Romans 15:1-33 – Romans

This reading is from Romans fifteen, and uh the question I want to pose to uh our younger members of the audience is what is Paul's ambition?

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scripture we might have hope.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

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 is said, 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, to him will the uh to in him will the Gentiles hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

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 to 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 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 Ilycrium, Ilyricum, 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 contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem, for they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them.

For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to 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 by s 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 might 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.

So reads God's word.

Earlier this week I was uh I was away, it was the first time since uh since Toby was born, and I was away for a night with a with a group of pastors who uh are called the the Irish Gospel Partnership.

Uh the Irish Gospel Partnership was was started maybe seven or so years ago as essentially a a prayer fellowship and uh uh a group of pastors who had the same desire to see uh churches planted in areas around Ireland where there was no gospel witness.

And uh we come from different backgrounds, different denominational um affiliations, so some Presbyterians, some Baptists, some independent evangelical, uh some Anglicans uh like uh like myself, and we were coming together to discuss and to strategize and to pray and to plan about how we might continue to advance the the work of the gospel here in Ireland.

We have differences, uh we have points of disagreement, whether it's about uh things like baptism and the Lord's Supper or uh mode of worship.

We meet with some guys who are Psalms only, they don't even have instruments in their church and they only sing Psalms on a on a Sunday, or uh people who disagree with regards to church and government.

And yet one of the things that is beautiful about the Irish Gospel Partnership is we seek to embody what Paul has been talking about through Romans 14 into 15, verse 1, of not just seeking to please ourselves, that we haven't uh just cut ourselves off from that desire to collaborate and to be generous with those who we call brother and sister.

Uh, we want to press into that relationship that we have and to be generous to one another for kingdom ends, uh, because the kingdom of the Lord Jesus is bigger than any one of our tribes or associations or denominations.

And not only that, but it's not just that we want to uh to be with one another, but we want to actively, where we can, be a blessing to one another, to share resources.

Maybe that's best practice.

Well, we tried this and uh and that didn't really work, don't do that.

Or here's some tools that we've thought through, maybe to do with charity application or visa management.

And here's some of the things that we've thought through.

Can we can we bless you by by giving you that information?

A desire to collaborate and to be generous because we're we're passionate not just about seeing our own particular uh little grouping thrive.

We want to see the kingdom of Jesus thrive here in Ireland.

And so we think of this image of uh the saying a rising tide raises all the boats.

Well, we want to contribute to that rising tide that actually is a blessing to the Baptists and to the Presbyterians and the Anglicans and the Independents, uh, so that as they work in their little parts of Ireland and have their particular local ministries, that they are empowered and best facilitated to make Jesus known.

And that that culture, that culture of generosity and kingdom-mindedness, that desire to collaborate with one another, if you've been around City Church for any length of time, I hope that you see that that's part of our own heart here, even amongst us.

You know, when when it comes to being a to being a member of City Church, uh there are there are things that we uh that we hold tight to and securely to, but there's a whole bunch of stuff that we're that we're pretty open-handed with.

You can be a member of City Church and you can disagree with one another on uh different things.

Again, baptism being a chief one uh uh that comes to comes to mind.

Some of you are here and you are you're way more charismatic than I am.

Uh, thank you for for being here uh and for for following a uh comparatively buttoned-up pastor compared to to some Pentecostal ministries.

Uh you might be here and you might prefer a more exuberant, exuberant form of worship.

You think differently about church government, or you think differently about the role of women, but we have this culture of wanting to maintain harmony and unity, to to flex where we can for one another, to be generous to one another, to do what Paul's saying here, not just wanting to please our ourselves, even though we have these differences.

I've been hearing some some chatter about uh the fact that I'm getting ordained next Sunday evening.

Um if you don't know what that is, don't don't worry too much.

But there is an ordination service next Sunday evening at 5 45.

I'll share more information about that.

But I also realize that that's actually raised some questions.

My wife is leaving in protest.

Ordained?

Oh no.

Uh I know that that's raised some questions about well, who are we as a church and what does what does that mean?

What's the core of City Church?

What is it that we're that we're passionate about?

And it's actually in God's providence that Paul lays out this chapter before us.

Don't worry, we're not going to move methodologically through all 33 verses.

But what Paul lays out in chapter 15 is the very heart and core of gospel ministry, of what it is to give ourselves to the advancement of Christ's kingdom.

But what is gospel ministry?

What is this thing that Paul is passionate about?

What is this thing that we should be passionate about?

Paul lays it out here in this chapter.

You know, he's been showing us in the last three chapters this importance of unity and harmony within the people of God, of the the beauty of love as the fulfillment of the law.

And all of those things create a culture in a church in which the gospel flourishes for the kingdom of Jesus.

And so I want to pull out a few things from this passage, um, quite quite briefly, I hope, um, to to help flesh out what is the very core and nature of a church like ours that is seeking to be a gospel ministry, a ministry that is centered on and passionate about the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus.

Because I think that's what this chapter is about.

And this morning, if you're taking notes, I have six points.

None of the points have subpoints.

You'll be glad to know.

But I do, however, have six points.

Not however, I'm not apologizing.

Here we go.

Six points, 33 verses.

I could have had 33 points, I don't, right.

First, the nature of gospel ministry is to offer hope.

The nature of gospel ministry, what we do here as a church, what we want to uh to be a part of with things like the Irish Gospel Partnership is to offer hope to the world.

You look around a city like ours and you can see actually that we live in a in a hope-starved world.

There are places and people that uh that feel lost and forgotten.

And we all need hope.

Hope for the future calls us forward, it gives us a reason to uh to get up of the morning.

It gives us purpose and and meaning.

And Paul is concerned that people would have hope three times in this passage, verse 4, verse 12, verse 13 he is emphasizing the need to give people hope.

And you'll see in your Bible, or you'll notice it, that there's there's bits of text that are that are set out differently, they're set out more poetically.

That's why he's quoting the Old Testament, and those Old Testament quotes from the book of Isaiah and from Psalms are emphasizing hope not just for the religious people, but for the non-religious people, the Gentiles.

Paul's saying, actually, God wants non-religious people, people who who don't have any sort of church background, who have never heard the name of Jesus, to actually have the hope that Jesus offers.

And so verse 12, the root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him will the Gentiles hope.

Paul's saying that that the coming of Jesus, the arriving of the Messiah, that is, uh, that is God's chosen king from out of this Jewish heritage, is the hope for all people.

And Isaiah lays out this promise that more and more people will come to hope in him.

Paul is his heart is breaking for those who are not religious, who are not Christians, because they are without hope in the world.

Now you might be here as somebody who wouldn't describe yourself as a Christian and want to respond to me and say, Well, I have I have plenty of hope.

Thank you very much.

But if that hope is placed in a person or a situation or a circumstance, then it is ultimately hope that in the end will be lost.

If your hope is in your career, your intellect, your ability to achieve, and then you fail, what does that do to your hope?

If your if your hope is in this relationship that you're in, if that's where you get your your reason for living and then you lose it, well, what happens to your to your hope?

Paul's offering you, he's offering all of us a hope that transcends circumstance because it's based ultimately in the Lord Jesus.

Gospel ministry is about offering hope, a hope that is secure, not just wishful thinking.

Have a look with me at verse 4.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

Where do we get hope from?

Hope comes from the scriptures.

Do you see what Paul's saying?

Paul's saying that actually everything that was written down there, everything that is written in this book is designed to fuel and stir and nurture and cultivate and catalyze hope.

You should come away from reading the scriptures with more hope.

Hope of the promise of renewal, hope of sins forgiven, hope of a new start for your life.

Why do we teach the Bible?

Because it's written for our instruction to show us more of who Jesus is, to what end?

That we might have hope.

And so gospel ministry, if it is to be a hope-offering ministry, has to be, has to have the scriptures at the center.

It has to prize the Bible and see it as a precious thing.

It has to be taught to people.

If we're not teaching the Bible, we are not a ministry that is offering hope to a hopeless world.

A church that preaches the pastor's blessed thoughts that he arrived at some point on a Thursday might sound motivating and inspirational, but if he's not allowing the scriptures to speak, if he or she is not allowing God to speak for himself, then he's not offering hope to a hopeless world.

Gospel ministry is founded on the scriptures, that those who do not know Jesus might have hope.

That is gospel ministry.

That is the ministry that advances the kingdom of Jesus and that we seek to embody here at City.

This is a great, this is a great sermon today.

If you're just what is city about?

It's these six things.

Number two, the purpose of gospel ministry is to offer people to God.

It is to offer people to God.

Cast your eye down to verses 15 and 16.

But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given to 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 offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

What's Paul saying is that is our offering here as Christians.

You Christians, we don't make a sin offering to try and uh and clean up our own soul, expunge our sin.

We don't need to make a sin offering.

It's being made, right?

It's been made by the Lord Jesus.

He died once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

The sin offering is being made, so that's that's not our offering.

Some people also wrongly think that the Christian ministry is offering to the people things like the sacraments of baptism and and holy communion.

But that's not the gospel the offering that God asks for either.

That is not gospel ministry.

To think that the nature of gospel ministry is to offer any sort of priestly service of bread and wine.

Christ is not offered again on any table.

That is not gospel ministry.

No, no, the offering that Paul is talking about is bringing people to God.

The purpose of gospel ministry is to bring others to Jesus.

That's his, as he calls it, his priestly service.

I think here what he's drawing on is, well, what is a priest?

Well, a priest is essentially a go-between, a mediator.

He's saying, I'm the go-between.

We're the go-between between God and the people around you who don't know Jesus.

Again, do you realize that you are the only Christian that your colleagues know?

You are the only Christian that perhaps even that your family knows.

And you have this priestly service of bringing people to God.

Gospel ministry is, again, as we said it stated, it's the first phrase in our mission is to connect people to Jesus.

That's what gospel ministry is.

Again, there has been some confusion and questions asked about whether or not my ordination as an Anglican minister means that I am becoming a Catholic, a Roman Catholic.

No.

For that priestly ministry is not a gospel ministry.

We are not offering Christ again on any table.

Rather, we are offering people to God.

Nor is this ministry simply reserved for me or for Paul.

The New Testament consistently emphasizes that this priestly ministry is something that all believers participate in.

That we are all charged with the task of introducing Jesus to people, bringing People to Jesus, bringing them under the sound of the gospel.

And so as you take these carol service cards, you think, okay, I've got a person in my mind.

They said no the last three years.

I'm going to give it to them again.

Maybe they'll say no, but it's my it's my priestly service to try and bring this person under the sound of the gospel that they might come to know Jesus.

That is the purpose of gospel ministry.

Any ministry that celebrates any sacrifice other than the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus is not a gospel ministry.

Any ministry that offers the works of our hands to God is not a gospel ministry.

Rather, we offer people to Him.

The purpose and goal of gospel ministry is to bring people to God.

Third, gospel ministry does not boast in itself.

So the nature of gospel ministry is to offer hope.

The purpose of gospel ministry is to bring people to God.

Thirdly, gospel ministry does not boast in itself.

It can be such a temptation, slightly less so, uh, with um the Irish Gospel Partnership, but certainly at other pastors' gatherings and other pastors' conferences, I say this by way of confession, there is, there's always kind of the there's the slight kind of there's the comparison, and you get the humble boast.

Uh you get the the pastor who says, uh, oh, you had 50 people last Sunday, praise God.

We had 300.

Just that last little phrase just to get that little comparison in there, that little humble boast.

Oh brother, that's wonderful.

Glory to Jesus.

Yeah, we had we baptized 14 people.

It'd be such a temptation to take pride in what happens amongst us, to see it as our achievement.

But listen to what Paul says in verses 17 and 18.

In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast, sorry, I have reason to be proud, same thing, 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.

It was expected in Paul's day that he would show off the achievements of his ministry.

It's part of the reason why the folks in Corinth just can't get their head around Paul, because they're quite a boastful uh city culture, and he comes along just talking about how many times he got beaten up, and you know, how the fact that his eyes don't really work right and he got shipwrecked.

And they're like, oh, great.

Uh but he keeps on boasting in weakness.

He confounds their expectations, and we see that in embryo here.

Paul does boast, he does have a kind of pride here, but he boasts in what?

He boasts in what Christ has done through him, not in his own influence or ability or success or the expanding of his sphere of ministry.

It is a pride that is filled with gratitude, that he would even be used for the advancement of Christ's kingdom.

In a few months' time, you can get you can kind of jot this down in your diary.

In a few months' time, I'll have our church weekend away.

If you don't have never been, you should come.

28th of February to the um uh to the 2nd of March.

We go away to to a great retreat center.

But imagine for a second uh that we're there next year, and uh for the first time ever, I decide, you know what?

I'm sticking on my trainers and I'm playing football in the hall with the lads, right?

And so we have this five-aside football competition, and I'd probably be the last one to be picked, right?

So I'll be be there, and somebody say to Maximo might take pity on me and say, you know, come be come be part of our team.

And I mostly stay out of the way because you know you've got you've got folks like like Owen and Maximo and Malin and Jared and also, and they're they're running rings round round people.

And but our team gets to the final of the of the little mini five-side tournament that we've got going on that day, and and it's it's one-one between our team and whoever we're playing against.

It's the dying seconds of the game.

And Maximo here, just in a moment of blind confusion, passes the ball to me, chips it across, and it ricochets off my knee and goes into the goal.

And we win.

Ross Neal blows the whistle, and we've won the tournament.

It would be silly of me, uh dude anyway, let me tell you.

It would be silly of me, wouldn't it, to boast that the willing the winning goal was scored as a result of my great athleticism and footballing prowess.

It would be wrong for me to go around chess boss, score the winning goal, you know that I would totally do that.

But for the purposes of this, I'm saying that that would be wrong.

I would totally do that.

But if I was just going around taking great pride that the team won because of how great I am, at some point you'd all be kind of looking at one another, going, this guy's an idiot.

Maybe you say that anyway.

But he's he's got his he's got the priorities wrong.

It wasn't really about him.

It only bounced off his knee.

Actually, the much more talented guy was Maximo.

He didn't need to use me.

He could have put it on that top left corner without me.

But he chose, because he had, you know, it was filled with pity for the fat guy running along behind them to score the winning goal.

In a world full of self-promotion and of self-promoting church leaders.

Gospel ministry rejoices in the privilege of being used by Jesus in a way that glorifies him, that boasts in not what we have accomplished, but in what he has accomplished through us by his power.

Fourth, gospel ministry is driven by holy ambition.

Verses 21 20 and 21.

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.

When um when men and women were were settling the great American frontier, one of the things that they would uh they would do is they would they would look to the east, and if they could see the chimney of another person's farmhouse, they would move a little bit further west until that chimney was out of view, and then they would settle there.

Then the next person would come along and kind of leapfrog over them and move further west and pioneer another settlement.

And that's in part how the West was won, how the West, the frontiers were were founded.

And Paul in this passage is conveying a similar pioneering spirit for the sake of the gospel.

You know, it would be a mistake to think that Christians shouldn't have any ambition, to confuse ambition with pride.

It can be.

And certainly some pride can be uh can be mixed, uh, some ambition can be mixed with pride.

But it would be a mistake to think that gospel ministry shouldn't have any ambition at all.

Or to think that ambition is is inherently wrong.

That is not necessarily the case.

Gospel ministry ought to have a pioneering spirit.

It ought to be ambitious, ambitious to break new ground, to pioneer new ministries, to reach unreached people.

That's what what Paul is about here.

Yeah, elsewhere, Paul talks about the goodness of partnering with others in ministry.

He says again in Corinthians, he says, you know, um uh Apollos uh planted and Paul watered, but God gave the growth.

Here he says kind of something slightly different.

He says, Well, actually, I don't want to build on anybody else's foundation.

Both can be true, but what Paul is communicating here is a kind of a holy restlessness to see more people reached, to see the name of Christ preached where Christ is not known.

And this is and has to be part of our DNA here at City Church.

It's part of the reason, like as far as we are able, we try not to encourage sheep stealing amongst us.

I know that you have probably moved in from another part of the world as a Christian and have settled at City Church, but around the city, we don't tend to kind of say, well, actually, you come to come to our church rather than going to the church that you're that you're in, because having that pioneering spirit is not just about kind of swapping the sheep from different pens from one to the to the next.

It's not about just putting on a better show to attract more people to your gathering.

We're absolutely, can I say, we're absolutely about sheep rescue.

Some sheep are under some shepherds who are not practicing gospel ministry.

And in that case, we want to welcome them with open arms and have them heal and grow and be cared for.

But beyond that, we're restless.

There's not enough churches in Dublin, not enough by half.

There could be twice the number of churches, and there would still be gospel work to be done in this fastly growing city.

To say nothing of the towns and the villages where the name of Jesus is only ever spoken in frustration.

It's never said in reverence and worship.

We're restless, we should be restless.

And Paul is restless, and he wants us to be restless, to be ambitious for the cause of Jesus in our day, to see him made known where he has been forgotten, where he has not been named or known, in the 115 towns of a population of 5,000 people or more on our tiny island where there's no gospel witness.

We should be restless to see those areas reached.

We should think prayerfully and strategically about how we're going to reach those things.

We should be generous with Baptist and Presbyterian and Independent and Anglican brothers and sisters who share that similar goal and passion and conviction.

And we should be generous with our time and our money and our people to see churches planted in those areas for the glory of Jesus.

We must be restless.

We must have a holy ambition.

The need is too great.

The time is too short, and Jesus is too worthy of worshipers.

We must have a holy ambition.

Gospel ministry is a ministry of restlessness to see Christ named, where he has not yet been.

Fifth, gospel ministry is strategic.

In verses 22 to 29, and we're not going to read them all, but Paul recounts his movements, it's his travel plans, as Paul alluded to.

He's planning to head on to Spain.

So basically what he's saying is, uh, I'm planning on coming to you in Rome, but there's there's been a famine in Jerusalem, and I've taken up this offering.

And so I'm taking the money to the saints in Jerusalem.

But once I've completed that task, because they didn't have Venmo or PayPal, right?

But so once I've completed that task, I'm making my way straight to you guys, to Rome, because that's like that's like arriving in Heathrow, okay?

So I'm going to spend some time with you guys in the hope that you will bless and encourage me, and I'll be able to bless and encourage you, and maybe you'll be able to equip me for this further mission of taking the gospel on to Spain.

It's very strategic the way he's thinking.

He's saying, of course, he should go to Rome rather than just some backwater uh in the uh in the mountains in the north of Italy.

No, no, if I go to if I go to Rome, that travel center, that economic center, that's actually going to be used under God by me to get the gospel to spin.

It's it's a clever way of thinking.

And sometimes Christians be like, oh no, that's a strategy, that's very, it's very pragmatic and that's very worldly.

Well, no, it's it's you know, as Peter said, all scriptures God breathed.

We've got Paul's plans.

He's thinking strategically, wisely, about how to make the gospel go forward.

Similarly, we have to have those conversations and think those thoughts in our day.

To think, well, what are the areas of greatest need?

What resources are required?

Who are the personnel that are going to be involved?

What training do they need?

What support do they need, both materially and in terms of personnel?

Those are good and right questions to ask.

It is not enough just to just to kind of piously go, oh well, hopefully God will do it.

Yes, but God will do it through us.

He uses means.

Now, in the providence of God, if you know the story, Paul never made it to Spain.

Paul takes the money to Jerusalem, and the authorities in Jerusalem go, hey, hold on.

Is that Paul?

And they arrest him.

And he never makes it to Spain.

He does, however, make it to Rome.

But he makes it to Rome as a captive.

So the book of Acts concludes with Paul under house arrest and says he was there for two years at his own expense, and people were able to visit him, and uh he was able to tell them about the gospel of Jesus, and he was able to minister freely from his house arrest.

Goodness me.

Who knows what men and women were sent from that strategic hub?

Who knows what men and women were sent to Spain, or to Gaul, France, or to Britannia in that time.

We pray, we plan.

We say if the Lord wills, and that's my final point, the gospel ministry is covered in prayer.

You know, verses 30 to 33, Paul makes this appeal, and the appeal is that they would strive with him in prayer.

He understands that he's the one that's going, but they are also partners with him as they pray for him.

You see, you maybe get this this wrong view in your mind that in the church, so uh you might think, well, there are there are people who who stay, and there are people who go.

The people who go, well, they're the very impressive missionary people, goodness me.

How how equipped and blessed of God are they?

I just get to just get to stay.

But that's not really the way it is.

It's there's the people who go and there's the people who send them.

If we ever send out another church plan, you're the people who will send them.

And you will strive with that planet, as we pray frequently for Redeemer, our first church plan.

We strive with them in prayer.

Paul has laid out the nature of gospel ministry, and in the end, he holds out his hands to these Romans and says, join me.

Pray for me, strive with me in prayer.

For Paul, prayer is a vital part of gospel partnership.

For the first three years of the Irish Gospel Partnership's life, all that we basically did was we prayed for one another.

COVID had hit and all of that going on.

And we simply got on Zoom every Wednesday morning for half an hour.

Not a big thing.

We got on every Wednesday morning at nine o'clock for 30 minutes and we prayed for one another, six of us.

We'd send prayer points in, we'd pray for one another's ministries in the local church, and then however else we were connected more nationally, and we would pray for for Ireland.

And then just before Easter in 2021, we decided that it might be a good idea to invite other people from our churches to pray with us.

And so we moved our Zoom call from a Wednesday morning to a Wednesday evening.

And everybody was locked down then anyway.

And so we said, hey, look, we're we're praying for gospel ministry in Ireland.

We're praying for for church plants and for more churches to be planted.

Would you like to join us?

Would you like to pray?

We didn't make a big deal of it.

We mentioned it to our churches and a few other people that we knew.

Do you know what happened that night?

400 people showed up on a Zoom call.

From all different parts of Ireland.

From Ulster, from Munster, Leinster, and Connacht.

We didn't know what was going on.

We prayed, all four hundred of us.

We prayed for our land, and we prayed for those embryonic church plants.

We prayed for areas of no gospel witness.

We prayed that more would be planted.

We prayed for a culture of generosity and collaboration, of kingdom-mindedness for the glory of Jesus.

Do you know what came out of that prayer meeting?

The Kinfire Festival.

This festival that we've just had the second year of back in August, where we actually part of the purpose of Kinfire is to is to scale and promote this culture of generous collaboration to for kingdom ends.

It's not going to always work.

There's going to be challenges.

In part because the enemy hates it when Christians unite around the throne of the Lord Jesus.

We strive together in prayer.

Never know what the Lord's going to do.

We need to be very careful, if I could challenge us, we need to be very careful that as we become bigger and more established as the years roll on and we just become like another church in the city, one of the things that's going to happen there is that things like our whole church prayer meeting are going to become the least well-attended meeting.

Do you know how I know that?

Because that's the way it is in every other church.

And people will go to a community group, you'll come here on a Sunday morning, but prayer?

Actually, no, I I'm going to take that as my week off of community group because it frees up my schedule a little bit more.

I think that that would be wrong-headed of us.

Who knows what the Lord will do when we unite together in prayer, when we strive together for gospel ends, for the extension of Christ's kingdom, as we pray together.

We must not end us and underestimate the significance of those times.

God answered Paul's prayers.

The gospel got to Spain and beyond.

God just didn't use Paul to do it specifically himself.

He got Paul to Rome.

He got Paul to Roman chains where he was able to minister.

You never know what God will do.

But this is what gospel ministry is.

These six things.

This is what City Church is about now.

This is what City Church will be about after I am ordained next week.

May God help us as we seek to embody these things and offer hope.

The only hope that can sustain, the only hope that lasts into eternity, the hope of sins forgiven.

Through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.