Amen, go ahead, grab us. I invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to the book of Romans. Romans 15:15 is where our text will begin today. And if you don't have a Bible, there are always some back on the tables here in the back of the room. We would love for you, even now, if you need to go get one, we would love for you to open the Bible and take a look at the book with us, as we are now coming to the conclusion of the book of Romans. Lord willing, we will finish the book of Romans in just a few weeks, the weekend before Palm Sunday. And Palm Sunday is exactly when we started Romans 3 years ago, and so we are coming now to the conclusion of what has been an epic study, and Paul is sharing some of his personal thoughts and plans. Now he's finished his master class on the gospel, and he's sharing what he then hopes to do. Remember, he wrote this book because he wasn't able to go to Rome, so he sent his teaching ahead of him, but now he wants to go. And so, he says, here's what I'm hoping to do. And so, what you're going to get a glimpse of here this morning is the mindset of the apostle Paul, a man that God used to change the world. And you have to ask yourself, is the point of being a Christian just to change yourself, or does Jesus want to use you to change the world around you? That's what I want you to think about as we read these verses. So out of respect for God's Word, I invite everybody to stand up for the public reading of Scripture, and I encourage you give this your full and undivided attention. These are Paul's thoughts, inspired by the Holy Spirit, written down as the Word of God. Romans 15:15-21. Please follow along as I read.
But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the 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 Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat. In your bulletin, there is a handout there if you want to open that up and take some notes as we go through Paul's thoughts together, and you'll see there a question at the top of the handout: What is the gospel? And that's how we began our church here in Huntington Beach, was by asking that question, what is the gospel? And we've met a lot of people over the years here in Huntington Beach to tell you, oh, I'm saved. That's what Romans 1:16 says, “I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.” Oh, I'm saved. I I'm saved by the gospel. Great. Well, what is the gospel? And it's amazing how many people will tell you they're saved by the gospel, but then they can't tell you what the gospel is. And so, we're trying to bring clarity to every soul here in North Orange County that we want them to know the good news of the gospel. But the question here in our passage today, the question for our church now, is really, “What is the gospel able to do?” If you want to write that down, what is the gospel able to do? That's what we're going to get to see. That if Paul is thinking here in these verses as he kind of is coming off writing to the Romans in a bold way. Paul, it turns out, has some bold things to say himself, and these are things based on the gospel.
He uses the idea of the gospel three times in our passage, and you might want to circle them here as we look at the verses in the right-hand column. You can see there in verse 16, you can circle that, he is in the “priestly service of the gospel of God.” So, he was sent on a mission by Jesus to share the gospel with the Gentiles, the other nations, besides the Jews. And he thinks he's serving the Lord by bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. You can also see in verse 19, he says, “I have fulfilled the ministry.” At the end of verse 19, “I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ.” So, he's got two statements about the gospel, based on things that have already been done. But then he says in verse 20, “Thus, I make it my ambition.” I make it my aim, my goal, my target, to preach the gospel. If you want to circle it for a third time, not where Christ has already been named. He doesn't want to go where somebody else has already preached. He doesn't want to go to people who've already heard; he wants to go blaze a whole new trail for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, we're going to see that Paul has thoughts here about what the gospel has already done. That's point number one. And then Paul has thoughts of what he still is planning and hoping to do by the power of the gospel. That'll be point number two. But Paul, he has seen the gospel of Jesus be very powerful to save many Gentiles. And so that's what he is ready to say. And he says it here. Look with me. Let's start going through these verses. I just want you to underline that word “boldly” in verse 15, because if Paul, when the things he says in these verses, they're very strong statements. And if it wasn't in the Word of God, if it wasn't the apostle Paul, if somebody else just said, like, for example, look at verse 17, everybody. Can you imagine if I walked up here today, or some other pastor or preacher came up and said, in Christ Jesus, I have a lot of reason to be proud of my work. For God, you would look at this guy like, whoa. This guy is full of himself. Over here, that guy has reason to be proud of his work. For God, that's what Paul is saying in the Word here, for proud is this idea of boasting. I want to boast. I have a reason to boast about the work that I have done for God. So, this is a strong statement that Paul is making here. In fact, in verse 18, he says, “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished.” Oh, that sounds good. Yeah. Let's talk about what Jesus has done. But look what he says, what Christ has accomplished what through me, to bring the Gentiles to obedience. So, Paul is claiming in our text, and that word there for “venture,” sometimes translated “dare,” is the same word as “boldly” in verse 15. So, if you want to draw a little arrow from “boldly” to “venture,” he's saying, I want to say something bold here. I want to dare to say something. I'm not going to dare to say anything except what Jesus has done. Paul is clear. He's giving Jesus all the glory. But Paul is also clear that Jesus has done something through Paul by the power of the Gospel that Paul wants to boast about.
Okay, so we’ve got to make sure we understand what Paul is referring to. And to do that, I want everybody to grab your Bible and go with me to Acts, chapter 19. We’ve got to go back and remind ourselves where Paul is and what he's been doing. And for some of us, this has been a year’s study of Paul's life and Paul's teaching, because before we went through the book of Roman for three years, we went through the book of Acts. Who was here? Does anybody remember going through the book of Acts? Right? And Paul was introduced as the bad guy in the book of Acts. Paul was the villain when we first met him. He was known as Saul. He was a persecutor of the church. He led the first martyr of the church, where they killed Stephen and they laid their garments down at the feet of this guy, Paul. We know him as Saul. Is how he was a Pharisee, a Jewish religious leader. Well, then he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he's blinded by the light of the glory of Jesus. And he becomes this epic missionary, church planter, evangelist, man who is so passionate about the gospel. By the end of the book of Acts, Paul's our hero. We're traveling around with him. And so, acts 19 was this critical moment. Here you can see Acts 19:20, Paul's in Ephesus at this time. And it says in a summary statement here in Acts 19:20 so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. And if you remember, from the book of Acts, we saw that these statements about the Word of the Lord were used to break the book of Acts into different sections. These summery statements, where Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, he almost acted like the Word of the Lord, which is a phrase that that means the idea of the gospel, the good news. The Word of the Lord was almost a character, and as the Word goes out, that's how the church goes. And so, Paul's in Ephesus, the name of Jesus is going Mega. It's being made great in Ephesus. And the summary statement is, wow, the Word of the Lord, the gospel, was increasing. It was prevailing mightily. And then look at what happens in verse 21 after these events. After this strong ministry in the city of Ephesus, Paul resolved, in the Spirit, to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome. And so, he gets this idea. Here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to go back to Jerusalem, and he's going to bring an offering and representatives from all these Gentile churches that he's planted where people have gotten saved. And we're going to go back to Jerusalem and we're going to give them an offering of money, and we're going to give them this most epic praise report about how the Word has reached so many Gentiles in so many cities. And then after I go back to Jerusalem and do that, then I'm going to go to Rome. And so somewhere right here, after Acts 19, that's when he writes this letter to Rome. It's somewhere between Acts 19:21 and then Acts 21 when he actually gets to Jerusalem. On his way to Jerusalem is when he sends the letter to Rome.
In fact, go back to Romans 15, and I can prove that to you with the verses we'll get to next week, if you come back. Just a little bit after what we read in Romans 15:15-21, if you keep reading, he says in verse, 23 of Romans 15, “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.” So, here's what he said at the beginning of the letter, if you remember, “My goal is to come and see you in Rome.” I want to mutually encourage one another. I want to preach the gospel in that epic city of Rome. But then here he had something new. “I hope to see you in passing as I go to where everybody Spain.” Now, he never said that part before. So now we're starting to get a glimpse into what Paul was really thinking this whole time. In fact, he says, “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 where? To Jerusalem, bringing aid or bringing this offering to the saints. So, I'm getting a collection from all the Gentile churches, and I'm going to go give it to Jerusalem, and then I'm going to come see you and you're going to help me go to Spain. Has anybody ever asked you to help them go to Spain before? Hey, brother in Christ, will you help me go to Spain? What do they ask you for? Do they want you to push them out the door? Like, what do they want? What do they want if they want you to help them go to Spain, everybody? So, he's going to ask, hey, guess what, everybody? I'm just coming off basically the most successful missionary trip of all time, and I'm going to let you guys help me on my next trip. Aren't you blessed people? What a privilege you have. You should see what God has done, and now you're going to get to help in what God's about to do. That's literally what Paul is saying in this part of the letter. He's saying, God has done something worth boasting about, something ready that I want to be bold about.
And so, go back to our verses, and you can see his claim here. And I don't know if you can even pronounce this word, if you look back at verse 19, where he kind of summarizes his whole boasting in what the gospel has done. He says in verse 19, “by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.” So, notice in his boasting, he's not just claiming he did it. He's saying God did it. He's saying he was a part of it, but God did it. But then look at what he says, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum. Now, when I started studying this passage, I couldn't even pronounce Illyricum. I don't know where that place is. So, we’ve got a map right here to help you see what Paul is actually claiming. You can see Jerusalem is way down here in the bottom right-hand corner. Okay, and so, you go up from Jerusalem, you go through Turkey here, which is where Ephesus would be. You go up into Greece here, which is Macedonia and Achaia. Illyricum is all the way up there. So, he's saying that from Jerusalem, bottom right, go all the way through Turkey or Asia at that time, go all the way through Greece, all the way up to Illyricum. That's how much territories he covered. And he has preached the gospel to Gentiles through that entire region. We're talking about dozens and dozens of cities at this point, and he's saying that whole area has been reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many have been saved, and I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel that I was given by Jesus. So, this is a huge statement. Then he says he wants to go to Rome. Now, you can see Illyricum looks pretty close to the boot of Italy, right there. Can everybody see that? So, I mean, I don't know if Paul needed a geography consultation, but he decides, I'm going to go to Jerusalem, then go to Rome. You're like Paul, you're so close. Just, just go. But, but no, he’s going to go all around Macedonia and Achaia. He's going to take an offering all the way back to Jerusalem; then he's going to go to Rome. And you can see Rome, that's just a stop, because where does he really wants to go is top left. He wants to go to Spain. That's his ultimate destination.
And so, this is what's going on in the mind of Paul. And he wants to say God has done such an amazing work among the Gentiles that I want to boast about it. I have a reason to say something about what God has done. So, let's get this down for point number one, a really provocative question: “Can you boast about what God has done through you?” Can you boast about what God has done through you by the power of the gospel? So, we just sang a song. “Yet not I,” right. So, we don't want to boast about what we have done. Paul left that behind. You could read Philippians, chapter 3, where he boasts in what he had done. He is a self-righteous Pharisee, and he said he would gladly count that all as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ. Okay, so usually, when you hear about boasting at church, boasting among Christians, what we're usually saying is, well, we're not going to boast in any good thing we do, we're going to boast in Jesus Christ, and Jesus alone in his day. I will not boast in anything, no gifts, no power, no wisdom, but I will boast in Jesus, Christ, his death and resurrection. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? Okay, so we understand. Hopefully we understand that it's not about me, it's not I, but it's Christ, and I'm boasting in Christ. But the song doesn't say “Yet, not I, but Christ.” It says “Yet, not I, but Christ, what? in me. And see, that's the part I don't hear a lot of Christians talk about, I don't hear a lot of Christians act like that there. The reason that Christ saved them was so they could go do something for Christ. Okay, so let me be very clear, we are not saved based on anything that we do. We cannot do works to be saved. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? Okay, Ephesians 2:8-9 is very clear. It is not by works that no one may what boast. But then, if you go to Ephesians 2:10, it says that we are God's work, created in Christ Jesus for what, everybody? “For good works, which God actually prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” God doesn't just save you so you can go to heaven when you die, God saves you so you can do something for Jesus in this life. He saves you, so, by the power of the gospel, you can accomplish something. You have a purpose. God has already prepared something for you to do, and he wants you to walk in it. Let's think this through. Are you going to meet Jesus someday? Are you going to stand before the Lord? What does Jesus say? He's going to say to those who faithfully serve him, he's going to say, what? “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I think most Christians today, they act like Jesus is going to say, well believed, good and faithful servant. But Jesus is not saying well believed. Jesus is saying well done. And so, can you say that by the power of the gospel, not by my strength, not by my might or my wisdom, but because I do believe the gospel is God's power, that God has now done something through me by the power of the gospel, that I'll be able to say in my life, yes. Ah, yes. I can be bold, and I can boast that I saw God save this person, or I saw God do this, or I saw God do this mighty work, and he did it. He accomplished it through me. That's what Paul is saying here. Paul has something to report to the church in Jerusalem. Paul has something to say. Look what God has done. Paul says, my life has mattered. I've accomplished something, and it's God who has done the work in me that he sent me to do. When you stand before Jesus, will you regret? Will you wish you had done something for the Lord, or will you be bold, and will you be able to say, wow, Jesus, I praise you and I give you all the glory for what you did through me.
So, Paul, he's kind of taken a victory lap here, a victory lap that I don't think a lot of Christians are even comfortable talking like this, much less acting like this, but Paul, he's got this thought in his mind that Jesus sent him to do something, and he did it. And Jesus actually told Paul that he was going to open the eyes of the Gentiles, that he was going to see them go from the darkness to the light, from the power of Satan to God. And now he's seen it, and he's boasting. He's bold about it. He's like, look what Jesus has done through me, he says. And he has a mindset. It's not like it's his own personal mission. It's not like he just came up with it. He thinks he's doing God's Word.
Let me take you to Isaiah 66, if everybody could turn with me in the Bible to Isaiah 66 I can show you what Paul is thinking here. Okay, there are a couple of interesting phrases in our verses where he says, in verse 16, specifically, he says, I'm supposed to be a “minister of Christ Jesus in the priestly service of the gospel of God.” So, these two words that Paul uses in Romans 15:16, are unique words that I wasn't very familiar with. They're kind of compounds words. The word minister there it's not the normal word for diakonos or servant. It means kind of like public servant or worker for the people. The word here for minister in Romans 15:16 is the same word that was used in Romans 13, where the governing authority is a minister or a public servant in the work of God. So, Paul here, he's saying, I'm doing a public service. And then, he says, it's a priestly service. It's like Temple work. So, Paul wants to bring up, in his ministry to the Gentiles, he brings up the idea of a priest who would have an offering or a sacrifice, and they were going to go give this offering or sacrifice on the altar in the temple there at Jerusalem. And so, Paul says, I've got a priestly service by the gospel, by the power of the gospel, I'm bringing the Gentiles, who have been saved, the Gentile souls of those who have believed, of all these different nations. And I'm bringing these Gentiles, like I'm giving an offering or a sacrifice, just like a priest would maybe kill some animal and offer it there on the altar of a of the sacrifice, Paul is saying, I’ve got something to bring. I’ve got all these Gentiles who have been saved, and I'm bringing that. And that's unique language for Paul to use. Why is Paul using this idea of this public service, this priestly service, where, like the Gentiles, or some kind of sacrifice that he wants to come and offer in the temple there in Jerusalem. Where does Paul get these ideas from? Well, Paul's not just saying whatever he thinks. Paul's getting his ideas from the Scripture, and that's why I want to show you these verses here from Isaiah, 66:19-20. Now he doesn't directly quote these verses, but I think it will be clear to you, as I read these verses that these verses influenced what Paul was thinking. In fact, before we even read the verses, let me just make this note once again, that Paul has quoted the Hebrew Scriptures so many times throughout the book of Romans, it has been overwhelming to me. If something has really stood out to me from studying Romans over three years, I mean, Romans has such a deep thoughts in it, and it has so many different thoughts that it feels like we've learned a lot of different things over the last three years. And one of the things that I've noticed is how much Paul had this Scripture on his mind. If you're going to get a glimpse into the mindset of Paul, Paul wasn't like I've decided I'm going to go do this, or I think God wants me to go do this. No, he wants to do what God has said in the Word. That's where his thoughts are coming from. Look at Isaiah 66:19. This is coming to the end of the epic prophecy of Isaiah. “I will set a sign among them, and from them, I will send survivors to the nations.” So, survivors among the Jews are going to go out to the nations, to the Gentiles, and they're going to go out “to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations.” So, surviving Jews are going to go and tell the good news of God's glory to the other nations. Verse 20, And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.” So that's a that's a very interesting phrase towards the end of Isaiah, that the Jewish people have brothers from other nations. Not a lot of Jews would have even understood that thought at that time. But there's going to be brothers of God's people, the Jews. They're the chosen nation of God, but they're not the only people that are going to be God's people. God's going to have a people from all the nations, and so surviving Jews will go out. They'll spread the Good News to the nations, and then they'll bring these brothers from other nations back as an offering. And it says, here's how it's going to happen, “on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.”
So, Paul literally is saying in Romans 15, that's what he's doing. That's why we just saw on the map. Let's throw the map back up here, right? It would be easier for him to just go over to Rome from where he already is. Why does he go all the way back to Jerusalem? Why does he collect money from all the Gentile churches? Why does he get representatives from among the Gentiles to go back to Jerusalem? Because Paul actually thinks this boasting is important, this offering to God is important. He thinks he's doing what it says right here in Isaiah 66 that when God has done something awesome, we should let him know about it. I understand if you're afraid about boasting in yourself. We don't want to encourage anybody to boast in yourself. So, we don't want to boast in that sense. But my concern today, as we get a glimpse into the mindset of Paul, is that we're so afraid of boasting, we won't even say awesome things that God is doing, and we won't give God the glory that he deserves. And Paul, he's got no problem being bold and saying we're taking a victory lap. We're taking money from these churches and people who've gotten saved at these churches, and we're marching down to Jerusalem and we're going to let everybody know who God is, and we're going to give an offering to our God there in Jerusalem. That's what Paul really wants to do. Paul has something that he has seen God do, and he wants to make it known so that the name of Jesus and the power of the gospel is exalted as it ought to be.
Now, go back to Romans 15. That was one thing I wanted to point out was verse 16, how he thinks he's doing a priestly service to bring the Gentiles back to Jerusalem. And where did he get that idea of what he's doing from the Scripture? Paul's not saying he had some kind of dream or vision. He's saying now he's doing what the Scripture tells him to do. Now, another thing here is, in Romans 15, look at verse 19. This really stood out to me. First of all, I had to learn where Illyricum is, and I had to understand what a massive territory Paul is claiming that he has preached the gospel in. But then after, in verse 19, when he says, from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum, then he says, “I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ.”
So, let's think about that for a second, everybody. If somebody came up on a stage like this, at an assembly of believers like this, and they said, hey, it's great to have you all here today. I just want to let you know I fulfilled my ministry. You might be like, whoa, that sounds a little sounds a little bold there. Sounds like you're boasting there. You fulfilled your ministry. That is exactly what Paul says. I have fulfilled my ministry of the gospel. I was given something to do, and guess what? I did it. And we know how hard it was for Paul to do it. The Jews were chasing him around. The Jews did not want the Gentiles being told that they could become the people of God without becoming Jews. The Jews did. They did not like Paul spreading this message. They chased him from town to town. He was beaten up and left for dead. He was on the run, sometimes having to flee by himself in the middle of the night. No, this was a very hard thing for Paul to do, and Paul wants to say, I did it. I fulfilled my ministry. Now, as somebody who's grown up going to church over the last 40 something years, since the time of the Jesus movement, all the way to today. I don't hear people say they fulfilled their ministry. I don't even hear people act like that's a goal we should all have to fulfill our ministry. What I hear people at church say these days is, yeah, I should read the Bible more. Yeah. I should pray more. Yeah, I should share the gospel more. And it's almost like there's this accepted more we should be doing that we're never going to do. So why even really judge ourselves or think about it? Because who's really going to do the more that they should do. That's the attitude that I've inherited. That's the attitude that I've heard. It's like, yeah, you could go try to do something, but it's not about works and who's really going to do it anyways. That's not how Paul thinks. Paul thinks I had a job to do, and I went and did it, and he wasn't going to rest until it was done. There was no obstacle that he wasn't going to overcome in fulfilling the ministry that Jesus had given him. And Paul doesn't just think he's some super apostle who should fulfill his ministry. No.
Go with me to the book of Colossians, and let's see that once you start looking for this idea of fulfilling your ministry, you start seeing that Paul is saying this to other people, and it's a regular way that Paul thinks. An example that he wants to pass on to others. So here in Colossians, chapter 1, you get this idea again here in Colossians 1:25, one that Paul has something to do, and he wants to fulfill it. He wants to make it fully known if his goal is, if his mission is to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, then he wants to fulfill that ministry. And so, here in Colossians 1:25 he talks about how much he's suffering for all these churches. And he says, “The Church of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the Word of God fully known, to make the gospel preached fully to the Gentiles.” That's what he's saying. I was given something to do. I was given a stewardship. God asked me to do this, and I had to go and make it fully known, and the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints, to them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory, of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. God gave me this mission to make the gospel fully known among the Gentiles. And I went and I did it. I'm trying to do that now. Go to the end of Colossians, because right here before the very end, right before Colossians 4:18, right before he says, this is me Paul signing off. Look at what he says in verse 17 of Colossians 4, “And say to Archippus.” I don't know if you ever heard of Archippus before, but hey, if anybody sees Archippus after the service, say, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. Hey, if anybody out there sees Archippus, remind Archippus that he needs to fulfill his ministry.
So, this is how Paul thought, I've got something to do when I stand before Jesus, Jesus is going to say, well done. So, between being saved and being in glory, I want to fulfill my ministry and make sure Archippus is fulfilling his ministry, too. Go over to 2 Timothy, chapter 4, the very last chapter that Paul writes before he is killed, before he becomes a martyr. I mean, I'm telling you, Paul gave his life for the ministry of the gospel going out to the Gentiles. And one of the things that you and I need to reflect on, as many of us are Gentiles, like you don't hear Gentile people today saying, well, I can't be saved because I'd have to become a Jew. And a lot of people thought that before Paul began his ministry, and Paul's ministry was so affected that it changed the way the world thinks, where now many Gentiles take it for granted that they can be saved without becoming a Jew. But Paul's the one who spread that message among the Gentiles, and he ended up dying for it. And it's really sad here in verses 16 and 17 of 2 Timothy 4, where he describes his last moments, his last days. He says, “At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them.” Here's Paul, how many people has he led to the Lord? How many men has he discipled? How many churches has he planted? And yet, at the end of his life, how does he feel? Alone. The moment where he stood before Caesar was apparently too big for other brothers who deserted him in that moment, and he had to stand and defend himself alone. But then he says this in verse 17, “But the Lord stood by me, and the Lord strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.” Like, Yeah, I'm going to die, and yeah, I feel deserted by my friends, but as long as I get the message of the gospel to the Gentiles, that's my purpose. So, what are Paul's last words about himself? He wants to fulfill his ministry. But look at the last thing he says to Timothy. You’ve got to go back in chapter 4 to Verse 5, and this is after he tells Timothy to preach the Word, whether people want to hear it or they don't want to hear it, don't scratch their itching ears for what they want to hear. Say what God says, Timothy. Give them the truth. And as for you, Timothy, this is 2 Timothy 4:5, “As for you, always be sober minded. Endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist.” Keep doing the gospel work. Keep seeing souls get saved, and then what's the last thing he says as an instruction to his disciple, Timothy, fulfill your ministry.
Have you ever thought about that in your life? Have you ever thought that as a Christian person, there is something that Jesus has for you to do? God's done his work in you to save you. Well now God has good works for you to do. God wants to work through you. There's something that God wants to accomplish in your life. Have you ever thought to yourself, I need to fulfill my ministry? That's a thought I want to encourage you to start thinking today, if you've never thought it before, what is the ministry? Where am I going to get the idea of what Jesus wants me to do from the Word? What is the ministry that he's telling me to do, and how can I fulfill it? Because if you don't fulfill your ministry, what are you going to have to say? Look what Christ accomplished through me. That should be the goal of every believer, everybody who understands. It's not about boasting in my works. It's about what Jesus did. If you understand that, great. Okay, now that you're in Christ, what does Christ want you to do, and will you fulfill that ministry or not? Paul is someone that will have no regrets on the day that he stands before the Lord Jesus, because Paul knows that he gave all the way to his dying breath, the goal of the gospel going to the Gentiles. I'm going to Jerusalem with a big offering of Gentiles to give to the Lord. I have fulfilled my ministry. I pray for you that as you come to the end of your time, that God has given you, that you will be able to say that you fulfilled your ministry, that you will have something that Jesus can look at you and he can say, well done. Because not only did Jesus save you? He did something through you in your life.
Now go back to Romans 15, because Paul doesn't just boast about what he has done and I think it's appropriate for us here in Huntington Beach, us collectively as a church. Let me ask you guys this, and I know you're the nine o'clock service, so I know you're still waking up. It's like first period school here, everybody. But let me ask you a question, has Jesus done something worth boasting about here in Huntington Beach? Okay, okay, all right, all right. Some of you were with me on that. All right. Did Jesus plant a church here in Huntington Beach? Did he save some of you here in Huntington Beach, have saved people now matured in their faith to the point where they can help even other people get saved. Okay, did Jesus provide in an overwhelming way that we could get double the size auditorium here in Huntington Beach? Is that something worth praising the Lord about? Did Jesus actually double us up so that while we are here right now, there's a church meeting in Long Beach, California, in the name of Jesus Christ. Are these all things that Jesus has accomplished in us? Okay, so here's the thing. If we just walk around like, well, we've got nothing to talk about, then what are we ultimately doing? We're downplaying the awesomeness that Jesus is on the move in Huntington Beach, and he's actually doing something. And we should all probably take a note from Paul here that when Jesus sends us to do something and Jesus does it, what should we do? We should be like, wow, it wasn't I that did it, but Christ in me, he really did something. And I want him to get the glory. I want people to know I'm going to be a little bit bold, and I'm going to boast that I think Jesus is building his church in Huntington Beach, right?
So, I want to encourage you, if Jesus is doing something, give him the glory that he deserves for what he's doing. And yes, Jesus uses people to accomplish his purpose. And those people saying Jesus is doing it is not some kind of wrong boasting in yourself. It is a right kind of boasting in Jesus that we see Paul doing in these verses. Now here's where this goes wrong, though, and I've been in this fellowship group, maybe you've been in this fellowship group where somebody starts telling this amazing story of what Jesus has done, and you're like, wow, this is a great story. Wow. This is firing me up. Have you ever heard a brother or sister tell a story that inspired you and your fellowship group? And then I start thinking to myself, wait a minute. I've heard this story before. In fact, I think I might have heard this story two times this before. In fact, every time this topic comes up, this brother keeps telling me the same old story. And I remember thinking that about one of my brothers in Christ here at the church, and I said, bro, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but can I just ask you, when did this happen? Oh, this was seven years ago, bro. Have you shared this story with us before? Yes, I have, bro. Are we just here to keep reciting the greatest hits of what Jesus did yesterday? Or is Jesus still on the move right now? See some people, they've seen Jesus do something great, and they're ready to rest on it. They're ready to call it a day. They're ready to retire when it comes to making disciples of Jesus, like I saw Jesus do something back in the day. I saw Jesus do something in my family or in my friend. And it's amazing. And so anytime this comes up, they keep sharing the greatest hits, the same old stories. And I just want to ask you, like, are the best days of serving Jesus behind you, or are you pressing on till the very end.
See, this is a big question for us as a church, because we had clear goals. We had a goal to plant a church. We had a goal to see the church built, and then we had a clear goal that we would pay it forward by planting another church. And just this year, just a few weeks ago, we were able to accomplish that goal that seemed impossible when we got started. We have seen God do it, and they're meeting right now in Long Beach. So, are we going to start to just plateau? Are we going to start to say around here, well, God did great things in Huntington Beach? Or do we believe that the best is yet to come? Because if you go to Romans 15. And you look at verses 20 and 21, Paul's saying, “and thus, I make it my ambition.” I make it my aim, you could translate it. I'm going to go preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, not to people who've already heard it, not where it's already been preached. I'm going to go further. I'm going to get out my machete, and I'm going to go hack through the tall grass, and I'm going to go form a new trail that no one's ever walked down before. You guys in Rome? Yeah, I know there's the gospel in Rome, because you guys are there. You guys are going to help me go to Spain, because I don't know about anybody preaching the gospel in Spain. You see this, Paul has done something so far beyond what we could maybe even imagine doing. And yet, what is he thinking? We’ve got more to do. See, he has this idea of ambition. He has this idea of a goal, a target, an aim. He believes that you can share the gospel with people, and people can get saved. And the gospel, it doesn't run out of batteries. The Gospel doesn't get worn down. The Gospel doesn't become old news or tired or used up. The gospel is God's power to save, and God has everlasting energy, and God can continue to save more people. That's what Paul thinks. And so, he has this goal, like I've got to go see more that the gospel is going to do in Spain.
So, let's get this down for number two, that you want to “Make it your aim for the gospel to ring out.” Make it your aim for the gospel to ring out. If you have something to boast about, do it, let people know the glory of the Lord through the power of the gospel. But if you don't have something to boast about, you've got something to do. And even if you do have something to boast about, there's more to do. Be ambitious. Have a clear aim. Have a goal. I want the gospel to echo from my life. That should be the goal of every believer. That's 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1, verse 8, that's the first verse we ever looked at as a church together. The Word of the Lord sounded forth from the Thessalonians. It echoed. It resounded. It reverberated. It's like they heard the gospel, and it changed their lives, and it came out of their lips. It wasn't like Jesus was their personal Savior. Jesus was the Savior of all mankind. Jesus was the savior of the whole world. This good news is not just for me. This good news is for everyone. And so, the Thessalonian church, their faith, was known throughout all Macedonia and Achaia, basically throughout the whole modern day country of Greece. People knew the Thessalonians were pumped up and the gospel had saved them because it resounded from them.
The gospel should not be something that just changes your life. The gospel is God's power to save everyone, the Jew first and then the Greek. So, the gospel needs to echo from you to other people. It needs to resound. Do you have as an ambition, as an aim, that you want to see more people get saved by the gospel? Do you understand that there are people out there on planet Earth right now who have not heard the good news of Jesus? They have not had someone come and preach it to them. Do you understand that there are people all around us where we live, maybe they've heard something, but they have not yet responded? Bonded to the gospel. They have not yet turned from their sin. They haven't put their trust. They don't know how sweet it is to trust in Jesus. They don't know about what Christ can do in our lives. They can't sing how he loves you and me. They don't know how he loves them. Does that bother you? Do you want to go and do something about it? Do you realize that the purpose of the church still being on planet Earth and not worshiping in heaven is there are more people that Jesus died for that still need to become the church? That's why we're still here. And so, Paul, who's done so much, if there was anybody who could rest on his laurels at this point, by acts 19, it would be Paul. He's already done all those missionary journeys. He's already seen so many Gentiles get saved. I mean, he could just keep going around to all the churches that he already started for the rest of his life, and everybody would think what a ministry Paul had. But that's not the mindset of Paul. There's more to do. There's territory that needs to be reached. There are people who need to hear and he quotes here in verse 21, this is a quote of Isaiah 52:15. So if you are taking notes, make sure you write that down right next to that verse. He brings up Isaiah 52:15 here. And Paul has a personal goal that he wants to go to people who haven't heard it, where it hasn't been preached. He doesn't want to go support some already going church. He wants to go where there is no church. And so go with me to Isaiah 52:15, and let's see the context of this verse that he quotes that's clearly fueling him. It's clearly driving him forward. Paul has suffered so much and given so much, and yet here he is, within ambition for the gospel to save more souls. And so, why does he quote this verse? Well, if you turn to it and you look at Isaiah, 52:15, you can see, if you look, I'll just read the verse as it is here in Isaiah, it says, “So shall he sprinkle many nations.” So, the emphasis on the verse here is what's going to happen to the nations, not just among the Jews, but the many nations. “And the kings shall shut their mouth because of him, for that which has not been told them, they see, and that which they have not heard, they understand.”
And so, you can see here, if you go back to verse 13, it says, Behold, my servant shall act wisely. Now, maybe when we recently read through Isaiah, you got this idea that there are Servant Songs. There are four different times going back to like Isaiah 42, there are four different times that it mentions this servant that God is going to send and what this servant is going to do. These are prophecies written by Isaiah, six hundred years before Jesus comes. But that's who the songs are about, Jesus and what he's going to do. So, Paul is quoting from the final servant song, the most famous, the fourth of four Servant Songs, the most famous one. Look at the verse he quotes is right before what chapter? Probably the most famous chapter from Isaiah is Isaiah what? 53. And let me just read for you a little bit of this Good News of the Gospel that Paul was so passionate to and had such an ambition to spread it says in Isaiah 53:1, “Who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty, that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Who is the man of sorrows that he's referring to here, everybody? So, when you saw Jesus, when Jesus put on flesh, when Jesus walked among us, when you looked at Jesus, he just looked like an ordinary guy. He looked like one of us. He didn't look like he had some glorious form or majesty. In fact, if you saw Jesus on the day that he died on the cross for you, he actually would have looked like a man of sorrows. He would have looked hideous. If you saw Jesus on the day he died for you, he would have looked lowly esteemed and disgraced. Look what it goes on to say, “As one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed him not.” on the day that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, which not everybody around here or all over the world has fully heard or understood that there is a genuine story of good news, that there have been prophecies about Jesus for hundreds of years, because Jesus is the Christ. He's the Anointed One of God. He's the One God sent to save us. People don't understand this. Like Matt was saying earlier, the Junior highs think Jesus’ name is some kind of curse word. They don't understand what's really happened here, that if you saw Jesus on that day, where they pounded the crown of thorns into his skull, where they punched him in the face and said prophesy who hit you, when they stripped him of his robe. If you saw Jesus on that day, you wouldn't have had this high esteem. Just looking at Jesus, you want to think, who’s this man of sorrows that nobody cares about, rejected by his own people, by his own nation, and yet look what it goes on to say here in verse 4. Surely he, this man of sorrows, beaten up and bloodied. “Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds, we are healed all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one of us to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. This is the gospel. This is the good news that Jesus bore the weight of your sin, and he was crushed, he was pierced, he was wounded, so that your sin could be forgiven by his righteous sacrifice.” This is what makes Dawn start crying when she wants to tell it to you that all of our sins were nailed to the cross through the hands and feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he suffered and died for us. Now that's the famous part of Isaiah 53. Look what it says in verse 7. “He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep before it shears, is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” So, he's not complaining, he's not defending himself. They're mocking him. They're saying, come down, save yourself. If you save yourself and come down, then we'll believe in you. But he's not trying to save himself. He's trying to save you. That's what Jesus is doing. That's the good news. The glorious Son of God, the only righteous one who's ever lived among all mankind, he offered himself willingly to pay for your sins so your soul could be redeemed. In fact, we go to the end of Isaiah 53 unfortunately, not enough people read all the way to the end. Look at verse 10. “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring and he shall prolong his days.” So, notice, even though he's clearly going to die, he's also going to have prolonged days. What is that speaking to, he's going to die, but he's also going to live? We're talking about a resurrection here, in fact, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand out of the anguish of his soul. “He's going to see and be satisfied by his knowledge, shall the righteous one My servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide Him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many, and now he makes intercession for the transgressors.”
You see, the Righteous One is now making us righteous. See, the one who poured out his soul to death is now alive at the right hand of God, and he's interceding. Who does it say that Jesus is interceding for? Transgressors. See, the thing you need to know is that Jesus is the Christ. This is the gospel. He died for your sins, he rose again. But here's what you need to understand is that Jesus knows exactly who he died for. Jesus, when he died, he was actively paying for your sin, and he paid it in full, so that God, when you put your faith in Jesus, God now declares that you are righteous in his righteousness. And the reason we're not all in heaven shouting “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” and doing much better worship there in purity and holiness than we can do here. The reason we're not all in the presence of Jesus is because Jesus, right now is praying for people that he died for, that have not yet been saved. There are people, human beings, walking around on this planet that Jesus died for, but they have not yet believed. And what we are waiting for is someone to come and bring them the good news. And see, Paul, he lived like that. He thought like that. His ambition, his aim, was, we’ve got to get that good news to them so that they can believe in Jesus and be saved. That's the ministry. That's the purpose. So, do you have that passion? Do you understand that we can't just live our regularly scheduled lives? That's not the point. The point is people still need to be saved. That's the point. The point isn't to live out my days on planet Earth. The point is so that people can be saved now, so they can live out eternal days in the presence of Jesus, Christ. And so, do you have an ambition? Do you have a desire to do something beyond yourself and to see other people get saved? Paul was driven by this. He wanted to go to the furthest possible place, to where nobody's heard, and he wanted to be the one to tell them. Do you have any ambition like that in your life? Would you be happy to live out the rest of your days just being a saved person yourself? Or do you think that you have to be a part of seeing God save somebody else? My concern is, too many of us are okay with just being saved ourselves, and we don't have this ambition that there are still more souls that need to be saved. And so, we need to really take to heart what Paul's saying. Paul is saying there are people who have not heard Paul's saying there's places where it hasn't been preached. And what can we do about it?
So, I want to bring up something. I want to introduce something that we want to do here at our church. It's called Project: Pay It Forward. That's really what we're talking about here today, going from the mind of Paul. How can we have that mindset here? And here's the idea, there are people in other places. There are people here around us. We want the gospel to ring out still here in Huntington Beach, but there are other places where people have not really heard the gospel, maybe at all, ever. And how can we take what's happening here in Huntington Beach and send them our help, our money, send them our prayers? How can we participate in what Jesus is doing, not just here with us, but in other parts of the world? So, you've got the state of California there on your map? Well, we've been a part of two churches here in Huntington Beach and in Long Beach. Okay, but now let's put California in perspective with the entire planet. Okay? There's a lot that Jesus is doing all over the world. We don't know about all of it. There's one place we do know about that is Tokyo, Japan, because we sent a missionary from our church to Tokyo. Who remembers Rosie? Does anybody remember Rosie? Right? Rosie was a very friendly person here, well, and she shared the gospel with people here. We thought, wow, let's send her to the most populated area on the planet where a lot of people don't know the gospel, and they could use a friendly person at church. And Rosie and her husband Jonathan, are going to be here next week to give us the praise report of what's going on in Tokyo, Japan. But that's a place where, wow, I mean, the area. I got to go there, the area around that city. There are more souls right there in that area than anywhere else on the planet. And if you walk down the street today in a very modern, very sophisticated city of Tokyo, most people you walk by have never heard someone tell them the gospel, never once man. How can we support that? How can we give towards that? How can we pray for that?
I have a privilege here of going to Uganda in a few days, Lord willing, I'm going to get on a plane and I'm going to go to Uganda. I don't know. Does anybody remember that guy, Shannon Hurley, who came here one time, and remember how he said, all godly people go to Uganda. I'm sorry it was a little false teaching here at our church, right? But, we gave him, if you remember, we gave them when we were doing our building project, we just took some a little of our leftover money, and we sent it to Uganda so they could build a bigger church building. They have asked me now to come and preach to that church of people. And I'm going to be going there in just a few weeks. I'm going to preach to them on Sunday morning, and then they have a school to train up future pastors for all of Africa. And I get to go teach 1 Thessalonians, the first book we ever studied here in Huntington Beach. I get to go pay it forward and teach it to these guys who are hopefully going to be pastors in Africa. And I said, wow, what an exciting thing. Let's see how they're built. Is their building done? Do they need more money? What's going on there in Uganda? I'm going to get to go. Matt Shew and I are going to go. We're going to get a first-hand witness to what's going on. We're going to report back to you.
Another exciting opportunity that has opened up is in India through a brother here at our church, we've become friends with this pastor, Feb and Finney. Finney, he's in Punjab, India. Does everybody understand that India is now the most populated nation on planet Earth? It passed China. Did everybody hear that? Okay, so when you hear India, what you should think is the biggest collection of Gentiles ever assembled in the history of the planet. That's what it is. And a lot of people in India, they haven't heard the gospel. A lot of those people, they've never had someone preach to them. Now we know a guy who's preaching the gospel in India. He's become a friend of our church. He watches scripture of the day every single video. God bless him, right? And so, he's learning from our church how to do church in India. And so, he's asked us officially to mentor him and the other pastors. And so, we're on zooms or to India, and he's showing me the stairs you have to go up to get into their church. And it's like, like these. It's like such a long and narrow stairway. If you saw this stairway as an Orange County person who… here is an Orange County person, raise your hand. Okay, own it. Get your hand up in the air. Own it. You are an Orange County person who, here is LA County. Do we have any LA County? Let's welcome the LA County here among us. We're glad you're here., San Bernardino, San Diego. We'll take anybody. We're glad you're here. But this is an Orange County church, okay? And I had to tell these guys, these guys, where ushers at their church literally carry people up flights of stairs so that they can get to church. Otherwise, the people can't even get to the church service. It's a whole different kind of ushering than what we're doing. Hey, can I carry you to your chair here today? Right? That's what they have to do. I was like, Guys, we are so, you know, I come from Orange County, and this would be illegal. They would force us to put in an elevator. They would not allow us to assemble where you are meeting. Why don't you guys get on the ground floor? Like I'm thinking, just church 101, you’ve got to get on the ground floor where everybody can come in. Oh, we can't afford that. We can't afford that. We don't have the means to do that. We don't have the money to move to a bigger building where more people could come, and it could be a place that anyone could get into on the ground floor. We've got a third floor auditorium, and it's packed. And so, we the people here, you know, they don't have enough money to give so that we can so I start asking, you know, logical like, let's figure this out kind of questions, like, well, how much are you paying for this place? How much would one of these other places kind of cost? And you start doing the math and figuring it out and converting it from their currency to the US dollar. Do you guys understand that in many places all over the world, the US dollar goes a lot further than we think? Do you guys understand that, compared to many people all over the world, you are a filthy rich person. And I know you don't think you're rich comparing yourself to other people around you, but if you could compare yourself to people, even in Tokyo, even in Uganda, especially in India, you are so rich in what you have. Do you realize that we could move an entire church of people in India from the third floor to the ground floor, and give them a bigger space? We could pay for five years of their lease to move a whole church like this for less than 50,000 American dollars. I'm thinking we should do that. I'm thinking that we should make it as a goal, as a church in Orange County, that as soon as our needs are met, any excess money we have, we pay it forward for the gospel in other places where other people need to hear what the people don't know. I mean, they're surrounded by souls in India that don't know. There are so many people in Africa; they don't know. There's a massive city of people in Tokyo. They don't know. And we could actually do something. You could actually participate in the Gospel ringing out all over the world by helping, by paying and by praying, you can actually do something about this.
And so next week, when you come here to church, we're going to talk more about how Paul wants to go to Spain, and we're going to talk more about this project pay it forward, and we're going to take an offering, and we're going to pray together that the best days of the gospel ringing out here in Huntington Beach is and other places are ahead for us, and we want to partner with other churches. Things we know about. We got planted. We’ve got to see God build us up. We’ve got to send out another church. How can we take what God has done here and pay it forward to other churches? That's something we really want to do. So, let's pray together right now. In fact, let's all stand up. I'll close the service right now by praying here together.
So, Father, thank You for the mindset of Paul that we could study. Thank You that we could get into this together today and to see a kind of boasting that's not about us, but it's about what Jesus has done. God, we thank you that we can boast about Jesus building his church here in Huntington Beach, but Father, I pray that we would not become a church that rests in what you did yesterday, but that we would press on for an ambition for what the gospel has yet to do, that there are people that Jesus died for who are not saved yet, and we want to find them. We're searching for them here in our cities, and we're ready to support churches preaching the good news in cities all over the world. Father, please let this be the day of humble beginnings. Let this be the day that we're just getting started. Let the gospel ring out to the ends of the earth. And so put it on our hearts. I pray that even this week, we will consider what we're willing to do, to pay, to pray, to help churches in other places. And so, God, please let the best days of the Gospel be yet to come. For each one of us, let us fulfill our ministry that we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name. And everybody said, Amen. Hey, have a great day, everybody. Thanks for being here.