Life Together | Overflowing Gospel

Welcome to the First Pred Sermon Podcast, where each week we dive into scripture, wrestle with truth, and discover how faith intersects our lives.

God's word meets us where we are, challenging, shaping, and calling us into something greater.

No matter where you are on your journey, you belong here.

And we're praying that this sermon might help you take a next step in faith towards Jesus.

Hey, let's dive into today's message together.

Our scripture reading this morning is from Romans chapter 15, verses 8 through 13.

Romans 15:8–13

For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed, and moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.

As it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, I will sing the praise of your name.

Again it says, Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.

And again, praise the Lord, all of you Gentiles.

Let all of the people extol him.

And again, Isaiah says, The root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations.

In him the Gentiles will hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is the word of the Lord.

Amen.

Good morning, church.

It's good to see you here, giving glory to God, gathering near to him in worship.

It's the Lord's Day worship, and we offer praise.

And as we offer him praise, as we worship him, something happens.

God inhabits the praises of his people.

Jesus gathers with us, and we ourselves are changed, transformed, shaped by sitting in his presence as we worship him.

And so as we've heard the word read, as we've prayed, as we've sung, I want us to pray that we can hear from the Lord by his holy word.

So can we do that?

Let's bow our heads, let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for bringing us here into this space and this hour, and we give this hour to you.

And Lord, what we're asking humbly is that you would give this hour back to us in a way that we can hear you.

None of us wants to walk out of here saying, Oh, I heard something interesting.

Jesus, what we need, what we long for is to leave this room saying, I heard from the Lord.

And I love and trust him.

So would you meet us, Jesus?

You're the one we need.

It's in your name we pray.

And the people said, Amen, amen.

All right.

Will there be enough water to run the city of Colorado Springs?

How many think there's gonna be enough water to run the city of Colorado Springs?

How many of you think I don't think there's gonna be Peter?

You're confident?

Yeah.

Gonna have enough.

I'm worried there's not gonna be enough water.

Do you do you know that this is like an issue?

Do you have you seen some of this?

We talk about this.

It's like we have to worry about this a little bit.

You you look up and you see, like, oh, our snowpack is light, our reservoirs are low, our aquifers and all that, sort of like wonder is there gonna be water uh for us?

Because actually, one thing we really kind of need is water.

And uh and you can kind of see how people, prehistoric people, would look up and and look at the mountains and and like start to worship these mountains, because these mountains, if they don't produce, if the mountain doesn't fill up with the snow, then we're not gonna have the water, and if we don't have the water, then we can't live.

And so we want to we want the, you know, so they they would turn and worship these these mountains as their source of life.

And it is kind of weird.

I mean, uh we we trust in the Lord to take care of us, we trust in the Lord's provision.

We also know that we're subject to these weather patterns, and and we are praying hard for Super El Nino, aren't we?

We're saying, come on, Super El Nino, fill it up, fill it up this year and fill up the mountains with snow.

Because when we look at these reservoirs and you see how low, how dry they are, it's easy to look at a picture of one of those reservoirs and say, I trust God, I trust God.

I look at this picture of this reservoir and you feel a little bit of what?

Discouragement, you feel you feel, you can feel a little bit of panic.

Like, it's scarcity.

And what happens is scarcity produces panic.

And you just feel a little kind of shock, like it happens in other things in your life when you're running down low, you're running down toward empty, like um when you're driving your car and you're running out of gas, you're getting down lower and lower and lower.

I've got one of those cars that uh it starts to tell you, hey, you got 40 miles left.

Like, cool, 40 miles.

Hey, you got 30 miles left.

Yeah, that's great.

The light, a little light goes on, you know, and you got 30 miles left.

And then you got 20 miles left.

And then you know, I've got one of those cars, maybe yours does too.

It says, like, you know what?

I'm not gonna tell you how many miles you got left now.

I'm not gonna tell you, I told you, go to the gas station.

That's what I'm telling you.

Go to the gas station.

Like, I need to know.

Do I have two miles?

I'm not gonna tell you.

Or your phone runs down, you know, and starts to go yellow, then red, then you get the percentage, you're down to like two, one, and you're like, I gotta find a charger.

Or you're waking up and thinking, I did not get the sleep I need last night.

I'm running on empty, I'm running on just enough energy to make it through the day with a solid cup of coffee, right?

Or four, or five, or whatever.

We're running on empty.

And when you're running on empty, when you're running on just enough, this is what happens, church.

When you're running on just enough, what happens is you're always feeling this kind of low-grade sense of panic.

Am I gonna run out?

We're running on empty with our spiritual resources.

What if you had a gauge in your life that you could see sort of turned from green to yellow to red?

What if you had a gauge in your life that was gauging how full you feel, how full you are of love?

How would your love gauge look?

Of joy.

Of peace.

Peace.

You with me?

How's your peace gauge?

How's your peace gauge looking?

Love, joy, peace.

Does anybody know what's coming next?

Patience.

Patience.

Wow.

We're talking about the fruit of the spirit.

Love, joy, peace.

Patience.

That's a hard one.

How's your patience gauge?

Listen, you're like your your spouse will tell you, right?

How's your patience gauge?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness.

What's the last one?

Self-control.

Amen.

Somebody's teaching some self-control.

Amen.

That's a fruit of the spirit.

Say, how's my gauge going?

That's the same gauge.

We've got the love gauge, the joy gauge.

And we're running low, we're running on empty, and it produces a sense of panic.

I don't think I've got enough.

I don't think I have a resource enough to get me through the day.

I think I'm running low.

I think I'm running out.

I think I don't know how low it is, how much further I can go anymore.

What if we didn't have to live running on empty?

What if we didn't have to live wondering where the next charging station was?

What if we didn't have to worry about our gauges running low?

What if we could run connected?

What if we could run connected to the source?

What if all of these spiritual resources are coming from a place where we in the deepest place of our hearts are connected in?

We're connected in.

We're locked in.

And so we don't have to worry about running out.

As we spend it, more of it comes in.

As we give it away, more of it flows into our lives.

What if we could live connected?

Running connected.

Instead of just wringing out the last drop to hit our parched tongue of faith, hope, and love.

We're in Romans 15.

Series called Life Together.

Today we want to talk about an overflow, an overflowing gospel.

What if you were so connected to the source of life, of eternal life, that not only did you not feel like that low-grade panic, I'm running on empty, but you actually were overflowing.

Overflowing.

It has always been a clear objective in God's redemptive history, in God's plans, to overflow the banks, to overflow the banks of the covenant with the Jewish people, to reach every nation, every people, every everyone else.

It has always been God's intention to overflow this original covenant with the Jewish people and to reach all nations, all peoples, all languages.

And the amazing thing about the ministry of Jesus, when you watch the ministry of Jesus unfold, is the amazing thing is that you see this happening.

You see Jesus fulfilling the covenants and then filling them up to the point where they start lapping over the edges of the channels.

They start lapping over the banks of the river and they start spilling out in places that people didn't expect.

If you got your eyes for it, you can see it.

You can see it coming.

You see Jesus interacting in John 4 with the Samaritan woman at the well.

You're not supposed to talk to a Samaritan.

You're not supposed to talk to a woman, and it's overflowing.

You see Jesus healing the Roman centurion's servant in Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

You see Jesus interacting with the Syrophonician woman in Mark chapter 7, or the Garrosene demoniac in Mark chapter 5, the Garesene demoniac.

Mark 7 · chapter mention Mark 5 · chapter mention

Do you know that that was not his favorite nickname?

He had other nicknames that he liked better.

The Garroshine Demoniac.

It's overflowing.

You know who that was.

He was part of a group of pig farmers on the far side of the shore.

I mean, this does, this isn't the people.

And Jesus, he pours his grace into his life.

And what's happening, see, we don't have eyes for this.

You don't see how big these moments are in the Bible.

You're like, oh, this woman, that woman, okay, that guy.

No.

Listen, we're used to interacting with all kinds of different cultures, all kinds of different people.

Colorado Springs is more global than it's ever been.

We've got people coming from all corners of the of the earth and our our ministries, our our military, our schools, our businesses.

People come in, they flow in, say, whoa, where are you from?

And we're we're meeting people from all kinds of different walks of life.

We love it.

It's fun.

Not so in Jesus' time.

In Jesus' time, people were very compartmentalized.

They did not brush shoulders with people who spoke different languages or dressed differently.

They kept themselves to themselves.

And so you've got to see how big this is when the grace of God was filled up to the point of overflowing the banks.

And what happens in these moments.

In each of these stories, if you study them in the Gospels, what's going on is there is there's the moment itself, and then there's the subtext.

There's this undercurrent.

And sometimes it breaks out.

Sometimes people say it out loud.

There's the subtext, this undercurrent.

Whereas the grace of God is flowing out of the bounds and over the break over the edges and spilling out into the land and reaching soil that no one expected it to.

There's the subtext of the Jewish people watching.

And even Jesus' followers, his disciples.

And they're thinking, and sometimes they're even saying, hey, wait a minute.

That's for us.

Not for them.

The grace of God was meant to overflow.

Where are we blocking it?

In Romans, so far we've studied Romans.

We've seen how the Roman churches come together in the grace of God, it's reaching all kinds of different people.

And now there's this church that's built up in Rome, and it's made up of Jewish background believers and Roman background believers and other Gentile believers who've all come in and we've learned, no, we're not going to be this side, that side, side A, side B, team A, team B.

No, we're going to be one church, one team.

We're all together now.

We talked about how there were those who were resistant to eating meat that's been sacrificed to idols.

There were others who said, look, theologically, that meat is just, it's just meat.

There's no God behind that idol.

And so I'm free to eat that meat.

I'm free in liberty.

But the important thing was, no, but we're going to hang together.

We're going to be one team, one people.

We're going to care for one another.

We're going to draw one another in close to each other's side.

We're going to be one church, one mission, under one Lord.

And we're going to be come together.

I mean, not just, not even just like this.

We're going to be one, right?

We're going to be one.

Insiders, outsiders?

No.

One team, all together, one church, one body of Christ.

And this flow of grace is more inclusive than you thought.

Jesus has done what is necessary for the grace of God to break the banks and to reach the nations.

Let's study.

Verse 8.

What's going on?

For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed.

What's going on?

Jesus has fulfilled the promises that were made to the forefathers.

Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.

The promises, the prophecies were made to the Jewish people.

Jesus is Jewish.

And he has come and he has fulfilled the covenants, the promises, and he has fulfilled them to the point where they're now going to start to break out and overflow.

That's what it says.

Jesus came a servant to the Jews on behalf of God's truth, so that the promises to the patriarchs might be confirmed.

And now what happens?

Now watch.

Verse 9.

And moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.

The Gentiles.

What's the Gentiles?

I want you to write this in your Bible if you've got a book.

When you see the word Gentiles, just write everyone else.

That's what Gentiles means.

Everyone else.

And moreover, that the everyone else might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, among the everyone else.

I'll praise you among the everyone else.

I will sing the praises of your name.

Right in that passage, Paul has already quoted from 2 Samuel 22, Psalm 18, and Deuteronomy 32.

So what Paul is doing is he's saying, look, we got one church here, and if you don't buy it, if you don't believe me, then let's just take a minute.

We're just going to do a short little lesson.

And I'm going to pull from your Hebrew scriptures and I'm going to pile up some citations.

Because if you don't think this is right, let me just show you.

Let me just show you that God has for all times and in all places intended to reach all people with his grace.

God has always intended for there to be grace that is flowing out to everyone else.

It's quoted from 2 Samuel.

It's quoted from Psalms.

It's quoted from Deuteronomy.

Let's see what happens next.

Verse 11.

And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles.

Say it with me.

All you everyone else.

Yeah, Gentiles.

I got you.

Some of you, I got you.

Said Gentiles.

Gentiles is the right answer.

I'm going to say Gentiles.

But I meant for you to say everyone else.

Right?

All you, everyone else.

All you everyone else.

Rejoice.

Rejoice, you everyone else, with his people.

Praise the Lord, you Gentiles, let all the people extol him.

That's from Psalm 117.

And then we get from the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah.

We love Isaiah.

Look at this.

And again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations.

In him, the Gentiles, in him, the everyone else will hope.

Who's the root of Jesse?

That's easy, right?

The root of Jesse, the root of Jesse.

Jesse, the father of David, David, the line of David is the line of the Messiah.

And when the Messiah comes, when Jesus arrives, we know, oh, the root of Jesse is Jesus.

And in Jesus, all the everyone else is going to experience something that they didn't experience before.

In the root of Jesse, in Jesus, the everyone else, they're going to have, what's that word at the end?

They're going to have hope.

They're going to have hope.

It was always meant for the everyone else.

Let all peoples extol him.

None are exempt.

None are disqualified.

None are left out.

None are excluded.

All people need Jesus.

Jesus is for all people, you see.

And of all people, of all people, actually there's only two types.

There are those who know the Lord.

And there are those who do not.

And we who know the Lord, we're meant to be overflowing into the lives of those who do not, that they might come to know him.

What God has explained, what God has has made clear, is that he has chosen to draw people near to him, that through this people, he will reach all people.

It goes all the way back to Abraham with the original promise when God tapped Abraham on the shoulder and basically said, You, you're with me.

That's what he said to Abraham.

You, you're with me.

And then he said, and here's the promise.

And here's the promise.

It's in Genesis 12.

I will make you, Abraham, into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great.

And Abraham is like, just stop there, print it, I'll sign it.

Let's go.

And there's more.

And you will be a blessing.

And who will he be a blessing to?

Who do you think?

Everyone else.

Let's see if they show up.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.

And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

It has always been God's intent to have this people, my people, that I can use this people to reach all people.

And he looks at us and says, I want you.

And I want to bless you.

But I want to bless who's behind you.

I'm going to use this people to reach all people.

I'm going to use you to reach into the everyone else.

The gospel of grace is meant to overflow the banks, to overflow the bounds, to fill up and pour out over, into the streams of the desert, into the dry places, into soil that you didn't expect.

The gospel of grace, it fills up and it overflows into the lives of others.

Where are we holding it up, holding it back, blocking when God intends to reach the everyone else through us?

It's World Communion Sunday.

Christians, as we've heard, gather around the globe to have communion together.

So what you got to do is you kind of look at this table and you've got to have some imagination.

Say, this table is communion table.

You say, you know what?

It doesn't have a limit, it doesn't have an end on it.

It goes right around the world.

It goes right around the globe.

Because we're all sitting at the same table.

It's spread all around the world right now.

And so we know that the gospel of grace is pouring out, it's breaking the bonds, it's breaking into new places, into new soil, into new lands, new peoples.

And God always intended it.

He always intended it to be that way.

He says to this church in this passage He says, Now listen, Roman church, you who are the Roman church, it was always meant to be this way.

You were always meant to be here.

God always had you in mind.

And now let me show you why, because now.

Thousands of years later, the gospel of grace is still breaking those bounds.

We've got friends in Mongolia, and they they send us pictures all the time.

And they send us pictures of hundreds of kids coming to young life camps and meeting on crusade campus ministries and meeting Jesus.

They tell us stories of how they're meeting Jesus in these places and celebrating the goodness of God.

And we celebrate with them because we know that the gospel is filling up and overflowing into new places.

And they can send people, our friends in Mongolia, see, they can send missionaries into countries that you and I can't even think about buying a ticket to go see.

And so we see the gospel flowing through them.

God said, I'm going to have this people so that I can reach all people.

We've got friends in in Cairo and Egypt who tell us stories about their neighbors, their friends, their apartment mates, or sweepmates that come knocking on their door because they've had dreams of Jesus.

He showed up to them in a dream.

And they say, You're a Christian.

You better tell me about this guy who's showing up in my dreams.

And they've come to know the Lord and they're worshiping God.

They're gathering in the church.

They're new believers.

The gospel is overflowing into all peoples.

It's not for just this people, it's for all peoples.

It's for all the everyone else.

And we celebrate with them.

We've got partners in in Guatemala, and they use small business development to not just to create a future for these folks, but they use small business development to talk about Jesus because it's about a personal relationship with Jesus.

That's where eternal life is found.

And so we see the gospel of grace overflowing into all these places.

The channels of grace have slipped the banks.

The water of grace is spreading down every road, every gully, every stream in the desert.

It's a gospel overflow.

Where can you overflow the gospel, the grace, the love, the joy, the peace of Jesus Christ?

Where can you overflow?

God says, I'm gonna have this people so I can reach all people.

I'm gonna have this people so I can reach everyone else.

Where do you need to overflow?

And you say, I'd love to overflow, but I'm I'm worried I might run out, to be honest.

Right?

I'm worried about my spiritual resources.

I want you to read this last verse.

This last verse of our passage today is a benediction, it's a blessing.

And I want you to read it to yourself, I want you to read it to the person next to you as a blessing.

Would you read this aloud with me?

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

May the God of hope fill you.

And along with that joy, and along with that peace, and along with that, all the resources of His Holy Spirit, you don't have to live running to the next charging station.

You need to live plugged in.

And you need to live plugged in.

And Jesus said, look, I never said it wasn't going to be hard, but I said that you could live plugged in, that I'd be with you.

That I'd be with you.

Where is it?

You need to overflow.

Now as a boy, my dad had a spring dug in his land outside of Westcliff, Colorado, really dry down there.

He found a spot to dig for a spring, not a well.

A spring.

And with a spring, you know, you can't just build up a big reservoir.

I think about my spiritual resources, and I'm anxious that I want to have more, I want to have more.

I want to know that I've got all that I need for everything that might be coming that I know and the stuff that I don't know.

Like, Lord, if we're gonna work this out, what I'd like is a big reservoir of love and joy and peace and hope and faith.

I want a big pile of it, and I want to carry it around and know that it is full and brimming, and I don't have to worry because I'm never gonna run out.

I'm never gonna run out.

I'm gonna have so much of this stuff, there's no worry that I'm ever gonna run out, and it's all mine.

Right?

It's not gonna work that way.

With a spring, if you if you build up a big reservoir and just let it sit there and pool up, do you know what happens?

The spring dies.

It needs the overflow, it needs to run.

You have to let it run out.

You have to let it, because it's the overflow that causes it to flow over.

It's the outpouring that causes it to pour out.

It's the overflow, the streams that cause it to pull the water from the deep reservoirs where it is bubbling up.

Where are you gonna overflow?

Where are you gonna let the streams pour out of you?

There's somebody near you that needs hope.

There's somebody near you that needs love, somebody near you that needs joy, somebody near you that needs peace.

We can live with overflowing, overflowing, and overflowing of the gospel.

And you say, you know what, Tim, I'd love to overflow.

I'd love it.

But I'm almost out.

My lights are you asked me where my my peace level is?

You ask me where my hope level is?

It's so low, I don't even know.

I'm running out.

Here's what I want you to know.

I want you to know two things.

Number one, you know the source.

You know the source, the spring of everlasting life.

If you know him, you know him.

Some of you are in this room and you're here exploring, you're here looking in from the outside, you're wondering, is this for me?

I'm telling you the truth.

Everything in the scripture says, yes, this is for you.

If you don't know him, you need to know him.

You need to open your heart to Jesus Christ, you need to know the source because you're running on empty and your battery is running low, and it's not even telling you how low it is anymore.

And you need to plug into Jesus, and he's right here, he's present to you, and all you need to say is, yes, Jesus.

All you need to say is, yes, Jesus, hold on to me.

Would you hold on to me?

I can't even hold on to life anymore.

Would you hold on to me?

You need to be connected to the source.