Category: Devotions

Do you wake into a storm today? Are you being tossed about by circumstance? Are you looking for guidance?

Let’s meet a remarkable couple who battled with uncertainty but seemingly got through their storms.

“Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house.” (Romans 16 v 3-5)

Aquila originated from the south shore of the Black Sea and had settled in Italy with his wife Priscilla until the Emperor expelled all the Jews from Rome in AD 49. So they arrived into Corinth as refugees where they met Paul who stayed with them and then later they travelled together to Ephesus. They became so close Paul calls them co-workers. (Acts 18:2 “There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome.”) This couple became church leaders and were influential with Paul in the planting of churches in Corinth and Ephesus. They had their own church that met in their house in Corinth. But there is so much story between the lines.

The emperors were often involved in such ethnic cleansing. Claudius was no exception, he was a racist and he increasingly became intolerant of the Jews.

Aquila and Priscilla had suffered, they went through this evil purging feeling like dirt in such wicked circumstances. No doubt they experienced every fear and doubt. But through it all unbeknown to them God was working it all out.

Your greatest catastrophe can be your greatest opportunity.

This couple may never have left voluntarily. Sometimes we have to be violently thrown out of our nest. So much so that the only presence we feel is that of the evil one. It is much later that we realise the overriding presence is that of God.

In AD 54 Claudius died and presumably it was then that the couple returned to Rome along with other Jewish/Christian refugees. Again they had their own church in Italy, presumably planted by them. But one thing they had come to know is the stability of God. No matter what turbulence we go through God is always there holding us in that storm. Paul greets them and they deserved to be mentioned first.

I met these three people yesterday morning: Sharon and Dot, two Deacons and Titus an Elder of a church in a village just outside Sheffield. All had served in the church for over 30 years. They not only loved their church and the community where it sits but they loved their Pastor and his family. I’m thinking of them this morning and others that I meet who may not be standing behind pulpits on Sundays but are definitely the backbone of the church. Their names and faces flash through my mind and I am privileged to have met them and for many to call them friends.

As with the genealogies found all the way through the Bible, the Apostle has his own lists of people in his letters. He is a doctrine man, a leader of the church and God has used him powerfully yet he never forgets to mention people within the church.

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me. (Romans 16 v 1-2)

So let us look at Phoebe but have the Sharon, Dot and Titus people in our minds.

• She is ‘our sister’. Phoebe is family. Paul says she is the Roman Church family as much as the Corinthians.
• She is a deacon in the church in Cenchreae (east Corinth). Phoebe rolled her sleeves up and served the church. She worked hard (on top of whatever else she did) for the good of the church community.
• She was a benefactor of many people including Paul. Phoebe (maybe through her business work) had contributed financially to many, even helping Paul himself. She was generous and kind.

Perhaps Phoebe was bringing this letter from Paul to them. He is keen for them to give her a great welcome and to help her with whatever she needs when she arrives.

Paul is the networker, opening doors for further relationships to develop, encouraging unity. We can make it easy or hard for people to move into the next chapter of their life. We can be the bridge or the wall.

Phoebe arrived into family; she was honoured for all she had done in the church in Corinth and she reaped hospitality as one who had sown it liberally.

The Sharon, Dot and Titus people may not be carrying a letter to a far-off city for us. Their next chapter may seem so much more insignificant and yet if you have been blessed by them then it is our duty to encourage them in whatever is before them, to make it easier and to bless them.

Don’t let go of what is in your heart.

“The God of peace be with you all. Amen.” (Romans 15 v 34)

Paul carried to the end his desire for the Jew and Gentile to be together making up the body of Christ. He uses the word ‘shalom’ (peace) as a Jewish benediction over these majority Gentile readers. This is his heart’s desire and after asking for prayer for himself he declares this over them revealing what was truly in his heart.

Carry what is in your heart to the end, don’t let go.

Paul continues to ask for help. This is the 3^rd request after asking for protection from the unbelievers in Judea and as he heads towards Jerusalem that the Church receive the gift of money that he has collected from the Gentile Christians for them.

“…so that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed.” (Romans 15 v 32)

He is looking forward to his time with the Roman Christians. So now here is the question.

Were these prayers answered and are you experiencing answered prayer?

Maybe you can relate to something of what happened to Paul? Let’s ask if these prayers were answered favourably:

1. His safety from the unbelievers on his way to Jerusalem? What we know is that he was captured, tried and jailed: so not exactly. But he was saved from death and a flogging (you can read about it in Acts 21-23) so you could say the prayers were answered with a yes though at times if must have felt like a no.
2. Did the Jerusalem Church receive the financial gift? Maybe. In Acts 24:17 when Paul is on trial before Felix he tells of the reason why he came to Jerusalem. He doesn’t say anything else, Luke doesn’t refer to it, so assume what you want from the scant details, but I say, maybe it was answered favourably.
3. So did he reach Rome? Yes but not as we or importantly Paul might have expected! He arrives via a shipwreck and as a prisoner! So it is a yes but not the yes he had envisaged.

So the cynic might question the validity of prayer.

But it isn’t about having a genie in a bottle. It is about aligning ourselves and others with the purpose and story of God who works all things together for good to them that love Him and are called according to that purpose.

Don’t just say you will.

Do it, pray for others.

Don’t try and get to your dreams and destinations without prayer.

If you don’t know if someone is praying for you, then do something about it. Ask someone to pray for you.

“Pray that I may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favourably received by the Lord’s people there” (Romans 15 v 31)

He is carrying the money collected from his journeys for the poor in Jerusalem. He is a target not only because of that but because of the gospel.

What is on your path? What is in front of you? It is not safe enough not to have someone praying for you. Paul knew what he needed prayer for. He was specific. The unbelievers made it unsafe for him. Those gospel planters in unsafe places know the power of prayer. They always have. The great missionary William Carey, who embarking on taking the gospel to India, looked at the small team around him and said, “Well, I will go down into the pit, if you will hold the rope.” We all need someone to hold the rope for us as we venture forward.

Paul isn’t done he also has concerns for when he arrives into the Jerusalem Church. Will they receive this gracious gift from the Gentiles? He knows that there are still some who are prejudiced towards the Gentiles. He sees this gift as being a great opportunity of a demonstration of oneness in Christ.

So putting this altogether. He sees his visit to Jerusalem as being really important for the body of Christ. If the unbelievers prevent it happening or if the believers do not accept the gift then his hope and desire will come to an end. He needs prayer!

What about you? What is ahead of you? Who is praying? Are you asking?

At the start of his letter Paul told the Church that he was continually in prayer for them and now towards the end of it he comes back to it and asks for prayer from them.

“I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.” (Romans 15 v 30)

1. He is not afraid to ask for prayer, he appeals for it. We should too.
2. His filter for prayer is the Lord Jesus Christ. The response to these prayers is for whatever He wants. It is for us too.
3. He knows that those who pray care, they carry love for those they pray for because the Spirit has given them that love. We need to ask for this love and then we will pray more.
4. He reveals the beautiful alignment available as the family of God as he invites them to join him. Even if people are thousands of miles away and even if we have never met physically, we can be with them in their situation.
5. He refers to him being in a struggle and asks that they enter into that same struggle through prayer. If he is suggesting that prayer is the struggle then we could think of Jacob wrestling with God, or even what the Apostle says about wrestling with principalities etc (Ephesians 6:12). But it could simply be that the struggle is with ourselves so as not to give up.
6. He points to the supreme alignment which outweighs that with himself and this is to God. Submission to Almighty God is the focus of our praying.

Just some thoughts from a verse on prayer.

The Apostle was a pioneer unafraid of taking the gospel into unknown frontiers. It is clear that he intended to go to Spain. “But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while. Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there… So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this contribution, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way.” (Romans 15 v 23-25, 28)

Did he get there? Luke who wrote with detail of his missionary journeys actually leaves him in Rome in his own rented house but under house arrest for 2 whole years. What happened then? Did Paul venture out onto a 4^th missionary journey arriving in Spain? Did he then return to Rome and was then martyred? Or was Spain another one of those places where Paul wanted to go but couldn’t, like Bithynia? Subsequent early Church letters sent by people like Clement of Rome do make clear that Paul got to Spain, if they are to be believed.

If he did get there and then returned to Rome and was beheaded or if he didn’t get his heart’s desire I think we can learn this: make sure you grow old with a passion for the gospel burning in your heart; grow old wanting to talk to new people about Jesus; grow old so that the enemy will have to take your head off to shut you up about the good news of Jesus Christ! Let’s burn brighter as we get older.                    

Some only focus on raising money for projects like those trafficked; people with leprosy; orphans; the persecuted; those caught in famine and disease.

Some only focus on the gospel to the whole world.

We need both.

Some only get involved in Church charitable projects and some only want to do Church gospel campaigns.

Again that is okay. But we need both.

From this amazing leader we have an insight into both. Here is what the Apostle writes informing of his travel plans, “But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while. Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings. So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this contribution, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ. (Romans 15 v 23-29)

Without doubt Paul is keen to get to Spain to continue his work of reaching the Gentiles with the gospel. He promises that he will stop by Rome to enlist their help for this work. However, though this is important, he must go to Jerusalem. He has been raising money for the poor there. So what do we learn?

1. His missionary journeys full of pioneering gospel work, signs and wonders, also contained a strategic fund-raising campaign.
2. He could have let someone else collect the money but he did it. There are some things we should not delegate because we carry the passion for it.
3. He could have let someone else take the money to Jerusalem but he took responsibility for it.
4. It wasn’t convenient for him; he was in Corinth when he wrote the letter, so to go to Spain via Rome was to go in the Western direction; he chose to go via Jerusalem adding approximately 2,000 miles to his journey.
5. He raised money because he believed in two-way missions. This wasn’t an approach of only giving to the poor from the wealthy but Jerusalem had given much to the world in terms of their heritage and gospel launch that Paul believed they were owed it; mission is two-way.
6. Helping the poor is a God-service as much as anything else.

Let’s do both!

Even in this world of social media where it seems everything and anything is posted, from the meals we eat to the people we see, there are many things that people have not known about your life.

As a Pastor when I visited homes of my members some would ask me where I was going next after them. They liked to know what my day was like; they wanted to track me; they wanted to know.

But there are some things people just don’t know.

They have not seen the flowers you took for someone who was going through a bad time; the card you wrote to encourage the person who had not been well; the text you sent with a Bible verse just to edify; the train journey you took to be with a friend who needed to talk. Today may be one of those days when once again you do something but don’t announce what you are doing to a watching world. You just do it.

Why am I saying all of this? It is because of this verse:

So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. (Romans 15 v 19)

Illyricum stretched from what is modern north Albania to Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Paul is not recorded by Luke as visiting it in his missionary journeys. Here in this verse Paul reveals he went there. It is the only place in the Bible it is mentioned.

He was sold out for the cause of the gospel that Paul went to places and saw people that was not recorded in the ‘official’ missionary journeys.

Isn’t that wonderful?! God sees a lot of things! And He will see what you do today whether or not it gets onto social media. The gospel is active all over the world.

Paul had a plan: 3 missionary journeys.

Paul had a plan: Pioneer work then leave it to others to build.

Paul had a plan: Rooted in Scripture.

“So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand (Isaiah 52:15).” (Romans 15 v 19-21)

A vision needs a plan!