We can apply our spiritual gifts without this weirdness, without wildness, without seminaries, without certificates. That does not mean that those things, all of them, are bad. It just means we don't have to have them.
There are other tools and methods. The Holy Spirit is truth and love. They authenticated Paul's ministry. What apostle would read First Corinthians 13 and say, well, this can't be right?
None of them. They would all applaud First Corinthians 13. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Romans.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of Romans chapter 15 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Romans 15, verses 14 and 15. Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points as reminding you because of the grace given to me by God. I know we stopped there mid-sentence, but admirable, aggressive ambitions. Now that alliteration just works out.
I wasn't trying to have all A's as the first word, but it's what's going on here. It's honorable what he is doing. He's very aggressive. His ambition is to take the gospel everywhere. And so it is admirable.
It is aggressive and it is ambitious. When Paul died some 30 years after the ascension of Christ, there was a Christian church in every major city of the Roman Western Empire, largely through his aggressive and ambitious efforts. They did not just show up. Now some of them go back to Pentecost before he was saved, but a great many of them were directly because of him. And all of them were strengthened because of his work. He wrote to the Corinthians, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. That pressed on his heart.
And love was the motive, not guilt, love. His calling was not wasted. As we look down at verse 19, he says, in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Elecraeum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
Yeah, because he's so aggressive. And again, in a righteous way, in a Spirit-led way. He did not die of old age. He did not die of illness. He died of martyrdom, if I can say it that way. He was martyred. He was murdered. Jesus helped himself to Paul's life.
Paul lived to have it so. As a matter of fact, the apostles of Jesus Christ did not die for hearsay. They did not die because someone told them about something or someone. They died because they saw Jesus Christ. They knew him. They knew the story.
They lived it. And Paul, although a late bloomer, he too saw the risen Christ. So now we cut right to verse 14, and let's see what he has to say about his aggressive approach to sharing the gospel. Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one another. Well, he had received reports from witnesses about the church in Rome. As a matter of fact, we get to the next chapter, he's going to start naming all these names, so he knew a lot of the people in this church. But he mentions admonishing one another.
Well, that's a self-correcting assembly. You know, you just, you can say things, you know, maybe you take the Lord's name in vain and one of the brothers or sisters is going to say, you know, don't do that. That's not how we do it. And that's a gentle example. It's a great help to any church to have those kind of relationships where the Christians can properly admonish one another, if necessary, without becoming puffed up with pride or anything else. We're not talking about a witch hunt. We're just talking about strengthening one another, whether it be through correction or encouragement, the beauty of fellowship. It is a big part of Christianity, koinonia, the fellowship of the saints.
They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, communion and prayer. Looking at verse 15, nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points as reminding you because of the grace given to me by God. Well, he's confident that they're going to receive this letter well. Remember, as he's writing this, he hasn't sent it yet. We've covered the letter, but it's still on his desk and he's closing it up. He's confident because of the reports and he knows many of them, as mentioned, yet he's still cautious.
He's not taking it for granted. He's talked to them about sin, salvation. He's talked to them about faith, law and grace, the whole Jewish Gentile thing. He's covered a lot of material, some of it hard hitting for them.
As we read it, it may not appear that way to us, but as you examine it, you realize, man, he's dealing with some heavy topics that people are very close to. In verse 16, he says that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Well, few could do this, bringing this Jewish born message to the Gentiles, and none really could do it like Paul did. There's two words here in this sentence that are matching in our English, ministering and ministering, but in the Greek, there's a subtle difference, two different words in the Greek. The first one, ministering, as in a public servant. The Greeks would use that word if they were talking about, say, perhaps what we would call a civil servant. The second one is a minister, a temple servant.
When the Jews would translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, the Greek language, they would use this Greek word to speak about servants in the temple. He wrote again to the Corinthians, which the Corinthian letters were right before the Roman letter. He says, for though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win the more. And so the heart of a servant made his aggression successful. The ambition was born out of a heart for Christ. So the idea behind these choice of words, and they're not random, he thought through his words when he spoke them.
All writers seem to do that, the good ones. The idea is one of care in handling the gospel when giving the gospel. That's why he's saying that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. So he's very careful when he shares Christ. He knows he's dealing with spiritual things as we do too.
These things are for us. They're not, well, it just happened for Paul when he died, it died with him. Incidentally, he's not the only one doing these things. There are others. There are other apostles. Peter reminds the Christians that this is our calling. I've quoted this verse probably the last ten times in the pulpit. As Peter said, we are a royal priesthood. We are a priesthood under a king.
And these are priestly words. He says that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable. Well, Gentile converts, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, that reliance on God, the Holy Spirit as the New Testament, has taught us so much about. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 5. Then he goes on in verse 6, who made us sufficient as ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. All these things swirling around in his life of serving Christ, and they should be ours too. There are many Bible truths that are swirling around inside of us, just waiting to be activated.
Here's an easy one. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. You know how hard it is to get through life without wanting?
Those broken hearts are based on things they want, they can't have, whether it's grief or whatever it may be. And yet the Christian resolve, the Lord is my shepherd. He's going to take care of me. It takes effort. It takes effort to live out the Christian faith, but always remember it's worthwhile, and we'll kind of come to that down the road.
Let's move on. Verse 17. Therefore, because of everything I just said, I have reason to glory in Christ Jesus and the things which pertain to God. Well, be not lured into things that do not pertain to God while doing the work of God.
It's very easy to get tied up with other things. For example, politics. You want a pastor who's a political pundit? The world produces better political pundits than the pulpit should ever produce. But I cringe when I hear pundits talk about the faith.
Some of them get it, you know, they are Christians. But we Christians, we believers, we are not to be entangled in things that have nothing to do with the salvation of souls, with the strengthening of the saves, with the resistance of evil, with getting to heaven. Second Timothy, chapter 2, Paul writes, No one entangled in warfare entangles himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please him who has enlisted him as a soldier. Now, those of you who have served in the military, do you think the recruiter lied to you?
Do you think he was straight up with you? Well, the branch I joined, they were pretty stasty, there was a big post-it, we never promised you a rose garden. But Jeremiah the prophet said to God, you know, you're stronger than me. The implications from Jeremiah 20 is, you know, you tricked me into ministry, and I chuckle at that. Because if anyone is allowed to sort of, I don't want to paint God as being deceptive, because he's not.
He didn't sign a contract to disclose everything. And so it is prerogative to withhold certain truths. It behooves us to not care about what he withholds, to concentrate on what he gives.
That's how the West is one. Paul says this here, well let's go to verse 18, For I will not dare speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient. So he has been very active in the faith, he knows what he's talking about. Truth and love became more useful than signs and wonders to this day.
A lot of Christians I don't think get that. Being the signs and wonders, truth and love are signs and wonders. New Testament, read 1 Corinthians 13, and you tell me if that's not a wonder.
Something that's amazing, that's miraculous, something that I cannot do without God. We can effectively use our gifts without lightning, without earthquakes, without storms, we can be very effective with truth and love. We can apply our spiritual gifts without hysteria, without weirdness, now that's an interesting one.
Because when you say, look you don't have to be weird, the weird Christians without pointing them out are offended, which means they're admitting they're weird, which can't be right. But okay, we pass on. I haven't pointed at anybody, but you know who you are. I don't know who you are.
But if you do, well, consider it. So back to what I'm talking about here, we can apply our spiritual gifts without this weirdness, without wildness, without seminaries, without certificates. That does not mean that those things, all of them, are bad. It just means we don't have to have them.
There are other tools and methods. The Holy Spirit, this truth and love, they authenticated Paul's ministry. What apostle would read 1 Corinthians 13 and say, well this can't be right?
None of them. They would all applaud 1 Corinthians 13. The problem was getting, again, getting the Jews to understand it applied to the Gentiles also. When you don't like a certain people, a racial thing, and it's not, you know, it's more to this than just black and white. Maybe, you know, there's all the different peoples on the earth. There's all sorts of this stuff going around.
It's been around forever. It's not easy to shake free from it because the flesh does not like to give up anything it lays its greedy little fingers on. But you have to fight for it.
And that's the whole thing with the Gentile Jew thing is Paul said, hey, you better overcome this junk. You're not permitted to be a racist. You have to be above it. Yeah, you may see things in other cultures that you don't care for. Fine, don't eat their food. But you better love them. Pastoring 101.
They don't have to love you, you better love them. And that's Christianity 101. He says in word indeed. Well, some have the word without the word. They like talking Bible stuff.
They just don't do anything. The result is a hollow witness. The world can see through that. The guy's always preaching the Bible, yet he's always stealing other people's food out of the refrigerator at work or something like that. Then there are others who have the work, but they don't have the word.
The word is secondary to them. There's nothing wrong with having a pantry, a church pantry kind of a thing. But if that's all you got, all you've done is given out calories.
You leave your surroundings in the same darkness you found it. You've got to have them both. Ergo James, the letter of James. He talks about this very thing. You want to show me your faith? Show me your works, you'll show me your faith.
They go together. And Paul preached the same thing. To make the Gentiles obedient. Well, that's a command. John's Gospel 14 verse 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. Obey me. Because there's more of that kind of love for Jesus than just love. There's lordship that doesn't belong, that we don't assign to anyone else outside the Godhead. Verse 19, in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illicrium, I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ. Man, you've got to love these words.
You have to see something in there that says, I want to do these things. Unmistakable, awesome evidences, signs and wonders. They were to create awe unto salvation. They weren't entertainment.
They weren't just, wow, that was interesting. They were to inspire faith, trust in God. So that from Jerusalem round about to Illicrium, that's about 1,400 miles from Jerusalem to this region of the world, which we used to call Yugoslavia, it's Albania, Montenegro, that up by the Aegean Sea, right across from Italy. Did Paul make it there? You know, just because we don't read everything there is about Paul, but we read quite a bit. He mentions in his second letter to Timothy in the fourth chapter, 10th verse, he mentions that Titus, one of Paul's underpastors, went to Dalmatia, which is in that region of the world, which suggests that Paul did reach that area and dispatched Titus as he was want to do.
I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ. This is important without forcing it. We don't have a record of Paul forcing the Gospel. The closest we might get to that is when he tried to intellectually engage the so-called intellectuals in Athens. Remember to God, nobody's an intellectual.
You're kidding, right? Anyway, Abraham, our beloved Abraham, he dotted the Promised Land with what? Alters. You could take a pushpin, you'd run out of a pushpin, stick him in, well Abraham put an altar here, he put one here, then he went up here and he put one there. The man was constantly bowing down to God, worshipping his God and leaving his altar behind because the altar was not his God, which I say that because to the pagans that would have been, I can't believe he left his altar behind. Paul, he altered, pun intended, I want points for that one, he altered the landscape of the Roman Western Empire with converts and churches. He put pushpins, his church here started. Paul gets to Ephesus and he finds some believers, but they weren't solid at all. They had a vague understanding and he fixed that, made Ephesus one of the most powerful of the early churches and also one of the first to succumb to lovelessness for Christ. We move to verse 20, and so I have made it my aim to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation.
If you had a blood pressure cuff hooked to me right now, it would spike up. This is one that just really grates on me, I want to be gracious but very firm, but I do not want to be self-righteous. Well, I'll get to the other stuff before I get through it and I've been praying about this all week, Lord, I don't want to come off as being self-righteous, but I can't stand this. Well, Paul had that too, he couldn't stand anybody saying, well, you could be a Christian if you become, you know, circumcised, that just drove, you know, his blood pressure would spike on that.
I'm not Paul, but that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun. The word aim here is a compound Greek word, it means love the honorable. Aim is a proper translation, it gets us to where he's going with this. He's saying, I have made it my love of the honorable to preach the Gospel. And I guess the translators, you know, again tough job they have, they sometimes get it wrong, we'll come to one in a little bit, they scratch their head and they say, well, he's aiming for this and it's an honorable evangelism. There's no, you know, hide a Bible track in the guy's sandwich or something and hope that he bites into it, takes it out and reads it and gets saved. That's not what we do. You know, if I leave enough Bible verses around, they'll get saved.
No, they just might get irritated with you. So be careful in how we share Christ. 2 Corinthians 6, 3, we give no offense in anything that our ministry may not be blamed. Send that to Kenneth Copeland and the rest of those greedy, grubby, no good.
Well, I got other things to get irritated about and let's get to it. When you'll see, you know, well anyway, he says it's not where Christ was named. So Paul put churches where no churches were.
He didn't say, listen, you're in Rome, it's a great church there, I'm going to come to Rome and visit you and I'm going to put a church right across the street from your church. Then you two can compete with each other. See, I can feel it coming up.
I have to fight this. I do not want to get into flesh, but I again do not want to lose any of the punch because it is destructive, this behavior that I'm going to address. He says, listen, I should build on another man's foundation. See this is common amongst self-proclaimed Bible teachers to go into an area and bring more of the same and in the process strip what was already there. It is a spiritual crime to poach on someone else's field of labor. I'm not talking about different denominations because they're different. I'm talking more, there's more with the newer independent churches that just keep popping up everywhere and doing the same thing the other one is doing.
Okay, that's one problem. It's another problem when to do that, to start that church, you steal from another church that's already established because you can't get them on your own because God's not blessing you. If they knew the Bible, they would not do this. They would not go into a church and begin to steal people to their Bible study, which is what they do. I have a righteous indignation towards that behavior.
It's like you're messing with my child. You put so much into ministry not to have some Christian come in, nest in the church, make friends and then steal them away. When Paul and Barnabas split, they went in separate directions. Paul didn't say, well Barnabas is going to Crete.
I'm going there too. I could do a better job than him. There are wrong ways to do a right thing and we got to remember this. Of all the places without a good church, why don't you go there?
Well, I know how those boys and girls work. I won't suffer them. If I find out they're in the church, they're out. They hurt God's work. They are Absalom's at the gate. Am I coming off loving? We should have like some sort of a monitor in the back I can look at.
Okay, I'm still in the green zone. Because I'm passionate about something, I do not want to come off as being loveless, but if it turns into a contest and you're against the work of Christ in the name of Christ, I'm not siding with you. They hurt God's work as I mentioned. There's an arrogance that goes with this in Psalm. There's an ignorance in others. Probably in many times they're both there.
They're seduces and they are deceivers. So I mentioned Absalom. Absalom was the son of the king, King David. And Absalom decided he wanted to steal the kingdom from his father David. And so what Absalom used to do is he would go to the gate of the city, that is the city hall where the king held court. And he would position himself in such a place that he was able to intercept people that were coming to the court with cases.
And he would say, oh man, if I were the king, you'd have no problem with this. So we pick it up, 2 Samuel 15 verse 2, Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. In this manner, verse 6 of 2 Samuel 15, Absalom acted toward all Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
And the result was a bloody civil war. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross Reference Radio. So make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross Reference Radio.
