Sermon: Romans Part 4 (Pastor Brian Fuller - Romans 1:8-12)

So good to see you today on this palm Sunday. Welcome to the Sermon

podcast of First And it is our design to impel the world with the Gospel

Christ. We do so through small group ministry, personal testimony, corporate gathered.

We should you from God. We're here for any other reason than we

gather in vain, right, And so I say, yes, anticipate Easter,

anticipate Resurrection Sunday, and yes, invite people to come to church because

generally Christmas and Easter people are a little warmer to the idea of of church

and they understand that those are It's not about Santa Claus and bunnies. It's

about Jesus. And generally people will understand that. You know, if you

say, well, Easter is about Jesus dying and raising from the dead,

they know that generally, right. But they've been they have been deceived,

and they've been distracted from from the truth about our holy holidays to believe it's

just it's just about warm fuzzies, and it's not. It's a very very

deep truth that we gather and we observe, we celebrate all the time every

day. So yes, be excited about Easter, but really no more excited

than you are every Sunday to gather together. And yes, invite people,

because when you invite people to come to church, they're much more likely to

come than if I invited in to church. So be diligent in doing so.

All right, We're gonna continue with with Romans today, Romans Part four

if you're keeping score, and today we're going to look at basically the same

passage of scripture that we looked at last week, but a different a different

message as we continue to talk about the relationship that Paul has with his readers

and his heart, his heart's desire for them. So if you have your

Bibles, you can turn to Romans chapter one, and we're gonna look at

verses eight through twelve. And if you don't have your Bible, I won't

say shame on you, but I will say read off the screen Romans one,

starting with verse eight. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ,

for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the

Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers,

asking that somehow by God's will, I may at last succeed in coming

to you, for I long to see you, that I may impart to

you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is that we may be mutually

encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. Thank you God for

your word that transforms us, Lord, and I pray that it has that

perfect work Lord, that has the word is read as it is proclaimed and

unpacked. If you will, Lord, that it will change us, and

it will conform us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ. So

Lord, I simply asked if you would use me today to convey your powerful

truth in Jesus name. Amen, we did leave off last week. Let

me ask and some God, would you grab me a glass of water?

I'm running pretty dry today. Thank you. Left off last week talking about

Paul's sincerity in wanting to visit the church in Rome, and the text suggests

that it was a deep yearning that he had to see them. Verse eleven

says for I long to see you, and most translations that you see use

the word long I long to see you. The amplified version uses the word

yearn I am yearning to see you, and that describes a strong and even

at an intense craving or need. So this desire or this this longing that

Paul has that he expresses, is not the same expression that we might use

when we when we see each other. Hey, it's good to see you.

We'll see you next time, or we'll see you next week. You

know, you know I can look forward to seeing you and and you me.

But maybe not with such a deep yearning that Paul has to see those

who were in Rome, and it's it's it's very intentional. His desire to

see them is it's a deep, sincere desire. Thank you, buddy.

HM. Why was there such a deep desire? Why was there an aching

in his in his soul to see them in person by by any means possible.

Well, to Paul, there was there was nothing more important than the

proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus. And also there was nothing more important than

the results of the proclamation of the gospel, because when the Gospel is proclaimed,

lives are changed. That's my desire, that's your desire. That was

Paul's desire, and he gave his every ounce, many times within an inch

of his life, to proclaim the Gospel and to see all people everywhere come

to Christ. Romans one, fifteen and sixteen. He says, So I

am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome, for I

am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for

salvation to everyone who believes. The First Corinthians one twenty three he says,

but we preach Christ crucified. That's his message. And First Corinthians nine,

two and twenty three. I have become all things to all people, that

by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake

of the Gospel that I may share with them and its blessing. So what

does what does the gospel do? And Titus chapter three, verses four through

seven. This is Paul speaking again. But when the goodness and loving kindness

of God our Savior appeared, he saved us not because of works done by

us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of

regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly

through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by His grace,

we might become heir. According to the hope of eternal life. The Word

of God, that the Gospel is that we are now justified in Christ.

Justified, you could say, justification is you just take the word justify.

Just if I'd never sinned, just if I'd never sinned against God. That's

what justified means and who we are in Christ Romans ten seventeen. So faith

comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. Faith faith comes to

the one who hears the Gospel. And Paul wanted nothing more than for the

Gospel to be proclaimed for the salvation of all people by any means possible,

and also for those who had received the Gospel to be strengthened and rooted deeper

and more firmly in the faith, that they would be more and more established

in their faith. So can you say that about yourself today? Can you

say that you want to be strengthened in your faith, that you want to

be more and more rooted and established in faith and your relationship with Jesus Christ.

So I long to see you, he says. He says, there's

there's an urgency in me to see you in person, that I may impart

to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. And it's important for us to

understand here that the spiritual gift that Paul talks about, the gift that he

wants to impart to others, it's not the it's not the gift that comes

from the laying on of hands that he did for Timothy right first two Timothy,

Chapter one, verse six. He says to Timothy, I remind you

to fan and to flame the gift of God which is in you through the

laying on of my hands, or when we would lay hands on somebody and

to pray, to pray for for healing, when we would lay hands on

somebody in sending them out right to do, to do ministry, or whatever

the case may be, we lay hands on as a as a blessing to

send. That's not the gift that Paul speaks of in Romans one eleven.

That the gift, the spiritual gift that he desires to impart and to share

with them is the sweet gift of fellowship and encouragement. We need that we

all need that gift of encouragement, and to see them in person to Paul

would be a blessing. It would be a blessing and an inspiration for him

to get the opportunity to see them, and also it would be a blessing

for them to get to see him. So who do you have? Who

do you have in your life that maybe maybe you don't get to see that

often, whether it's whether it's a family member that lives in another place in

the country, and when you think of them, when you think of them,

your heart yearns you have somebody like that in your life. And I'll

even add this, so many of us have people that have passed on,

and when we think of them, our heart yearns to see them again and

to be with them. And what kind of reunion that will be when we

when we are able to see them again. Our heart aches, it's a

it's an ache. And this is the experience that that Paul had and wanting

to finally see the people in Rome. You're a sight for sore eyes,

we might say. And that's the way fellowship should be. Amen, that's

the way fellowship should be. You know, you may or you may not

receive a blessing when you see me and hear me preach. But I can

tell you that I can hardly wait to get here on Sunday to see it's

such a blessing. It's such a blessing for me to because see I can

stand here and I can see all y'all out, and in a brief moment,

I can see y'all when I'm done down there worshiping. I can't you

know, I'd love to be all turn around just and just watch y'all worship.

You know. But it's such a blessing to see you and to know

that you are my friend and that and that you trust me, You trust

me with the Gospel, and that you trust me in leading this church.

And it takes a lot of help. I can tell you that it takes

a lot of help. But I'm strengthened. I'm strengthened, and I'm blessed

to have you in my life. We get to we get to eat together.

That's great. That's great fellowship right there. We get to study God's

Word together, and when I learn something spiritually from you that strengthens me.

Recently, during during some of our Sunday Night Bible studies that that we have,

Oh we have some very challenging and insightful conversations, don't we We have

some great conversations that can challenge us. And it causes us to stop and

to consider the depth of the text and not just gloss over it in a

hurry when we when we read it, how often do we do that.

I don't understand that. I'll just move on right. I love these conversations

that we have on Sunday nights because we don't just gloss over them. We

stop and we talk about it. And sometimes we talk about it for a

while because and I'm the first one that said, I'm not getting it.

I don't understand it. So we stop, we talk it out, and

that's and we don't argue. I want to make and make sure you understand

that we don't argue. We have great back and forth conversation that helps us

understand what God is saying. We need to do that because this is deep,

This is deep stuff, This is beyond our our mind's comprehension. It

can be challenging. I love that process. I love processing what the Word

of God says then to the point where we go, Okay, I get

it. That's a wonderful thing. Those those aha moments in God are the

best moments that you can get right. They are, and I thank GoF

for his his diligence in his his hard work and in studying and putting it

together to ask us these these questions, and and uh, it's just it's

a great time. It's a great time. And you know I can I

do. I read God's word and I study for it myself, and God

gives me insight into it, just like he does for you. If you

are reading and studying God's word. If you're not reading it, you're not

studying it. You can't expect insight because it takes diligence, and it takes

practice, and it takes it takes That's what I'm looking for, smart people.

Perseverance. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you. Perseverance pressing

in to be rooted and established and strengthened in our faith and Paul's desire.

Paul's desire was to see the church in Rome in person. He wanted to

impart the wisdom of God that he had received. He wanted to impart it

to them for their benefit, but he also longed to be encouraged himself through

what God was doing in them. So, as your pastor, I'll ask

you a few probing questions. What are you passionate about? What are you

living for what are you eager to do? Simple questions? Are you wasting

your time? Are you wasting your life on things that don't matter? Or

do you do you long to invest in others so that they will know Jesus?

Gut check time right. Two things will last forever, Two things you

know what they are. One of them is God's word and the other is

people. Everything else will fade away Isaiah forty, verse eight. The grass

withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God will stand forever,

the word of God. And I know that you know that everyone,

everyone who has ever existed, will will live in eternity. Heaven for those

who repent and call on Jesus, and hell for those who reject Jesus.

But everyone will exist for eternity. So what are you doing in your life

to focus on what matters most? Are you attempting to know and understand God's

word better so that your relationship with others is beneficial to them and that they

also are a spiritual benefit to you? Or not? And it starts at

home, Amen, it starts at home, but it should also carry over

into work and into play as well. We talk about the unity that we

possess here at First Baptist Church. What a beautiful thing it is. We

possess it, we continue to pray for it, we protect it. Our

unity is fed by our commonality in Jesus. We are servants of the same

Master, and we serve together in His kingdom. And by virtue of that,

you should be more deeply rooted in faith. You should be encouraged to

see me and hear me, and vice versa. My spiritual life should be

enriched by time spent with you, and it is. And when we guys

hang out, I love it. And when we guys hang out, there's

nothing like guys hanging out. Ladies, you're not invited. Do you want

us see your meetings? No? I don't want to sear your meetings.

And you know, when we guys get together, it's not always an overtly

spiritual encounter. Sometimes it's guns and grub. But in that, in that

commonality, we experience the building of relationships. And the more time we spend

together, the topics of discussion usually turn spiritual. Our guards come down,

because you know, guys get together, we've got to spend the first however,

however long you know, shooting guns or whatever, I really don't do

that you've got. You know me well enough that I don't own the gun,

but they let me shoot them and they all scatter. Pastors got a

gun. But we've had some great conversations. So the longer we hang out

together, guards come down, struggles are shared, and men discover that when

other men face the same struggles that they do, it can be very encouraging.

Not alone in your struggle. That's powerful to discover that others go through

the same thing. We need to hear that, and something, something great

happens. That each one of us wants the other guys to be strengthened in

their faith. Each one wants the other one to be more deeply rooted in

scripture and in faith. Amen, guys, we all need to learn how

to love our wives better. Not more. I didn't say love you more,

but we need to learn how to love our wives better. Maybe our

biggest challengeable. So in Paul's longing to see the church in Rome, did

it happen the way that he hoped? Of course not, it didn't,

But even towards the end of the Book of Romans, his hope and anticipation

was always to visit them Romans fifteen thirty two, so that by God's will,

I pray I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your

company. He did eventually go to Rome, right, He eventually made it

to Rome, but not the way he expected, because he arrived as a

prisoner in James and he wrote Romans, and he wrote First and Second Corinthians

while on his third missionary journey in Corinth in about fifty seven AD. And

it was shortly after that that he was arrested in Jerusalem. And Paul would

spend the final ten years of his life in jail as a prisoner for the

Gospel in Chains. So he arrived in Rome in Chains as a prisoner in

about sixty AD, and while in prison, well, in prison in chains,

he wrote the books of Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Filehman, first

and two, Timothy and Titus in prison. And in our journey to get

somewhere that we long to go, or maybe even we feel God's calling and

leading us someplace or to do something specific, God's idea of the journey may

very well we'll be different than our idea of the journey, because we know

that the closest distance between two points is what a straight line? Where I

am and where I think God is leading me in my mind is a straight

line. I'm gonna go straight there. We're gonna do this, We're gonna

do that. We're gonna be blessed, We're gonna bless others. We're gonna

proclaim the kingdom of God. Oh, God will honor that right, no

bumps, no detours along the way, and the quicker the better. Come

on, God, get on this ride with me. You've probably heard it

said, if you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans.

Proverb sixteen nine says, the heart of a man plans his way,

but the Lord establishes his steps. Yes, and it's not to say that

at times things won't go as as hoped, right, especially as we desire

to be aligned with the word of God. God honors that. But there

is always something in us that He wants to accomplish that requires a detour,

requires a valley, It requires a cliff that seems insurmountable to climb. And

that's where God changes this. That's where he he challenges us in our in

our faith. That's the moments that we are more deeply rooted in his word,

and that we appreciate the journey. But Paul knew one way or another

that he would make it to Rome to preach the gospel to encourage the church.

But I'm sure that making it as a prisoner in chains was not the

way that he had it drawn up in his mind. But he was faithful

to the very end. When he was near the end of his life,

he wrote about it, I'm at the end. My life has been poured

out. I'm ready to go. And he never considered his chains a hindrance

to the gospel. Ephesians six, nineteen and twenty, he says, pray

also for me that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly

to proclaim them mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in change,

that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. And two

Timothy two eight and nine he tells Timothy, remember, Jesus Christ risen from

the dead, the offspring of David, has preached in my gospel for which

I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the Word of

God is not bound. So let's not let a hindrance derail us in our

mission. To share the gospel. Don't let a hindrance derail us from being

an encouragement to someone else, but in your life, use the hindrance instead

of woe is me. Use the hindrance as a testimony of God's goodness and

his faithfulness. And I leave every single one of us in here has that

we have a testimony to tell of God's goodness and his faithfulness in the midst,

in the midst of the turmoil of our life. Don't look at it

as a hindrance. Look at it as an opportunity to share the goodness of

God in the midst of what you're going through, because it will strengthen you

as you endure, and it will be a witness to others that you never

gave up. Let's pray. Thank you for tuning in to today's broadcast.

We hope you are encouraged and challenged by the preaching of God's Word. You

can reach us by phone at six one eight three nine zero ten forty six,

contact us via Facebook or our website FBC Woodlawn dot org. It's our

prayer that you answer the call of God on your life to follow him and

share your faith's story with others, Goodbye for now, and God bless you.