Missions Paul

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!

Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) boasted that he did more than Jesus to keep a church together.
“God is in the still small voice. In all these affidavits, indictments, it is all of the devil–all corruption. Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet . . . ” (History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 408-409).

“I’m not the greatest; I’m the double greatest. Not only do I knock ’em out, I pick the round.” Muhammed Ali

Boasting is the outward form of the inner condition of pride.
John Piper

It is always the novice that exaggerates
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape letters

“Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God.  (Romans 15 v 17-19)

Christian social media is abound with the miraculous and the supernatural, the brilliance and off the scale moments of “me”. God does get a look in but at best He’s alongside us choosing the incredible me to work through. Me. Miraculously Extraordinary me.

No one is that good!

The Apostle reminds us that all that he has done, his ‘service’, was attributed to the power of the Holy Spirit.

The signs and wonders he has seen are not because of him but the Holy Spirit.

So he doesn’t speak of what he has done but what HE has done. He doesn’t even “venture to speak of him” (ESV)

The hardest challenge is for those who have been successful to not write about their successes; those who have seen God work through their life to write of only God. Not many accomplish it without making you feel they are taking the credit in some kind of humble brag.

I think God has done more than He is given credit for.

Sometimes pulpits (and I don’t mean only those found in churches but those on social media too) are used as ammunition stations throwing hand grenades at whoever is listening. I don’t like that.

But I also don’t like soft-play pulpits either. I like pulpits that are not afraid to open the Bible. I heard someone say the other day in defending her position, “I know it says in the Bible however …”and I should have responded with ‘say that again, but don’t used the word however.’ But I didn’t because I didn’t want to offend and she looked scary!

It seems that pulpits shouldn’t mention certain things anymore. We must not offend anyone ever. In fact if we permitted the editing of the Bible so that no one was hurt by what it said then we would not have much left. I was talking with a Church team recently about whether or not when I come to them I preach on tithing because ‘we don’t want the Church to think we are asking for money’. However the Church team really need their Church to tithe. We decided to go ahead and I am praying for that opportunity which is coming up soon. Pulpits can become the most uncertain, watered down, soft spaces, as we talk so mystical, so accepting that no one really has a clue what we are saying. The gospel doesn’t make sense unless we know what we are needing to be saved from. Preachers don’t need to lay their lives down if no one is calling for their blood because they have been hurt.

“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. ¹⁵ Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me.” (Romans 15 v 14-15)

He has never visited them but he is convinced by what he seemingly has heard about them that they are definitely part of God’s family as he is.

They are not a new community of converts but they are mature in the faith.

They are “full, filled and competent”.

Yet.

He has been bold in what he has written to them. He is risking them being offended.

He knows he has written old truths. He is risking them responding with ‘we know this!”

He has done this because of God. The risk of being misunderstood by the Gentile Church of Rome is nothing compared to the risk of not pursuing the call of God on his life which he calls grace.

The Apostle knows that even the saints of Rome need bold Bible preaching!

“How do you keep going when there are only 2 people in the pews?!” That was the question I asked of another minister many years ago when I was leading a Church plant. I didn’t have much more, there were 15 of us! I will never forget his reply, “I don’t minister to the people I minister to God.” He was saying my eyes are not only on the people they are on Him. Something that has stayed with me and which I still need to learn at times!

“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. ¹⁵ Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me ¹⁶ to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15 v 14-16)

The Apostle Paul, a Jew, writing to mainly a Gentile Roman Church, tells them he does so because not only was Jesus’ focus on the Gentiles he is now following that lead. He is called to the Gentile world. But that calling is as a minister of Christ or “ministering as a priest” (NASB). This is unique here to Paul but a wonderful thought that when people convert and come to Christ in doing so it is an acceptable sacrifice to God. Therefore the presentation of the gospel in whatever way it is done to bring them to Jesus is a ministering priestly service to God. This is the priesthood of all believers; where there is no elite task force who have special knowledge or carry a special anointing or indeed have a special authority to understand the Bible than the rest. You are not a minister till you retire and then stop being a minister. You were a minister before you became a minister and even if you never became a minister you were always a minister (hope that’s not too confusing!).

Yesterday I visited the hospital where one of our retired ministers is battling cancer. He told me how the day before he was enjoying worshipping God with his hands in the air with the worship songs blasting from his ipad. Then he opened his eyes to see a nurse standing there watching with amazement at this minister bringing a service to God declaring His praise to those around.

Today whatever you do, wherever you find yourself, your ultimate task is to be a ministerial priest to a watching world. How you do that is by the leading of the Spirit within you and with His wisdom. But never underestimate what God is doing in your life. Never look down on the smallness of your world. Today is a ministering priestly day and it may be that you are instrumental in bringing someone to Jesus and in turn an acceptable sacrificial offering is given.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)