They Will See - They Will Understand
“They Will See – They Will Understand”
(Romans 15:13-21, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 13, 2005)
Introduction: A man named Paul
What could be more unlikely than a man like Saul of Tarsus receiving the gift of faith in Jesus Christ and then being sent to bring the message of Christ to the Gentiles? Saul hated the Christian faith, and expressed this hatred by actively persecuting the church wherever he could. In a most unlikely turn of events, Saul became Paul, and spent the rest of his life determined to preach Christ where the Jewish Messiah was not yet known.
And yet, as unlikely as this change from Saul to Paul may seem, Saul was part of the group that God had prepared for centuries through the Old Testament law to receive the coming King. Even more unlikely than any Jewish man receiving with gladness a message of a Jewish Savior is the idea that the Gentiles, steeped in paganism, would believe that this crucified King of the Jews was their Messiah and God. Yet Paul reveals in the passage before us this morning his confident expectation that this most unlikely thing will continue to take place as his ministry moves forward to lands as yet untouched by the gospel. His confidence is based on the certainty of the promise of God recorded in the Scriptures.
TODAY’S PASSAGE:
Romans 15:13-21 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. 14 I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. 15 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. 17 In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 18 For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience- by word and deed, 19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God- so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; 20 and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, 21 but as it is written, "Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand."
(13) Paul’s Benediction
Our text begins with a benediction, which is the pronouncement of a blessing. A benediction is the speaking forth of a goal that only God can bring about. Only God could fill the church with all joy and peace in believing.
Paul calls God the “God of hope” here. “Hope” in the Bible is not mere wishful thinking. It is a confident expectation based on something certain. You cannot hope (in the sense of a certain expectation) for what you do not certainly believe in. Hope stands on the shoulders of faith. But faith itself needs to stand on something that is certain. There must be a sure object of faith if it is to sustain a certain hope. This object of faith is truth coming from a source that is sure in the form of a very certain promise.
When we investigate things, we search in the world of the probable. We don’t know for sure. We gather evidence and make theories, and come up with possibilities. But when God speaks, He does not speak in probabilities. His promises are true and certain. It is God’s truth that we have faith in, and it is that solid faith that leads to the certain expectation that the Paul calls “hope.” Finally, when people have the certainty of real hope, they express their gratitude in the free exercise of godly love – the sacrificial and visible expression of our thanks for the gracious truth of God that Christ Jesus died on the cross to save sinners.
Paul would know that the God of hope had fulfilled this benediction when he saw the evidence that the church had all joy and peace in believing, when he saw them abounding in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because he believed that God would certainly give these good gifts to his children, he spoke with confidence in God, and he also worked with confidence knowing that Christ had given him a job to do.
(14-20) Paul’s Method
Despite the fact that joy and peace in believing can only come as a gift of God, God has chosen to use people as part of his process of giving his divine gifts. The largest section of our text this morning explains how God is using Paul through the planting of gospel-preaching churches throughout the Mediterranean world in order to fill the church with hope. Paul is planting churches where the certain truth of God will be proclaimed, so that people can believe, and abound in hope.
He has been writing boldly in this letter on certain points, not to suggest that they were doing poorly or that they were not capable of instruction in the Roman church, but to remind them of the truth of God again. For God gave Him grace for this task.
Paul explains his method in verse sixteen using the metaphor of the Old Testament priest. We first hear of a “priest” in the Old Testament in Genesis 14. The priest’s name was Melchizedek, which means “King of Righteousness.” We are told that He was the King of Salem, which means “peace.” So here we have one who is both King of Righteousness and King of Peace who is declared to be the priest of God Most High. This mysterious Melchizedek seems to come out of nowhere in the Bible, and He presents to us the essence of what a priest is as He speaks to our father in the faith, Abraham.
Genesis 14:18-20 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!" And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
The essence of a priest is to bring blessings from God to the people, and to return blessings from the people back up to God. The Jewish levitical priests who would come later in the story of the Bible would pronounce blessings upon the people and they would offer blessings to God from the people in the form of sacrificial offerings.
Paul uses the vocabulary of the Old Testament priesthood in order to describe his gospel method as a New Testament Apostle, Missionary, and Church Planter. Again there are two directions of blessing spoken of. God blesses His people with the gift of the gospel message, which Paul delivers to them in His preaching attested with signs and wonders, and then Paul prepares an offering to God as the church grows in obedience to God, again through the preaching of the gospel. They are to be a living sacrifice to God as they gratefully live their lives for the One who has given Himself for them.
There is a sense in which the analogy must break down here. While Paul in a sense functions as a priest in his distribution of the gift of the gospel through preaching, it is the High Priest alone, Jesus Christ, who will offer up the gift of the church to the Father and to Himself. The obedience and praise of the church is not offered through Paul, but through Christ who is our High Priest (Ephesians 5:27, I Corinthians 15:24).
In any case, it is an apt illustration of Paul’s method. As an under-shepherd in the service of the Chief Shepherd, Paul has preached and planted churches all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum (modern-day Albania). This is not only Paul’s method of New Testament ministry. It is the model that we all must follow. Like an Old Testament priest pronouncing the Word of blessing and offering up sacrifices to God, the Lord has His ministers blessing His people with the Word of truth from heaven, and using the gospel to prepare them to be a living sacrifice to be offered up to God through Christ our Lord.
Paul preaches the Word and performs signs of divine mercy. The Spirit of God supplies all the power. This power is soul-changing power, and there is nothing like it. A hurricane or a tornado can destroy a city, but they cannot build up one soul for life. The gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16).
Paul is not content to stop his sacrificial work in bringing the gospel to new lands. He intends to go forward to Rome and beyond. His godly ambition is further pioneer church planting work throughout the world.
But will it work? Could it possibly be that preaching the gospel will work? Will it work even when it is preached to pagans who may know nothing of Judaism? Will it work with sophisticated pagans schooled in Greek philosophy? Will it work with pagans who are armed with weapons to use against strange enemies? What if they do not wish to hear or understand this message?
(21) Paul’s Confidence
Paul ends this text with his statement of confidence. It does not come from the world of the probable. It comes from heaven, the realm of the certain. Paul reflects on the promises recorded in Isaiah 52 so many years before, and lives on those promises as He moves out with the gospel to the Gentile world. Look how he lives based on the promises of God recorded in God’s Word: “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
Those who were not waiting for a Messiah because they had never been told about Him, will see Him through the preaching of the Word. Those who had never heard of the Lord God because they had no background in the Old Testament Scriptures, nonetheless will understand. This is a promise of God. It does not mean that each individual will respond the same way, or that each door that we might like to travel through will be immediately open. But as God directs, doors will be opened, and people will hear and believe. Churches will be planted and the blessing of the gospel will be given to many, and many will be prepared to bring an offering of praise to the one eternal God through a Jewish Messiah.
This is Paul’s ministry in his own words. It was powerful by God’s grace in Paul’s day and it is powerful by that same grace today. It is amazing that God would make the message so powerful that even people like us would see the Messiah and understand. Then as we understand, we too are filled with all joy and peace in believing.
POINT: The apostolic ministry of the church is powerful for the changing of our lives
Application: The power that brings about the change and the power that proceeds forth from the change
It is only by God’s power that such a method would work. Our trust is not in any method, even in one that God reveals through His Word. Our trust is in the God of Hope who speaks truth.
The amazing thing is that God, with all His power, uses us in our weakness as a part of this plan. As we hear and understand, we find joy and peace in believing. The power of your life changed by God, is then used a force of God’s power in other lives.
I want to leave you this morning with some questions for your consideration: Do you have joy and peace in believing? Do you seek this? (There is no good reason to stop seeking.) How do you expect to attain it? (The sure promise of Christ is the only way.) Do you have confidence in the promises of God?
(Romans 15:13-21, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 13, 2005)
Introduction: A man named Paul
What could be more unlikely than a man like Saul of Tarsus receiving the gift of faith in Jesus Christ and then being sent to bring the message of Christ to the Gentiles? Saul hated the Christian faith, and expressed this hatred by actively persecuting the church wherever he could. In a most unlikely turn of events, Saul became Paul, and spent the rest of his life determined to preach Christ where the Jewish Messiah was not yet known.
And yet, as unlikely as this change from Saul to Paul may seem, Saul was part of the group that God had prepared for centuries through the Old Testament law to receive the coming King. Even more unlikely than any Jewish man receiving with gladness a message of a Jewish Savior is the idea that the Gentiles, steeped in paganism, would believe that this crucified King of the Jews was their Messiah and God. Yet Paul reveals in the passage before us this morning his confident expectation that this most unlikely thing will continue to take place as his ministry moves forward to lands as yet untouched by the gospel. His confidence is based on the certainty of the promise of God recorded in the Scriptures.
TODAY’S PASSAGE:
Romans 15:13-21 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. 14 I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. 15 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. 17 In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. 18 For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience- by word and deed, 19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God- so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; 20 and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, 21 but as it is written, "Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand."
(13) Paul’s Benediction
Our text begins with a benediction, which is the pronouncement of a blessing. A benediction is the speaking forth of a goal that only God can bring about. Only God could fill the church with all joy and peace in believing.
Paul calls God the “God of hope” here. “Hope” in the Bible is not mere wishful thinking. It is a confident expectation based on something certain. You cannot hope (in the sense of a certain expectation) for what you do not certainly believe in. Hope stands on the shoulders of faith. But faith itself needs to stand on something that is certain. There must be a sure object of faith if it is to sustain a certain hope. This object of faith is truth coming from a source that is sure in the form of a very certain promise.
When we investigate things, we search in the world of the probable. We don’t know for sure. We gather evidence and make theories, and come up with possibilities. But when God speaks, He does not speak in probabilities. His promises are true and certain. It is God’s truth that we have faith in, and it is that solid faith that leads to the certain expectation that the Paul calls “hope.” Finally, when people have the certainty of real hope, they express their gratitude in the free exercise of godly love – the sacrificial and visible expression of our thanks for the gracious truth of God that Christ Jesus died on the cross to save sinners.
Paul would know that the God of hope had fulfilled this benediction when he saw the evidence that the church had all joy and peace in believing, when he saw them abounding in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because he believed that God would certainly give these good gifts to his children, he spoke with confidence in God, and he also worked with confidence knowing that Christ had given him a job to do.
(14-20) Paul’s Method
Despite the fact that joy and peace in believing can only come as a gift of God, God has chosen to use people as part of his process of giving his divine gifts. The largest section of our text this morning explains how God is using Paul through the planting of gospel-preaching churches throughout the Mediterranean world in order to fill the church with hope. Paul is planting churches where the certain truth of God will be proclaimed, so that people can believe, and abound in hope.
He has been writing boldly in this letter on certain points, not to suggest that they were doing poorly or that they were not capable of instruction in the Roman church, but to remind them of the truth of God again. For God gave Him grace for this task.
Paul explains his method in verse sixteen using the metaphor of the Old Testament priest. We first hear of a “priest” in the Old Testament in Genesis 14. The priest’s name was Melchizedek, which means “King of Righteousness.” We are told that He was the King of Salem, which means “peace.” So here we have one who is both King of Righteousness and King of Peace who is declared to be the priest of God Most High. This mysterious Melchizedek seems to come out of nowhere in the Bible, and He presents to us the essence of what a priest is as He speaks to our father in the faith, Abraham.
Genesis 14:18-20 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!" And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
The essence of a priest is to bring blessings from God to the people, and to return blessings from the people back up to God. The Jewish levitical priests who would come later in the story of the Bible would pronounce blessings upon the people and they would offer blessings to God from the people in the form of sacrificial offerings.
Paul uses the vocabulary of the Old Testament priesthood in order to describe his gospel method as a New Testament Apostle, Missionary, and Church Planter. Again there are two directions of blessing spoken of. God blesses His people with the gift of the gospel message, which Paul delivers to them in His preaching attested with signs and wonders, and then Paul prepares an offering to God as the church grows in obedience to God, again through the preaching of the gospel. They are to be a living sacrifice to God as they gratefully live their lives for the One who has given Himself for them.
There is a sense in which the analogy must break down here. While Paul in a sense functions as a priest in his distribution of the gift of the gospel through preaching, it is the High Priest alone, Jesus Christ, who will offer up the gift of the church to the Father and to Himself. The obedience and praise of the church is not offered through Paul, but through Christ who is our High Priest (Ephesians 5:27, I Corinthians 15:24).
In any case, it is an apt illustration of Paul’s method. As an under-shepherd in the service of the Chief Shepherd, Paul has preached and planted churches all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum (modern-day Albania). This is not only Paul’s method of New Testament ministry. It is the model that we all must follow. Like an Old Testament priest pronouncing the Word of blessing and offering up sacrifices to God, the Lord has His ministers blessing His people with the Word of truth from heaven, and using the gospel to prepare them to be a living sacrifice to be offered up to God through Christ our Lord.
Paul preaches the Word and performs signs of divine mercy. The Spirit of God supplies all the power. This power is soul-changing power, and there is nothing like it. A hurricane or a tornado can destroy a city, but they cannot build up one soul for life. The gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16).
Paul is not content to stop his sacrificial work in bringing the gospel to new lands. He intends to go forward to Rome and beyond. His godly ambition is further pioneer church planting work throughout the world.
But will it work? Could it possibly be that preaching the gospel will work? Will it work even when it is preached to pagans who may know nothing of Judaism? Will it work with sophisticated pagans schooled in Greek philosophy? Will it work with pagans who are armed with weapons to use against strange enemies? What if they do not wish to hear or understand this message?
(21) Paul’s Confidence
Paul ends this text with his statement of confidence. It does not come from the world of the probable. It comes from heaven, the realm of the certain. Paul reflects on the promises recorded in Isaiah 52 so many years before, and lives on those promises as He moves out with the gospel to the Gentile world. Look how he lives based on the promises of God recorded in God’s Word: “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
Those who were not waiting for a Messiah because they had never been told about Him, will see Him through the preaching of the Word. Those who had never heard of the Lord God because they had no background in the Old Testament Scriptures, nonetheless will understand. This is a promise of God. It does not mean that each individual will respond the same way, or that each door that we might like to travel through will be immediately open. But as God directs, doors will be opened, and people will hear and believe. Churches will be planted and the blessing of the gospel will be given to many, and many will be prepared to bring an offering of praise to the one eternal God through a Jewish Messiah.
This is Paul’s ministry in his own words. It was powerful by God’s grace in Paul’s day and it is powerful by that same grace today. It is amazing that God would make the message so powerful that even people like us would see the Messiah and understand. Then as we understand, we too are filled with all joy and peace in believing.
POINT: The apostolic ministry of the church is powerful for the changing of our lives
Application: The power that brings about the change and the power that proceeds forth from the change
It is only by God’s power that such a method would work. Our trust is not in any method, even in one that God reveals through His Word. Our trust is in the God of Hope who speaks truth.
The amazing thing is that God, with all His power, uses us in our weakness as a part of this plan. As we hear and understand, we find joy and peace in believing. The power of your life changed by God, is then used a force of God’s power in other lives.
I want to leave you this morning with some questions for your consideration: Do you have joy and peace in believing? Do you seek this? (There is no good reason to stop seeking.) How do you expect to attain it? (The sure promise of Christ is the only way.) Do you have confidence in the promises of God?
posted by Pastor Magee at 10:30 AM
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