Paul's Spiritual Service - Romans 1:8-15
INTRODUCTION:
Over the past two weeks we have looked at Paul’s introduction to the book of Romans. Paul had never visited the church in Rome, but it was his desire to do so as we will see this morning. This morning we will be looking at what I have entitled as Paul’s spiritual service and within our passage I see four aspects that make up this spiritual service which is really a form of worship. Later on, in the book of Romans in chapter 12 Paul is going to tell the Roman believers to enter into this type of worship with him. He writes in Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1–2, NASB95)[1] When we present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God, we are saying that God can do as He wishes with us, our spiritual service of worship then becomes whatever the good, acceptable and perfect will of God is for our lives. This morning as we look at Paul’s spiritual service of worship, we will see that it involves thanksgiving, supplication, fellowship, and fruit-bearing. Let’s pray and then get into our passage of Scripture for this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles to Romans 1:8-15, our passage of Scripture this morning, in this passage Paul is explaining why he desires to come and visit the church in Rome, and it has to do with his concern for their spiritual growth and his part in that as an act of spiritual service. If you are able, please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read.
Romans 1:8-15,
“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” (Romans 1:8–15, NASB95)[2]
THANKSGIVING (Romans 1:8)
The first aspect of Paul’s spiritual service of worship was a thankful heart. He begins this passage with thanksgiving to his God through Jesus Christ. Paul’s gratitude came out of his close relationship with God. Paul says, “I thank my God…” using a personal pronoun in reference to Almighty God, Paul can do this because of his relationship with God, to Paul God was not a being that was distant and foreboding, but was his Savior and close friend.
Paul recognized that Jesus Christ is the one eternal Mediator between God and man. Jesus had declared to the disciples that no one comes to the Father, but through Me. Paul had written to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5, NASB95)[3] Because Jesus is the mediator between God and men we have been given access through Him to “…draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16b, NASB95)[4]
Paul is thankful to God through Jesus Christ for his brothers and sisters in Christ that were in the church in Rome. He does not single out ones that he may have met on his missionary journeys, but says that he gives thanks for them all, without distinction. We see this heart of thankfulness for fellow believers in Paul’s other epistles as well. Some of those epistles were written from prison, but even there Paul could be thankful because his thankfulness was not based on the external circumstances that he was in, rather it was based on the richness of the fellowship that he had with the Lord.
Paul goes on to give a specific reason for his thankfulness to God for the Christians in Rome and it is because their faith was being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Wherever Paul went in the Roman world of his day and the church in Rome was brought up their faith was proclaimed. This faith that Paul thanks God for is not the initial trust in Jesus Christ that brings salvation, but the living faith that sustains a Christian and brings spiritual strength and growth. The city of Rome was known for its wickedness and paganism and yet within this city the Christians lived out their faith with integrity and credibility. Churches in our world are famous for many different reasons, possibly their architecture or their size or their pastor, for the church in Rome they were famous for their faith. This church was a body of redeemed saints through whom the Lord Jesus Christ displayed His life and His power, and because of this the faith of this body of saints was known everywhere.
Are you known for your faith? I have to tell a story about Paul Pekola, when he was a younger man and still working when he would show up on the job sight the employees would say, “Here comes the preacher.” Why did they say this? Because Paul was not afraid to talk about his faith, he has not changed when I visited him this week, he told me that he was talking to the nurses about his faith.
Are you thankful, we as believers have so much to be thankful for, our lives should overflow with gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us, but not only for us, we should also be thankful for what Jesus Christ has done for others in our family and in our church, we should be thanking God for the faith of those whom God has brought into our lives. Paul shows us what a thankful heart should look like as he constantly focused on what God was doing in his life as well as the lives of other faithful saints throughout the world. The first aspect of Paul’s spiritual service of worship was a thankful spirit.
SUPPLICATION (Romans 1:9-10)
Paul in verses 9-10 gives us the next aspect of his spiritual service of worship which is shown in the concern which he has for the believers in Rome as he prays for them. Paul begins verse 9 with the key phrase of this passage, which is verses 8-15. Paul writes, “For God, whom I serve in my spirit…” (Romans 1:9a, NASB95)[5] The Greek word that is translated “serve” in this verse is used almost exclusively in the New Testament to refer to religious service, and because of this it is sometimes translated “worship.” True worship is expressed in the life of a believer through devoted service to the glory of God. Devoted service requires commitment, again it points to the fact that Jesus Christ is more than just our Savior, but the recognition and acknowledgment that He is the Lord and Master of our lives. Paul said that he served God in his spirit which meant that his service came from within him from a heart fully devoted to the serving God with everything he had. The fact that he served God in his spirit meant that He relied on the Spirit of God working with his spirit to accomplish the spiritual service of worship, it was not done in the flesh. Paul goes on to say in verse 9 that the primary service to God for him was the preaching of the Gospel of God’s Son, a ministry to which Paul had been called to by God and to which he gave everything he had to preach when and wherever the Lord led him. But he goes on to explain that his ministry was not just to preach the gospel, but also to show concern and pray for those who have believed in the gospel for salvation. For Paul this was not just those who had come to faith in Christ under his preaching, but for all of the household of faith which included the church in Rome. As an unknown to the church in Rome, Paul says that God, whom he serves in his spirit is his Witness to the concern that Paul has for the individuals in the church that he has never visited, and God is his Witness in how much he prays for the members of the church in Rome. Paul says that he unceasingly makes mention of them always in his prayers. He prays for them often and they are never taken off of his prayer list. Paul understands that even the faithful saint needs constant prayer support just as much as we pray for the saint who is not walking faithfully. The faithful saint needs prayer that he remains faithful. I was convicted of this need of prayer for you this week, I pray for individuals in the church, but through study for this message God impressed upon me that I need to pray for you even more than I have in the past and so I started praying for you more than I have in the past. What about you are you praying for your brothers and sisters in Christ?
Paul does not tell us here what he was praying for the Christians in the church in Rome, but we can be sure that his prayers were much like what he prayed for the other churches which he recorded for us in some of his other epistles. For example, in Ephesians 3:14-19 we have Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus recorded for us, Paul prayed, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14–19, NASB95)[6] I can only imagine that it was a prayer like this that Paul was praying for the faithful saints in the church in Rome. Paul prayed out of the depths of his heart for the saints to be strengthened in the faith and to grow in their love for their Savior and Lord. That their hearts would be in tune with God’s heart and that their knowledge of God’s Word would be made complete and that they would seek to be obedient to God’s will made clear in His Word.
Along with these prayers for the saints in Rome, Paul said that he also makes a request, that he might have a part in answering his prayer for their spiritual well-being. He prays that he may at last, if it is God’s will, succeed in coming to them. Paul in sharing this prayer request with them makes known to them the desire that he has to come and minister to them, to encourage them in the faith, to come and meet them and get to know them personally.
Notice even though he desires to come to them, it is only if it is the will of God. Even though Paul earnestly desired to come to Rome and meet and get to know the saints there, Paul’s service to God was always directed by the will of God. He understood that God’s will and God’s timing were crucial for his spiritual service of worship to be effective and to be worship.
Paul goes on explaining to the saints in Rome why it is that he wants to come and see them and get to know them. His first reason was for two benefits. First, he says he wants to come to give them some spiritual gift, so that they may be established. In other words, he wanted to come and serve them in love and give to them some spiritual encouragement. His desire to come was to give of himself to the church in Rome. In Colossians 1:28-29 Paul gives us the goal of his ministry, of his service to the Lord. He wrote, “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” (Colossians 1:28–29, NASB95)[7] Paul understood discipleship and he did not just want to see people come to faith in Christ, but wanted them to grow so that they might be complete in Christ. This was Paul’s goal, his purpose for which he labored in the power of the Holy Spirit. This he also wants to do in Rome, he wanted to admonish and teach the saints in Rome with all wisdom. So what was this spiritual gift that Paul wanted to impart to them? Because he is writing to saints it cannot be the free gift of salvation through Christ, nor can it be the gifts of the Spirit which he speaks of in chapter 12, those gifts are given directly by the Spirit and not by human agency. This spiritual gift that Paul speaks of must refer to any Spirit-empowered spiritual benefit that Paul could bring to the saints in Rome which would come through preaching, teaching, exhorting, comforting, praying, and guiding. Whatever was needed so that they could be presented complete in Christ. This is what Paul says that he wants to impart this spiritual gift so that the saints there would be established. This word translated “established” can also be translated “strengthened.” Paul wanted to build them up and strengthen them in Christ.
As I said Paul’s first reason for coming had two benefits, the first we just looked at, the second benefit was that of mutual encouragement. Paul desired to spend time with them and have fellowship with them so that they might mutually encourage one another. Paul knew that he also needed to be spiritually edified. Paul understood that fellowship and the encouragement that came from being together with like-minded believers and each one being encouraged by other’s faith was important for spiritual growth. Paul knew that the end product of the saint was spiritual perfection, and though he pursued this in his life he knew he had not attained it, so he eagerly looked forward to being helped in his spiritual pursuit by the saints in Rome, both the old and the young and the mature and the immature. We are never beyond learning and both old and young in the faith can encourage and build one another up in the faith. The benefit is mutual, and Paul understood that principle and looked forward to having his spirit refreshed in the faith of the saints in Rome.
Paul had another reason that he wanted to come to the church in Rome. He tells the church in this letter that he does not want them to be unaware that often in the past he had planned to come to them, but he had been prevented each time. He did not want them to think that he was neglecting them, and he would have come to them long before if it had been up to his own plans. He does not inform us of what prevented him from coming earlier, but for whatever reason it was not God’s time for Paul to be in Rome at an earlier time, but with the writing of this letter he was hoping and praying that He would come soon if it was God’s will. The end of his third missionary journey took him back to Jerusalem with a contribution from the churches for the poor Christians in Jerusalem. Luke wrote in Acts 19:21, “Now after these things were finished, Paul purposed in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, ‘After I have been there, I must also see Rome.’” (Acts 19:21, NASB95)[8]
Paul tells the church that another reason that he wants to come to them is “so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” (Romans 1:13b, NASB95)[9] Paul spiritual service to the Lord was a never-ending quest for spiritual fruit. Everything he did from preaching and teaching to writing was for one purpose to bear fruit for the glory of God. What does Paul mean when he says he wants to obtain some fruit among them?
Fruit is used in three ways in the Bible. First, it is used as a metaphor for the attitudes that characterize the Spirit-led Christian. Paul in Galatians 5:22-23 calls these characteristics the fruit of the Spirit. Second, fruit refers to action or a benefit such as the fruit of salvation or the benefit of salvation is sanctification. The author of Hebrews says that the fruit of a Christian’s lips is praise, the action of our lips is praise. (Hebrews 13:15) Third, spiritual fruit is the addition of people coming to faith in Christ and their spiritual growth in Him. Paul desired this third fruit among the Romans which would be the addition of new converts to Christ and maturing converts. They would be spiritual fruit in the sense of being the product of the Gospel’s power to transform lives, both in salvation from sin and growth in sanctification. Paul wanted to be used to help the church in Rome grow numerically as well as spiritually.
Paul writes that he is “…under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” (Romans 1:14, NASB95)[10] In other words Paul does not preach the Gospel because of personal reasons, he was called and appointed to this task. Paul was under obligation for at least two reasons: First, he was under obligation to God to fulfill the role God had called and appointed him to, to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Second, he under obligation to the church in Rome because he was the apostle to the Gentiles and He has never preached to the Gentiles of Rome and their spiritual need was as great as anywhere else in the Roman Empire.
Because unbelieving Jews and Gentiles were facing spiritual death forever, Paul was obligated to try and rescue them through the Gospel.
Paul writes that he is under obligation to the Greeks and the barbarians and the wise and the foolish. These are parallel phrases; the Greeks represent the wise and the barbarians the foolish. In Paul’s day the Greek language and culture was the language and culture of the highly sophisticated. Anyone who was anybody spoke Greek and was educated in Greek philosophy.
The term barbarians referred to anyone who did not speak Greek or was not educated. The word barbarian is derived from what a cultured Greek thought someone speaking a foreign language sounded like, it sounded like gibberish and was mimicked by saying, “bar, bar, bar, bar.” It came to refer to the uncultured, uncouth, and uneducated masses, and could also refer to anyone who was non-Greek. Paul was no respecter of persons, this expressed that Paul was obligated to share the Gospel with all people regardless of education and whether they were sophisticated or simple, cultured or uncultured. The Gospel was for all and was to be preached to all.
Paul finishes this section by writing, “So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” (Romans 1:15, NASB95)[11] Paul was obligated to preach the Gospel because to that he had been appointed by God, but that did not over-ride his internal desire to fulfill that obligation, not only was he willing, but he writes that he is eager to preach the Gospel in a place that he has not preached before. Life for Paul had but one purpose and that was to do the will of God, the good, acceptable, perfect will of God which was Paul’s spiritual service of worship.
CONCLUSION:
What about you? What do you see as your purpose in life? If it is to do the good, acceptable, perfect will of God, then that requires some surrender, that requires taking self off the throne of your life and making Jesus Christ the Lord and Master of your life. Paul calls this surrender as presenting your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice which is acceptable to God, surrender requires sacrifice, what are you willing to sacrifice so that you do not become conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of your mind. We have to get the garbage of the world out of our lives so that we can offer to God the spiritual service of worship that comes from doing His will. Where do we find His will for us? Right here, this is what transforms the mind, but only if you are in it and it transforms your mind by making us take on the mind of Christ. Begin your surrender to Jesus Christ by reading the Word and that requires more than just a verse a day and the daily bread or the days of praise. Those are great tools, but they do not replace spending time with the Savior and Lord in His Word.
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[4]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[5]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[6]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[7]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[8]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[9]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[10]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[11]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995