We are coming to the end of this letter. In fact Granville will open up to us the last chapter next week. Too often we see the struggle and the failure but this week Paul talks about the glory of service to God. He was not unlike us that he did not face difficulties and disappointments. Let’s see what made his view of life so different.

 

 To start with he has a clear idea of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He knows that to be righteous, to have a right relationship with God, is not about doing things to please God, because we all let God down and cause him grief.  We are all sinners, and there is no way other than through Jesus by which we can be saved. Jesus offered himself for your sin. He took the punishment and by doing so set you free from the sin leads to death cause and effect. And he knows about this wonderful new life that we are able to live.

 READ 15:14-33

 This  passage can be seen as four paragraphs about Paul himself.

His calling

His vision for mission

His plans

And His prayer

 

 First lets consider Paul’s calling as an example of a living sacrifice.

 

¹⁴I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.

Notice the three things that matter to Paul about the Romans.

 

 That they are

1.     Full of goodness

2.     Complete in knowledge

3.     Competent to instruct one another.

I want you to stop a moment and take this in. So often we are full of our failure, our lack of knowledge and our incompetence to make a difference. But Paul says to this church you are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another. That is a compliment but he is also aware that goodness comes from God, knowledge is about knowing Jesus not facts and theology and competence to instruct is not training or teaching certificates but an experimental knowledge of the Gospel. In your House group you share goodness, which includes receiving and giving forgiveness, you have knowledge to share as you live out your daily life in the knowledge of God’s revealed word. And you are competent to instruct one another by telling what God has done in your life as an example to the rest of us.

 

Paul is not afraid of repeating what they already know. It is good for us to remind ourselves of the gospel, however many times you have read it.

Why is his qualification to teach the church in Rome (which by the way was just one of many churches across the known world at the time. The church did not see Rome as its centre for another 200 years or more. And even then there were five centres – Rome, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria.) It was only when the Muslim empire swallowed up the other four that Rome became the power base for what became the Roman Catholic Church.)

So how was he qualified to speak to this church?

 

 because of the grace God gave me

 

Got it, grace saved Paul, you and me and grace qualifies us to serve whether as missionary or all of the various services you offer as we listed in the Skills Discovery Survey.

 ¹⁶to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with 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.

 

The language here is that of public servant and priest – a high calling. And let’s not forget that God calls us to the same high- calling. We are here on earth to be ambassadors of Jesus and to be priests in respect to this nation, all of us. There should be no separate class of priests in the church because we are all called to serve in that capacity before God and the world.

 

Gentile is the Jewish term for a non-Jew like you and me. Paul had a mission to win as many Gentiles for Christ as God would give him time , energy and opportunity to speak to. He saw his priestly duty (and he was not a priest in the Jewish sense – he was of the tribe of Benjamin) in terms of bringing people to salvation that was his reasonable service, his spiritual act of worship. Telling another person about Jesus is worshipping Jesus. But Paul even here is keeping our attention of the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying the Gentiles. Salvation is always God’s work.

 So if telling others is worship to God, Paul will glory in it. Your service, whatever it is is worship to God, so , like Paul, glory in it. Its your opportunity to say to God thank you for saving me.

 Paul then tells them about his vision for Mission.

 We have  a quick resume of what he has done so far. He has covered most of the Eastern Roman Empire of his day.  He was a phenomenal traveller, given he travelled mainly by foot, maybe horse and often by boat. But he had a vision to go further.

 He wanted to visit Rome but that was on the way to Spain. Maybe he had heard of a bold barbaric place called Britannia and, if he had he wanted to spread the God News of Jesus Christ here to.  What is your vision for Mission? Or are you just hanging around waiting to die? The living sacrifice will be looking for ways of saying thank you to God. That may mean being a godly parent or grandparent, lifting holy hands in daily prayer for the family. It may mean being a godly neighbour showing the love of God by acts of kindness in Jesus’ name. It does not necessarily mean you have to be doing church things. It will mean meeting like this having fellowship, hearing God’s word and being encouraged in the faith and enjoying that special blessing that comes from being together in Christ. Your skills, which we spoke of the other day are for you to use for the glory of God. Use them! Be part of God’s team, heralding the Saviour, in whatever way God calls you to whether as a prayer warrior or the radiance of Jesus at home and at work or even in church service.

SO Paul’s vision becomes hi s plan. He will go to Jerusalem and then Rome and then Spain. We know the plans all went belly-up in Jerusalem, not surprisingly and he was arrested. But hie sticks to the game-plan and appeals to Caesar and gets taken to Rome courtesy of the Empire. Mind you that was pretty eventful. He may well have gone on to Spain after being released in Rome, although it is believed he was executed later in Rome. The point is that his plans were to carry out his mission and if the plans went belly-up then so be , how else could he fulfil his mission? For us, too, plans have to be made. We are planning changes to the frontage of the church to make parking space, we have plans for Razzmatazz, Alpha or Christianity Explored in the Autumn, a paid youth worker and youth work, to keep Job Seekers and Tuesday Focus, Teddy Bear Club, Sunday Services and so on going , because we believe God has called us to tell the good News to South Ruislip and show the love of God in Christ Jesus  in our community. If some of our plans fall over, so be it, we will adapt to the changes because we believe that the mission matters not the individual activities. We are not going to be constrained by the plans going awry but by the love of God driving us on to respond in love and good works.

 

 And Paul invites his readers to join him in struggling in prayer.

 Too often we think that struggling in prayer is about God not listening unlesswe are working up a sweat but that is not our view of the God of grace who longs to supply all our needs in accordance with his riches. In fact the struggle is about making the effort to spend time with God in prayer. To get off our backsides on a Thursday evening when we are tired after a long, irritating day, and there is a good programme on the TV. It is the struggle to concentrate on prayer when the mind keeps going off to the cares of this life and the fantasies we dream of. It is praying for things that we seem to pray about so often and never get an answer. Prayer is a battle. It is THE battle. If we prevail in prayer, people will be converted and baptised and God will build his church here.

Paul is specific – he is afraid of what will happen in Jerusalem. And he prays for the plans he has – joy and refreshment in meeting together. That is why we call our summer midweek fellowships ‘Refresh’. They are where we are refreshed not just by tea and coffee, etc but by being able to encourage one another in the Lord.

Notice how he balances struggling with prayer and a prayer for peace. Peace is not sitting on the beach doing nothing, it is found in the eye of the storm as we rest in the Saviour who is in command of the storm and so sleeps through it and when woken says peace be still. That is the peace that we pray for. It is our third prayer in this chapter. Verse 5-6 is a prayer for unity, verse 13 is a prayer is for joy and peace and an overflow of hope. This one a prayer for the God of peace to be with us. The Lord’s table is here to remind us that Jesus has made peace. Let us enjoy it, celebrate it, live it in our daily lives, for his name’s sake. Amen.

 So what is you calling? How are you going about being a living Sacrifice? Is God at work in your life and mind changing you into his likeness? Or are you resisting his efforts?

Has God given you a mission and are you on the case, pursuing God’s calling where he has sent you?

Are you making plans to carry out that vision or just coasting along?

Are you in the battle, praying and struggling in prayer that God may pour out his Spirit on your family , your colleagues, your neighbours, your community?

 

Let us give him all the glory and honour that due to him as we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to him.

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