the to this church over here.

You say, I don't get what.

Let me ask you a question.

When's the last time you had to tell your grandkids I can't come to your game because I got something more important?

Uh-oh.

Don't you feel that?

Some of you just wrote a note.

Easy preacher.

I'm not saying don't go to your grandkids' game.

Go to all the games you can.

I'm just saying that every once in a while, when you got more planned in life, some things ought to kind of impose themselves and say, you know what?

Your grandkids got 12 games this year.

Missing one, it ain't gonna hurt you this time.

See, Paul, he doesn't run out of stuff to do.

He's like, but best we can tell, Paul's in his late 50s when he writes Romans 15.

He by the way, he died at 62.

So he was kind of in the last five years of his life.

Can you imagine being as busy as we just read the last five years of your life?

Because here's what the American worker does.

We work in such a way so that the last five years of our life, we don't have to do anything.

And I'm not against retirement, by the way.

I think you should be setting aside money.

I get asked all the time, is it biblical to retire?

And I said, It depends on how you define retire.

It's gonna be hard to sit around and do anything.

My wife already laments today.

She said to me the other day, You're not gonna like retire one day, are you?

What kind of question is that?

I'm just trying to get my head around the possibility of you being underfoot all day.

You act like I'm a chihuahua or something, underfoot.

Well, you can have that effect on me sometimes.

Listen, lady, I'm preaching a series about marriage later on in a couple months, and I'm gonna talk about you then.

The great writer Jack London said this.

He said, I would rather be ashes than dust.

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

And yet, Jack London died, a raging alcoholic of a morphine overdose.

He was using morphine to medicate the pain of his less than interesting life.

Why?

Because he had more years than he had planned.

Wrote a few good books, and then just faded into obscurity.

A devout atheist started a club where he and his intellectual friends would get together and mock Christianity.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow to a sleepy and permanent planet.

I found him dead on the porch of one of the little cottages on his property.

Because most people do not end well.

Paul uses this little phrase, I've longed for many years.

Let me give you a practical question to think about this morning.

What's still undone in your life?

What is it when you think about doing it, you realize, you know what, I've never done that.

What is something you've always wanted to do, but you've yet to do?

The Bible talks about.

That's why I say to the 15, 16, and 70-year-old, and also to the 10-year-old in here this morning, you should think about this and you should begin to think about, you know what?

It matters that I live the Christian life.

It matters that I do the right thing.

It matters that I go to a church that teaches me the Bible and helps me become who the Bible says I can be.

And the longer I do that, the greater consequence that produces in my life, but also in the life of all of those around me.

Some of you, and this is why my man over here, the 10-year-old, should be thinking, because some of you are living right now in such a way that you are going to either attract or repel a godly woman or a godly man when that time comes.

Women are long.

There's a lot of single women.

I see you see all the time on commercials.

I talk to countless of them who come to church and just say, Bad pastor, there's just not that many godly men out there.

There's a lot of guys that go to church or come to the singles Bible study, but you get them away from church, man, they don't act very godly.

Yeah.

Well, because for them, church is about socialization, it's about finding a wife.

But they're looking for somebody that just is a man of character and consequence and integrity.

Wouldn't you love to, wouldn't you love your dad, your men, wouldn't you love your daughter, bring somebody home, and you say, son, tell me about your relationship with Christ.

And by the way, uh, this is free, but when your daughter meets somebody or your son meets somebody, don't tell yourself this.

Well, the most important thing is that she loves my son, or the most important thing is that he loves my daughter.

That's not the most important thing.

The most important thing is that that person loves God.

Wouldn't you love for some man to come home with your daughter and you walk in and say, Dad, I wanted you to meet somebody.

This is Billy, Billy, this is my dad.

And you're like, I'll take it from here, baby girl.

You go in the kitchen with your mother.

Sit down here on the couch, my man.

And you just say, tell me about your relationship with God, and is that a real living, breathing priority in your life?

Or you just got some spiritual mumbo jumbo because you heard I was a preacher.

And he just smiles back and says, You know what?

I became passionate about my relationship with God when I was 10 years old, sir.

And I'd love to tell you about that because God's favor has been on my life since I can remember.

I became a Christian when I was seven, and I just began to deepen in my spiritual understanding when I was ten.

How many of you men would like a young man to talk to you like that?

Can you imagine?

You'd be like, honey, send some beers in here.

Me and the boy are gonna.

You and baby girl go to dinner.

Me and me and Skippy here are gonna spend the night together eating beef jerky.

This is what the Bible says.

You okay?

Want to get that picture out of your head?

Some of you single women, can you imagine coming back and your your boyfriend and your dad are sitting with their shirts off with Pap's blue ribbon, with our arm around each other?

I like this one.

He's a keeper.

That's better than what some of you are gonna have to endure.

He shows up, you're like, I'm not even opening the screen door.

Go back and get in your car.

This is what the Bible says.

This is what this is a picture the Bible puts before us about a long obedience.

This is the 92nd Psalm.

He says, the righteous flurry like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

They're planted in the house of the Lord.

They flourish in the courts of our God.

They still hear this, they still bear fruit in old age.

They were ever full of sap and green to declare that the Lord is upright.

He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Did you hear that?

We're talking about senior adults here.

They still bear fruit in old age.

They're full of sap and green.

They're not dry and brittle and easily offended.

They're full of sap, vigor, and vitality.

They're raring to go.

They declare that the Lord is upright.

He is my rock, and there's no unrighteousness in him.

See, when you talk about the fruit of a long obedience, it's a life that requires explanation, but it's also more planned than life.

This person Who lives a long obedience?

They're not sitting around figuring what they're gonna do because the gospel has ramifications until the day they die.

The third fruit is just a person you can trust.

Look at verse 26.

You still with me?

A person you can trust.

You say, Well, that what that's no big deal.

I used to think that too, until my wife and I got life insurance, and they said, Well, this is a kind of a negative question, but in the case that there's a tragedy and you and your wife both lose your life, who do you want to raise your children?

And the cat looked up and said, Now understand, you have two older brothers over my dead body.

And she has a sister over her dead body.

My kids are gonna go crazy.

And then you start thinking through your list of all the people you got on speed dial.

And you can say you trust them.

Do you want them raising your kids?

Some of you are getting angry right now just at the thought of that.

This is what the Bible says about Paul in verse 26.

He says, For Macedonian and Achaia, I've been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.

By the way, the reason they were poor among the saints at Jerusalem, well, we'll get to that in just a minute, but just note that.

He says these two churches were pleased to contribute financially to this church that was in a totally different city.

They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them.

Why?

For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they also ought to be of service to them in material blessings.

In other words, if, hey, the Gentiles benefited spiritual blessings from these Jews, now it just makes sense that they should, out of their material abundance, they should give back and bless them.

You say, What do you mean?

Paul is a man that two different churches say, we're going to give you money, and you go on this over a thousand mile journey, and we have no doubt that it's going to get there.

It's a person you can trust.

I mean, I my wife just got a new van, and you go to finance something today in America, and you tell them you're a preacher, and you look at the look on their face.

They're like, Do you have a credit score?

Yeah, I understand.

And then you ask them, man, why do preachers have it?

And they said, preachers and used car dealers are in the same category.

Why?

Because yeah, take that home to mom.

And so he said they're just notoriously untrustworthy.

Same thing happened when we bought our house.

We refinanced a couple years ago.

Take advantage of the rate going down.

Uh, do you have proof of income?

Yeah, I pastor a church.

Do you have proof of income?

Okay.

I could tell them, hey, I'm in a motorcycle gang.

All right, great, come on in, we can work something out.

Here's why.

Because, and tragically it's true to a lot to a large degree.

A lot of people in ministry are not trustworthy people.

Paul's not one of them.

He was very, he's a person you can trust.

Here's what I'm saying: the longer you walk with God, the more everyone around you should look to you and respect you.

When you walk into work tomorrow, you should have a measure of respect from your co-workers.

That's the fruit of a long obedience.

Now, let me just point out a few things in the text that I don't have time to go into.

First of all, I want you to notice the supernatural nature of giving.

The supernatural nature of giving.

You say what do you mean?

It's Gentiles that are giving money to Jews.

Now, in the church at Rome, that was a big deal.

The Jews and the Gentiles were kind of fighting and they're kind of at each other.

Remember a couple weeks ago when I preached, I talked about it's not okay to have a Jewish congregation over here and a Gentile congregation over here.

Remember that?

They both got to come together and they got to put aside their differences.

We talked about Christ over culture.

Remember that?

And this is what he's saying here.

He said, hey, this is supernatural because to the naked eye, to the natural mind, this doesn't make sense.

But when God has your heart, he also has your checkbook.

Second thing I want you to notice is non-discerning benevolence.

That's what I meant.

I pointed to, I paused a minute ago and said, you know, there were the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.

The church at Jerusalem was financially strapped because they gave and gave and gave and gave, and they didn't practice a lot of discernment in the way they gave.

And so every once in a while, people will come to our church and they'll ask for benevolence, is what it's called.

They'll ask for financial assistance.

And this is a very generous church.

We have a benevolence team and we have a process and we have an application you have to go through.

And people always say, Why do I have to fill out some application for the church to help me financially?

And we say with a smile on our face, because we are charged by God to be good stewards of God's money.

And if you really need this and you're not trying to scam somebody and get over on somebody, this will be no problem to you.

So you can fill out the form or you can walk out the door, either way.

And you may think, well, that's just kind of harsh.

You have no idea how many people try to scam churches.

Because they think we're just we're a bunch of fat guys who couldn't get real jobs, so we came and worked down here.

And they just make up outlandish stories.

And sometimes you just gotta smile and go, We're not gonna be able to help you.

Well, why not?

Because I don't think you're telling the truth.

Well, what kind of church is this?

One that tries to practice discernment.

That door over there's been leading out of the building, it's been slammed a few times.

It's hard to slam that door.

It's got a closer on it.

I'm like, whoa, I'm glad he didn't want to fight.

Last thing you see is you give materially as you receive spiritually.

You give materially as you receive spiritually.

He says, Hey, the Gentiles have received a spiritual, they're spiritually from the Jews, and it's natural for them to want to give back of their material possessions.

Got a call a couple weeks ago.

I had an interesting conversation.

I won't go into as much detail as I did in the first service.

And part of the conversation, the guy, he's a youth pastor, he said, Hey, I want to talk to you about doing our camp in 2015.

I'm like, dude, Jesus will come by then.

I'm too old.

I just get somebody with skinny jeans that's gonna get up with with with cool hair.

I don't have any hair.

I cut all my hair off.

And he's like, Yeah, I heard that.

How's that working for you?

Awesome.

Takes me four minutes to get ready in the morning.

I'm out the door.

I'm at the age where it's all about functionality, not appearance.

He goes, What does that mean?

I said, My wife is stuck.

Now, if she shaves her head, we got a problem.

And he said, Well, why don't you want to do our camp?

I said, because I'll tell you what, I would pray about doing your camp if you would agree to this.

Don't pay me an honorarium.

Uh, you just tell your students, hey, at the end of the week, you're gonna give back to this man as you've received from him spiritually.

He said, What kind of crazy idea is that?

I said, It's right out of Romans.

But it's in other places in the Bible.

And he said, Well, what if kids don't get anything out of it?

They ain't got to give a dime.

Well, I don't know if I could sell my adults on that.

I said, Are you kidding me?

You cut the price of camp by about 40 or 50 bucks and say, we're not gonna have to collect money for the speaker.

He's just gonna come and if your kids get something out of it, we're gonna take up an offering, they can give whatever, give in proportion to the way you've received.

Oh man, I wish you'd just let me just give you a check.

Nope.

You're not gonna change your mind, are you?

Nope, I'm old and it's my right.

I don't think I can do that.

I can't do your camp.

And I said, by the way, I'm trying to connect cause with effect.

That's how you raise a generation of tithers.

If kids understand what the Bible says about money.

See, you see in Paul this person that you can trust.

Fourthly, you see the favor of God.

Look at verse 29.

You said, What do you mean?

The fruit of a long obedience is a life that requires explanation.

It's more planned than life.

They've always got something that God's calling them into, involving them in.

Thirdly, a person you can trust, and fourthly, the favor of God, verse 29.

Paul says, I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

Now hear that again.

I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

And by the way, he's not making some spiritual mumbo jumbo statement about himself.

He's not like, I am coming and I'm bringing the thunder with me.

No.

No, he was very, very humble and frail.

Matter of fact, in the next sentence, he begins to plead with them to join him in prayer.

When he talks about the favor of God, really, the the biblical word for what Paul is saying is on his life is hesed.

Don't say bless you.

It's hassid.

That's the way it's pronounced.

It's hesed.

It's this, it basically, if I had to give you a definition, this would be a biblical definition of hasid.

It's God's loving kindness that expresses itself in loyal love, constant provision and divine favor.

Let me say that again.

It's God's loving kindness that expresses itself in loyal love, constant provision and divine favor.

Earlier, uh Keith O'Connell stood up here at the beginning of our service, and it's raining today, so it's kind of it takes a little bit more time to get in here.

Some of you may not have heard the announcement that we're starting a class for Financial Peace University starting next Sunday, and Keith is going to be leading that class.

It's an incredible class, and I would highly recommend that everybody take the class because it's that life-changing.

And it's led by a guy named Dave Ramsey.

Have you ever heard of Dave Ramsey?

Any of y'all ever heard Dave Ramsey on the radio?

If you've ever listened to Dave Ramsey, you've heard this.

People call in and he'll say, Who am I talking to?

And she'll say, This is Colleen from Indiana.

And he'll say, Hello, Colleen.

Dave Ramsey says the same thing every time, and it is better than I deserve.

Better than I deserve.

And people, I think people ask him just because they want.

And really, what I what Dave Ramsey is saying is the favorite, God's been so good to me.

I got so much more than I ever could even fathom about.

I want you to go back to when you were like 20 years old.

All the old people in here that are my age, we're old people, by the way.

My my daughter informed me, hey dad, you walk like an old man.

You've been around your mom too much.

I said, it's just the first 20 steps in the morning.

After that, I'm good to go.

But how many of you can go back to when you were 19 or 20 years old and think about what you were like, what you thought about, the type of person you thought you wanted to marry?

Remember that?

Yeah, some of you are like, no, no, shut up.

No, think about it.

Think about it.

Now, come and stand where you are right now, whether you're 58 or 67 or 44.

How many of you understand, Hasid, that God's loving kindness, He has loyally loved you, He has provided for you.

How many of you in this room could say with Dave Ramsey, I'm doing better than I deserve?

Can I see your hand?

Leave them up for a second.

Look around.

See, because in America, we up we've made a full-time job out of feeling sorry for ourselves.

Put your hands down.

I almost had to retire because I, as your pastor, and just go find another church.

And because I think these people are finally understanding what I'm what I mean.

I got a text from one of our members that just texted me and said, I should be burning in hell right now.

But instead, I'm in California watching the sun go down, eating at an outdoor cafe, sharing pina coladas with friends.

That great, another lush.

That's all we need.

But my favorite part is that he understood, hey, I don't deserve this.

I should be burning in hell right now because for because I'm I'm by nature that sinful.

But God has that much acid for me.

And he's loyally loved me, even when I didn't love him.

Some of you in this room can remember going out to sin, and before you left your apartment to go out and sin, you prayed to God, God, please don't discipline me too much for what I'm about to do.

Don't you?

That's amen from the back.

That's Hesed.

That's Hesed.

You knew better and did it anyway.

I knew better and did it anyway.

And God could have, but He didn't.

That's Hesed.

That's what that's what you see in Paul.

That's what Paul's trying to say.

See, Hesed is a quality of life that moves someone to act for the benefit of someone else without considering this question.

What's in it for me?

If you get around somebody that you experience to be consistently generous and winsome and free, that person has favor, has Hesed on their life.

And they understand it.

And it's not anything they did, it's that God's finally found somebody who's not going to worry about all the small things because God's going to entrust them with bigger things.

And the small things are going to take care of themselves.

That's what Paul says.

That's what he means when he says in verse 29, hey, I know that when I come to you, I'll come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

Fifthly and finally, the fruit of a long obedience is simply this: a person of prayer.

A person of prayer.

He starts off in verse 30.

You still with me?

He says in verse 30, I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf.

His prayer is Trinitarian.

It covers the Godhead.

He covers Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

And then he says, Here's what I pray, verse 31, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea.

That prayer was not answered.

Did you know that?

When Paul writes this, three years later he shows up back in Rome and he's a prisoner.

Because religious people that didn't know God hated him because he was teaching the truth, and people were getting free because of it, of religion and all the nonsense, man-made-up rules, and they took him by violence.

But he says, pray this.

Because he knew the consequence of what he was about to do, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints.

In other words, there's a schism between the Gentiles and the Jews.

And if I bring money to the Jews in this Roman church and say, this is from the Gentiles, if they don't accept it, it just reinforces the division.

Pray that they'll receive financial help from these people.

He says finally, in verse 32, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.

Let me ask you just an off-the-cuff question.

Whose company, who is it that when you spend time with them, you're refreshed by them?

That's a weird question, isn't it?

There's some people you spend time with and it's not refreshing.

Y'all kind of scrolling through the list.

Well, not them, not them, not them.

Him but not her, her, but not him.

It's hard to find people that you your wife jives with the woman and you jive with the man.

Have you figured that out yet?

Some of you are like, I'm not making a move.

Who is it that when you because see, that's part of a biblical community.

You can't be everyone's best friend, but you ought to have some people when you're with them.

You walk away and you're like, Yeah, I'm glad I did that.

That was good.

Paul says to these people in Rome, hey, I can't wait to be refreshed by you.

He's a person of prayer.

He says, Hey, I got a lot going on, I got so much going on that I need God to kind of intervene in some of these situations.

It makes me, it reminds me of what Jesus said in John 15, 7.

He said, If if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it'll be done unto you.

Now, there's a that that's not a we're not a name it and claim it church, oh, we're just gonna speak things into existence, but we do believe the Bible.

And what Jesus is inviting us to do here is very simply, I believe, is to let's move beyond all we pray about is our fears and our needs, and let's kind of go into this realm and pray about what we wish for.

He says, if you abide in me, let me tell you this if you abide in me and my words abide in you, that will change what you wish for.

But you'll still have some desires of your heart, some things that you wish for.

And so I want you to take a moment and just ask yourself, is there anything, what is the thing that you've been wishing for?

And don't just wish for that.

Pray about that.

Because Jesus invites us into this, and you say, Well, I don't, I don't know what you mean.

I think every one of us, I think prayer is one of those things you can fall asleep to very easily.

Does that make sense?

You kind of start taking it for granted.

You think, yeah, pray, okay.

Thank you, preacher.

We're supposed to pray.

We've never heard that before.

Mix in something fresh, my man.

I can fall asleep to prayer, okay?

Prayer's something I do over my kids, it's something I do before meals, it's something I do with the staff, it's something I do in my office when I study.

I pray with people, prayed with a friend of mine in the lobby just a minute ago.

He because I've been quick into this whole thing of prayer, because I went to a wedding last Saturday.

I didn't just go to the wedding, I did the wedding last Saturday.

Right here in this room.

And then the reception was at the Marriott Town Center down here.

They said, we got free valet parking.

Drove my old beat-up truck down and got up and threw them the keys.

Don't scratch it.

And the guy's like, What do you want to do with this?

And don't mess with my radio either.

I got it set just like I want.

So go in there, they got food spread out.

They got some woman making up fresh guacamole.

I saw Lance William eat five plates full of that.

I was like, dude, you're gonna stroke out right here, put it down.

And then, and I was like, this isn't all we're gonna have.

There's more food coming.

Then they opened the doors to the ballroom and they had nice, beautiful table decorations.

And I was like, a man did not decorate this room.

And they had carving stations of prime rib.

He had a slab of that, about that long on there, and I got I got up there to my plate, and he goes, Where would you like it?

I said, right here on my plate.

He said, Excuse me.

I said, just put that knife and fork under that bad boy and just sit right.

I'll carve it myself at my table.

Oh, you're very funny.

No, I'm not being funny.

I'm gonna eat half of it and take the rest home.

Well, I got my plate and I walked around and I was looking for a place to sit down, and there was uh some little kid's like, hey, hey, sitting with us.

No, he's sitting with you.

I ain't babysitting.

So I go over and I see Lance and Melissa at a table there on that end, and there's three people on the sides, and there's two empty chairs on this end.

I thought, I'll just sit right here.

Well, I sit down.

There's a white-haired gentleman right there that I didn't know.

And he gets up from sitting next to his wife and comes and sits by me.

And the wife looks like, and I was like, I don't know either.

And he just said, Hello, I'm JD.

And I was like, I love people like this.

And so I said, Hi, JD, I'm the Eagles.

I know who you are.

I enjoyed that service.

I said, Well, thank you.

I enjoy weddings, I think it's a powerful covenant, and we're just standing there talking.

And I said, Well, tell me about you, JD.

What do you do?

And he said, I raised culinary herbs for the restaurant industry.

And I said, I've never met anybody that did that in my life.

I want to know more about it.

And he started telling me about arugula.

I grew up poor.

There was one kind of lettuce, just iceberg lettuce, and my wife now tells me that has no nutritional value.

Memo to you, when you're on food stamps, the phrase nutritional value never comes out of your mouth.

You might as well just eat.

We are not eating, so I don't eat iceberg lettuce.

I'd never have since I got married.

My wife's like, puh, we're not doing that.

Okay.

And so he's telling me about arugula and all these spices and herbs that he raises.

When he said I raise herbs, I thought, I bet you do.

Whatever you gotta call it, Mr.

Stranger.

And so we got to talking, and I said, Well, tell me about you.

I said, You sound like a person of faith.

He goes, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a Christian.

And he said, You know what?

But I haven't believed in the power of prayer.

And I thought, that's kind of weird.

And so I thought, let's just chase that rabbit and see where it goes.

And I said, What do you mean you don't believe in the power of prayer?

He goes, Well, I used to not believe in the power of prayer.

I said, Does something happen to change?

Because you said I used to not believe that means you now believe.

You better know I do.

And he I said, tell me about that.

And he said, Well, I had a rough year uh this past year.

I uh had I was diagnosed with cardiopulmonary disease, COPD, and then I had a stroke and I went blind in my right eye.

And he's sitting right there on my left, so I'm just immediately just looking at his right eye, like, you know, you're trying not to look, but you're looking, you're like, Hello.

And so I'm I'm sitting there drinking my tea and eating my salad, and we're talking, and and he says, uh, I said, Well, tell me about it.

He said, Well, and uh, so I I was blind and I just was like, well, okay, I got one left.

Hope it doesn't go bad.

And he said, and I was going in right here in Missouri City, he lives right here in Missouri City.

He said, I was going in some hardware feed store over there.

He said, I was thinking I got four things, and he told me I was getting this, this, this, and this.

And I walked in.

There's a man standing there and said, How are you?

How are you doing?

He said, Good.

He goes, You know what you need?

And he goes, Yeah, I'm getting this, this, this, and this.

What about you?

And the stranger said, I don't need anything.

I don't even know what I'm doing in this store.

And he's like, uh.

And then the stranger, it gets weirder.

The stranger said, Excuse me, sir, have you been sick?

JD said, Well, yeah, I had a stroke and went blind to my right eye.

He said, About that time, the guy just stuck his hand out and he said, I shook his hand, and he just leaned up and prayed about a four-second prayer in my ear, walked off.

I was like, Well, that was different.

He said, Got my stuff, I got home that night.

I was plugging my phone in, and I thought, Dad gummit.

He said, My blur, my vision was blurry, and I thought, I'm going blind to my other eye.

This is great.

I've served God all these years, been a faithful church member, and now this happens.

He said, The next morning I got up and he said, I like to go outside and look at the stars when I drink my coffee.

I said, You get up when it's dark, don't you?

He said, Of course.

And he said, I was standing out there sipping my coffee, looking at the stars, and I thought, well, hot dang.

He said, I put my hand over my left eye and my right eye was healed.

And I'm like, So you've been able to see me stare at your right eye this whole time.

And he looked at me and he said, Yep.

That ain't fair.

You can't say, I can't see out of my right eye.

You ran the okie doke on me, JD.

That's all right, we're friends.

And then he moved back over, sat by his wife, ate his food.

Why did I tell you that?

Not so you'll think, I want to follow you around.

Strange stuff happens to you.

Let me ask you this question.

We'll be done.

Who's for being done?

Let's be done.

It's a rainy day.

We've been here long enough.

If you really believed what Jesus said, when he says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish to be.

What it changed the way you pray and what you pray about.

Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

You're all-knowing, all-powerful, Father.

He knows everything that has anything to do with anything.

And he longs to reveal that.

He looks for people he can reveal that to depart now and be one of those people.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.