Churches often become impersonal institutions. It's not that Christ designed the church to be impersonal. Instead, a shift seemed to take place in the last century, in particular, in which the church traded its model of a body to that of a corporation. While the New Testament describes the church as a body, a family, a temple, a habitation of the Spirit, and even a marriage, the modern church might be better described as a cattle drive or a circus or a pageant or a Fortune 500 company. The intimacy and mutual dependence fostered by the work of the Spirit in the corporate body is lost in the array of programs and activities and rush for bigger attendance, budget, and buildings.
I don't want to overstate this, on one hand, or oversimplify it on the other. There's both encouraging and discouraging things happening in the church throughout our nation and the world. Every church is not like the latter picture that I've quickly brushed. Yet much of the literature and training and expectations aim in that direction. So we must be clear in our minds about what God has called us to be as a church.
Though Paul's more detailed teaching about the nature of the church can be found in some of his other epistles, such as Ephesians and the Pastorals, Romans gives us a marvelous description of how the church is to live with one another in the world. Paul's focus in Romans is to show how the gospel connects us to the church, and consequently, how it anchors and amplifies our relationships in the church. We note this from the opening of the epistle. Paul was "set apart for the gospel of God" which God promised beforehand concerning His Son. The gospel message of Christ's obedience to the law, His death, burial, and resurrection on our behalf has its foundation in Paul's understanding of Christ's humanity and deity. So he tells us, God set me apart for His gospel; this gospel is about God's Son; it is through this Son that I've received grace and apostleship (my calling); it's through this grace that I'm seeking to bring about the obedience of faith among the Gentiles; my motivation for all of this is for Christ's glory. He confesses his connection to the Roman believers through the call in the gospel: "among whom you also [just like me!] are the called of Jesus Christ…beloved of God…called as saints." It's not just Paul; it's believers in Rome and Ephesus and Philippi and all over the world. We're all joined together by the gospel. That's how we're connected. It's not our ethnic or cultural or economic backgrounds. It's the gospel that brings us together. And it's the gospel that infuses and marks our relationships. But how is this worked out for us in our text? Notice three facets of the church's inter-relationships.
In each of his epistles, except Galatians, Paul begins with an expression of gratitude for his recipients. The Galatians had gone so far in almost losing the gospel that Paul jumped right into his dismay that they were on the verge of "deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel" (Gal. 1:6). Not so with the Romans; so he expresses his gratitude for them. Gratitude looks outside oneself as the source of some good. To be grateful to yourself for anything is useless and prideful. Gratitude acknowledges who gets the honor and glory for a particular action or attitude or event.
There's no questioning where the glory is aimed as Paul offers thanks. He does not thank the Roman Christians for their faith. If it originated in them and their good desires and their abilities, then they should get the thanks. But that's not the case. They had been called as saints by the Lord God through the gospel. They didn't initiate their faith. "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all." We might be looking for a "second" to add to Paul's list, but in this case, it seems that he uses "first" to express "of first order" or "let me begin by stating." Preeminent in his thoughts as he begins this instructive epistle is thanks to his God.
Why not thank the Romans for the fame of their faith? If they were saved without grace then that would be appropriate. But grace always points back to the Lord as the source. Paul was not thanking his "lucky stars" or his good fortune; he thanked his God—the same God that had "promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son" (1:2-3); the same God that had called the Romans through the gospel (1:6).
Well, you might say, this is something that I already know. I imagine that is the case; yet how often do you stop and thank God for His saving work among others in the church—not just at South Woods but also in other churches around the world? How often do you get it in your mind that God has shown His marvelous grace to others, and that He orchestrated the details to bring the gospel to them, gave them grace, regenerated them, and welcomed them into His family through Christ? Paul was not just offering some trite Christian expression. He genuinely found it amazing that God had done His saving work among the Romans.
Notice also that thanks was to God because of the mediating work of Jesus Christ: "through Jesus Christ." This is two-fold. First, Paul's own access to God came as a result of Christ mediating the way between him and God. Without the cross which the gospel teaches us, we have no access to God. "We have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19). It's not because we've done lots of good things or we've lived especially moral lives that we have access to God. It is only through the blood of Christ. So, even to appropriately offer thanks to God requires the Mediator.
Second, the reason that Paul could offer thanks to God through Christ was due to Jesus Christ having mediated the way to God for the Romans, too! If Christ had not done the effective work on the cross, if He had not truly borne the sins of the Romans and satisfied eternal justice on their behalf, then Paul would have had nothing to be thankful for concerning them. They would be under divine condemnation. But now, he can thank God through Jesus Christ for them.
Next, the Apostle gives specific rationale for his thanks: "because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world." What did he mean by "the whole world?" This is instructive because it helps us to see how the context frames the meaning of how "world" is used here and in other places. At this point, the gospel had not gone to China or to all points in Africa. It had certainly not come to North and South America. But in Paul's mind, he was not thinking of the entire world without exception, but rather he uses the term, "the whole world" to entail the breadth of the Roman Empire; or at the very least, "from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum" where Paul had preached the gospel (15:19). John Piper called this phrase "famous faith." He's right in doing so because other believers throughout the Roman Empire found encouragement when they heard what God had done among believers in the capitol city of Rome.
Their faith was being "proclaimed throughout the world." That carries the idea of public reporting. Other people were talking about their faith. The Romans were not sending out notices of their Christianity. Rather the reality of their Christianity spurred discussion throughout the Empire. Perhaps some of this was due to their location. Right in the seat of power, a church sprang up with faithful believers. With all of Rome's cosmopolitan features as the cultural, political, economic, and religious center of the empire, other believers found encouragement is hearing of how the gospel had come to Rome as well. We do the same when we hear about churches in Washington, DC or New York City or London or Paris or Rio bearing testimony to the gospel. For as the gospel takes root in those major centers, then it may spread within those metropolitan areas and beyond. For instance, we have reason to give thanks to God through Christ for Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC and Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, as both are having an impact in their cities and sending out gospel witnesses throughout the world. That's what appeared to be happening in the church at Rome.
Paul capsuled his reason for giving thanks as due to the Roman Christians' "faith." He uses the word both objectively and subjectively. He could give thanks because the "faith" they stood for concerned the teaching of the gospel. They were no syncretists, believing an array of different religious ideas popular in the city. Their faith was in Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the gospel. So their faith had content; it involved a system of doctrine or teaching that could be stated clearly and passed along to others. It was the same "faith" handed down by the apostles and prophets in the church with Christ being the cornerstone of this revelation (Eph. 2:20). Yet this faith was not only objective but also subjective or experiential. They had a living "faith" in Christ as Savior and Lord. They actually trusted Christ, relying upon His death and resurrection for their standing with God. Their belief had gone from the mind to the affections—the head to the heart.
In a day when advertisement and promotion in the church seems of great importance we can take a lesson from the early church. Their best advertisement came through the vital, living and credible faith of these followers of Christ in Rome. Billboards and phone-a-thons were unnecessary; genuine faith in Christ spread, taking the powerful message of the gospel with it. No wonder Martyn Lloyd-Jones commented, "What a lesson on church publicity!" [The Gospel of God: Romans 1:1-32, vol. 1, 179] Let us give thanks for the faith shown through our brethren.
Since Paul had not been to Rome at that point, and since many of the believers in the church there did not know him personally, he calls God as his witness concerning his prayerful concern for this church. "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…" He uses a term, "serve," that carries connotations of worship or religious service. He served in his "spirit." He uses this to distinguish his gospel ministry from the kind of puffery found in many religious leaders of his day as well as in the false apostles that were infiltrating the church. They had titles but no genuine, heart-throbbing love for Christ and His cross. His service for Christ touched the depths of his being and overflowed in gospel ministry to others. Here was no fake or put-on or religious show to impress others. He qualifies his service as focusing on "the gospel of His Son." Again, we find Paul's gospel-centeredness showing up even in the way he introduces himself to the Roman church and explains about his ministry to them.
The Roman believers were no passing concern for Paul. Though he did not plant the church at Rome, though he'd not preached in their midst, as the apostle to the Gentiles, he felt a deep kinship with them. He longed to see them and minister the gospel among them. But before all of this and foundational to it was his praying for them. He even called God to bear witness "as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers." The Apostle uses the word "mention" or "remembrance" in six other places with it most always (only one exception) related to prayer and thanksgiving for the church. Paul regularly labored in prayer; just as he exhorts us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thes. 5:17) and "devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving" (Col. 4:2). He prayed for the Ephesian Church, not ceasing to give thanks for them and "making mention" of them in his prayers (Eph. 1:16). He thanked God for every remembrance of the Philippian Christians (Phil. 1:3) and prayed that their love might "abound more and more in real knowledge and all discernment" (1:9). He said to the Thessalonian Church, "We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers" (1 Thes. 1:2). In other words, Paul was not just concerned for himself or the people that he happened to be among at the time. His praying spread through the empire as he thought of specific congregations and specific believers that he had come to know over the years of ministering the gospel.
I wonder, do you pray for the church? By that, I mean, do you pray for this local church, particularly praying specifically for others by name? Do you stretch beyond and pray for other churches in our area and outside? Do your prayers include churches in other nations? Do you pray for James Grant and the church in Rossville? Do you pray for Todd Wilson and his congregation in Birmingham? Do you pray for Paul Stith and his church in Auburn? Do you pray for Michael Dirrim and his church in Middleton? Do you pray for Paul Ndung'u and his churches among the Massai in Kenya? Do you pray for Philippe Serradji and his church in Paris? Do you pray for Ronnie Stevens and the church in Budapest? Do you pray for Kevin Millard and his church in Brazil? We're called to pray for one another in the body of Christ. We cannot—we must not—just be concerned about our own little sphere. Our prayers must include the broader body of Christ; the growth of the church in purity, faithfulness, godliness, and holiness; the expansion of the church among those people groups that have not heard the gospel; the integrity of the church in its mission to the world. Pick a day each week that you might focus on praying for other churches. Keep a list handy and hold these fellow believers before the Lord.
Paul's prayer, in this case, not only included the development of the church in Rome but he also prayed that the Lord might make a smooth way for him to come to them. In other words, he not only prayed God's blessings on them but he also wanted to put feet to these blessings by being part of the answer to prayer. He wanted to go to Rome and minister to them. He boldly asked the Lord to send him to Rome and use him among those brethren. Now, at this point, Paul had no idea that God would send him to Rome under arrest of the Roman government! The Lord answered his prayer in an unusual way; yet he answered it so that Paul came to Rome, eventually, and ministered to these brethren: "always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you."
We learn some important things regarding prayer. Pray with consistency: "always in my prayers making request." Pray with anticipation: "if perhaps now at last." Pray with patience: "if perhaps now at last…I may succeed in coming to you." Pray with a view in mind: "I may succeed in coming to you." Pray with submission to the will of God: "at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you."
Prayer does involve the desires of the heart but desires that have been sanctified and honed by the Word and Spirit so that we learn to ask according to God's will. Yet even in this process, we must admit that we don't always have an absolute format for deciding what is God's will and what is not. If the Word spells something out in particular then we can be assured that we are praying God's will. Yet many of the things that we pray for have no direct biblical point of reference. We must guard against carelessly claiming Scriptures in prayer that have been taken out of context to make us feel better about our praying. The final arbiter in our praying is a heart submissive to the will of God. We are to be as sensitive as we can to praying according to our grasp of God's revelation; yet in those situations that we have no clear promise, then let us pray and pray fervently, but let us do so with submission to God's will. Paul wanted to come to Rome; he thought that he needed to visit those brethren; yet he had no clear-cut promise about coming. Instead, he cast all of his confidence on God's will. That's a good pattern for all of us in our praying.
What did Paul want to do in Rome? Well, even in the first century there were many sights to see! Looking on many sites of splendor and architectural wonder would have been worthwhile. But Paul had something else in mind. He could visit with the empire's leaders in the Roman senate or maybe even the emperor. That would have been worthwhile too but Paul had something more important in mind. Consider what he tells us concerning his desire to be involved with the church at Rome.
He explains his longing to see the Roman believers and the reason for it in verse 11: "For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you." The present tense of the verb suggests that Paul had a great longing that only intensified with the years. He wanted to see the Roman believers "so that" or in order that he might "impart some spiritual gift" to them. "Impart" is more literally the idea of sharing with someone or giving with a view toward others. He doesn't tell us what spiritual gift he has in mind. It seems that his great concern to teach and build up the church might be the aim in the exercise of his spiritual gift to the church at Rome. Yet, since the aim of every spiritual gift is not for self-gratification but for the good of the body of Christ, then we can be sure that Paul desired to serve this church through the gifts God had given to him. He counsels the Roman believers to use their different mixture of gifts according to how God had gifted them but with the remembrance that they were one body with different functions, and individually members of one another in Christ's body (12:4-8).
This offers us a good reminder of how each of us is to serve the body of Christ through the gifts God has given to us. Being part of a church is a divine call to involvement with others in faithful service whether in teaching, giving, helping, administering, exhorting, or leading—whatever gifts you may have—use them for the good of the body as fellow-servants of Christ.
Paul narrows it down even more concerning his service through sharing together with them out of the gifts that God had given. He states the reason: "that you may be established." The word can also be translated as "strengthened," and that seems to fit better in this context. The church at Rome was already established and vibrant. Paul was not interested in building upon another man's foundation (15:20). But what they needed, as does every church, is to continually be strengthened through the ministry of gifted servants of Christ. They had not arrived. Neither have we! They needed strengthening as God was pleased to use people within that particular church and those from outside that church in exercising their gifts for service.
Think about how we've been blessed so many times by not only those within our church ministering to us but also those from outside.
But the service and ministry was not to be one-sided in Rome or in Memphis. Paul explains, "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." Paul wanted them to understand that he did not think he had no more room to grow or had no need to be strengthened. He needed the church's ministry to him as well as they needed his ministry to them. John Calvin rightly states, "For there is no one so void of gifts in the Church of Christ, who is not able to contribute something to our benefit." Yet far too often, we fail to receive what God has brought to us. Calvin explains why: "but we are hindered by our envy and by our pride from gathering such fruit from one another. Such is our high-mindedness, such is the inebriety produced by vain reputation, that despising and disregarding others, every one thinks that he possesses what is abundantly sufficient for himself" [Calvin's Commentaries, XIX, 58].
Ouch! Do you face the danger that Calvin warns of? Beware of your pride getting in the way of some brother or sister's ministry to you. If you think that you've arrived or that you are of higher stature than others, then mark it down, you will miss out on some of the best ministry. We must learn to receive from others. Paul, the giant of a Christian, told the Romans that he needed to receive encouragement from them. If you think that you have nothing to offer others because you are little in your own eyes, then think again; if Paul could receive from these young believers then you can offer much even to those much more seasoned in the faith.
One last desire the apostle had as he prayed to go to Rome: "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." He had had good intentions but in God's providence, the time had not come for him to make the journey to Rome. The passive voice of the verb "have been prevented" suggests that what ever form it may have come, Paul received the hindrance as God's work of providence—a good lesson for us to learn. But it did not stop him from continuing to desire to go to Rome! Providence is never a call for laziness and lethargy or giving up; it's a call for us to pursue God's will in God's timing.
For Paul, the reason he continued to desire to go to Rome was that he might "obtain some fruit" among them. That fruit is two-fold: (1) he wanted to see new believers in that great city and (2) he wanted to see the church increasing in their spiritual development. That's a worthy goal for any of us in the church, to desire that our ministries to one another in the body would prove fruitful for God's kingdom and to Christ's glory.
That's a bit of a look at how the church encourages the church. Let's increase in gratitude for the body of Christ. Let's labor in prayer for one another and beyond this body to the church throughout the world. Let's be steadfast in our involvement with one another in the body of Christ. And let us do it all for the glory of our Redeemer!
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