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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Dr. Wes Bredenhof > Are you eager for gospel preaching? | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) All songs are from the CanRC/FRCA Book of Praise Hymn 66 Hymn 11:9 (after the law of God) Psalm 85:3 Psalm 85:4 Psalm 92:1,2,6,7 Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 2 Text: Romans 1:8-15 |
Beloved congregation of Christ,
Have you ever been on a tour where the tour guide was just so incredibly enthusiastic? I’ve had a few. One of the most memorable was at the Western Australia Maritime Museum in Fremantle. They have a retired submarine there, the HMAS Ovens. I went on a guided tour with someone who’d served as a submariner on the Ovens. He loved that submarine and he knew it inside and out. He loved telling people about it. He wanted you to share his passion for it and it was difficult not to. His enthusiasm was contagious.
The apostle Paul had that same kind of passion and eagerness with regard to the gospel. Since his conversion on the road to Damascus, his whole life had been dedicated to preaching the good news about Jesus Christ. He’d travelled far and wide to tell everyone he could about what Jesus had done for the salvation of sinners.
One place he hadn’t yet been was Rome. But not for lack of planning or trying. Our passage for this morning relates how he’d often planned to go to Rome, but God had providentially prevented him. One obstacle or another had been put in his way. But he was continuing to pray that he might be able to come to them. He wanted to do that so he could preach the gospel to them. Verse 15 says, “So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”
When he said that, undoubtedly it was his hope that on their side, they’d be eager to hear the gospel preached by him. Otherwise, why would he share with them all these wonderful things associated with the gospel in our text? He wanted to stir up in them more of a hunger for the preaching of the gospel. That’s how this passage connects with our lives too. As your minister, I’m eager to preach the gospel to you for all the reasons Paul gives in our passage. But are you also eager to hear it? That’s the question God’s Word puts to us this morning: Are you eager for gospel preaching?
We’ll consider gospel preaching and how:
1. It’s indispensable
2. It blesses us with spiritual gifts
3. It results in the reaping of a harvest
Before we go any further, there are two terms we need to be really clear about. If we’re going to consider gospel preaching, we’d better be clear about the “gospel” and “preaching.” We can’t take those two terms for granted, because there are different definitions of both of those out there.
The word “gospel” means good news or glad tidings. It is the good news of what God has done for us through his Son Jesus Christ. The gospel is the good news of how we’re rescued from sin and its horrible consequences in this world and in the next. That rescue takes place through the Saviour who lived a perfect life in our place, suffered on the cross in our place, and now risen from the dead shares his victory over sin and death with us. That’s the gospel.
Well, then what about “preaching”? Preaching is an authoritative proclamation of God’s Word by a man appointed for that task. Preaching uses words to communicate the truths of Scripture to God’s people. When we hear faithful preaching, it’s as if we’re hearing God himself speaking to us.
Somehow such preaching reached the centre of the Roman Empire. We don’t know how gospel preaching got to Rome, but we know that it did. We know because of what it produced: a famous faith. If you look at verse 8, you’ll see how Paul gives thanks to God for the faith of the Roman Christians. It’s a faith that has a reputation everywhere. He’s not giving them credit for it, but God. He thanks God. God was the one who brought gospel preaching to Rome, God was the one who worked through his Holy Spirit. He worked so that when some people heard that preaching, they believed it. But without that preaching, it never would have happened. The preaching was indispensable – that means it’s absolutely necessary.
Loved ones, the same is true for us. When we have faith, it’s because God has worked it through his Holy Spirit. As 1 Corinthians 2 reminds us, the only way we can understand spiritual things and believe them is through the Holy Spirit. He’s worked all that through the preaching of the gospel to us. Preaching is God’s instrument to bring people to himself.
Let me address the kids in our congregation here for a moment. I know that sometimes listening to the minister can be difficult. Sometimes ministers use big words that you don’t know yet. Sometimes it can be hard to keep paying attention. Sometimes I’m talking about things that don’t seem very interesting. But listen, it’s so important for you to really try and listen as best you can when you’re in church. God works through the preaching to help you understand who Jesus is, so you can believe in him and follow him in your life. Kids, I want to encourage all of you to pray and ask God to help you listen every Sunday. Pray and ask God to help you understand what you hear and believe what you hear. If you hear something you don’t understand, try and remember it and then ask your mom and dad afterwards. I’m sure they’ll be happy to help you understand it.
For all of us, preaching is so important because it’s one of the key ways God works faith in Christ. In our passage, preaching is what Paul really wants to do in Rome. It’s almost as if he’s saying, what I really want to do is preach for you, but since I can’t yet come your way, this letter will have to do. Paul has this super-high view of preaching because it’s so indispensable. We can’t imagine Christianity without preaching; we can’t imagine Christians thriving and growing without preaching.
For a Christian, it’s like oxygen. You need it to live. When you’re deprived of oxygen, you start to physically die. When you’re deprived of preaching, you begin to struggle with spiritual life. No one gets stronger as a Christian by getting less faithful preaching of the gospel. So just like you wouldn’t normally deprive yourself of oxygen, don’t deprive yourself of preaching. Instead, be eager for it.
This should be all the more the case as we consider the spiritual gifts that preaching blesses us with. Paul prays constantly that if it be God’s will he can come to Rome and preach the gospel there – that’s in verses 9 and 10. Then look with me at verses 11 and 12, “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you – that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.”
We shouldn’t misunderstand the term “spiritual gifts” here in verse 11. Elsewhere in Paul’s writings, this term often refers to the special gifts from the Holy Spirit which only existed during the time of the apostles. So, for example, in 1 Corinthians, speaking in other languages is considered to be a spiritual gift. But here in Romans, the context gives no indication that this is what’s meant.
Here, “some spiritual gift” is related to something that happens through preaching. Through Paul’s preaching, the Roman Christians will be strengthened in their faith. They already have faith in Christ, it’s a famous faith as it says in verse 8, but that faith needs to grow. Paul prays that he can be God’s instrument for that purpose. He’s eager to preach for them because he knows it will be for their good.
How does that work in concrete terms? How does the preaching of the gospel strengthen us? Let’s look at two particular ways.
One is that it grounds us in the reality of our dependence on God and his grace in Christ. We have a natural tendency to think of ourselves more highly than we should. We naturally think of ourselves as capable of pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. But the gospel of Jesus Christ reminds us that we’re helpless to help ourselves. Whenever you see the baptism of a little baby, you’re reminded of that. The baby can’t do anything for himself or herself. The baby has to be carried to the front of the church. The baby can’t say anything or do anything. The baby doesn’t baptize himself or herself. The gospel tells us we’re like that baby. You can’t save yourself. You can’t atone for your sins. You can’t make any moves toward God. Spiritually speaking, you’re helpless and useless. So the gospel constantly grounds us in that reality, brings us back down to earth, gives us that shake we need to realize how things really are. When we’re humbled like that, that’s actually making us stronger because then we go to Christ. As Christ said to Paul in 2 Cor. 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And then Paul said in 2 Cor. 12:10, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” The gospel makes us strong by reminding us that our strength doesn’t come from us, but from God, specifically from Christ.
Another way the preaching of the gospel strengthens us is that it gives strong encouragement. We are great needy sinners, this is so true. But equally true is the fact that we have a great merciful Saviour in Jesus. He never turns anyone away. All you need is to see your need of him and go to him, and you’ll find forgiveness. You’ll find the burden of your guilt rolled away. It doesn’t matter if you’re a new Christian or if you’ve been a Christian for decades. The preaching of the gospel strengthens us by telling us that our place in God’s family is secure if we have Christ as our Savour. If we believe in him, we’re declared righteous in God’s sight and nothing and no one can change that. If we believe in Christ, our adoption as God’s sons is locked up. You’re part of God’s family and nothing and no one can ever change that. As Paul writes later in Romans, there’s nothing in the universe that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul wanted to bring the spiritual gift of this kind of gospel preaching to Rome to strengthen the Christians there. When that would happen, there would be mutual encouragement. He writes about that in verse 12. What is this “mutual encouragement” about?
Taking our cue from the word “mutual,” we have to think about this from two sides. If we put it into today’s terms, we’re talking about the two sides of the pulpit. There’s the pew side, where you’re sitting, and there’s the preacher’s side, where I’m standing. When there’s faithful gospel preaching, there’ll be encouragement on both these sides.
Over on your side, in the pew, faithful gospel preaching gives encouragement as you hear about what your Saviour has done for you. That gives encouragement as you start off every new week. The first day of every week you get to hear the wonderful news about Jesus. It reminds you that you’re loved by your heavenly Father. Each day your life is in his good, wise, and loving hands. Everything will work for your good because of what the gospel has promised you.
And that encouragement goes with you into the future. It’ll be there with you too when you’re in the last days or moments of your life. No one really wants to think about that right now, but the reality is that unless Christ returns first, all of us have to face death. When we’ve been blessed with faithful gospel preaching throughout all our lives, we have what we need to face death unafraid. We can look at death as a gateway into eternal life with Christ. It’s not something to be feared, because we have what the gospel offers, we have hope.
So loved ones, are you eager for gospel preaching? I’m eager to bring that kind of good news to you from God’s Word every week. But are you eager to receive it? Do you see what you’d be missing if you intentionally deprived yourself of it?
When you’re eager to receive it, that’s when the encouragement happens on the other side, on the minister’s side of the pulpit. Paul was looking forward to going to Rome and being encouraged by seeing the eager faith of the Roman Christians as he preached to them. This is something that still happens today with preachers.
When we see that the gospel is loved and cherished by those who hear it, it encourages us in our faith. When I as your minister see that you love to hear the gospel, it leads me to praise God. I see it as a beautiful thing that reinforces my own faith. Yes, I think the gospel is awesome, so encouraging and comforting, but I’m human and sometimes my faith waxes and sometimes it wanes. When my faith is waning, one thing that encourages and points me in the right direction is you and your faith. You see, on both sides of the pulpit we really do need each other.
One practical thing you can do in this regard is to remember to pray for your pastor. Please pray that he would continue to be eager to preach the gospel to you and do it faithfully. Please pray that his faith would find encouragement from the congregation too. Loved ones, I’m a weak and sinful man. I’m not an uber-Christian. I need God’s help and your prayers for his help. So please remember to keep praying for your pastor.
The last thing we want to consider in relation to gospel preaching in our passage is how it results in the reaping of a harvest. This is in verse 13. Paul says that he’s been hoping to come to Rome to preach in order that he could reap some harvest among them.
Obviously he’s using agricultural language here. The idea is that the Roman church is like a field or a vineyard. Stuff is growing there. The hope is that in due time there’ll be produce to be harvested. If it’s a field, you want to see the heads of grain, maybe wheat or barley. If it’s a vineyard, you want to see the grapes ready to be picked from the vine.
Notice how Paul mentions in verse 13 about “the rest of the Gentiles.” You may remember from last time that Christ commissioned Paul specifically to be the apostle to the Gentiles. It was a commission that Paul took seriously. As it says in verse 14, he regarded it as his obligation to preach the gospel to every sort of Gentile. He refers to Greeks and barbarians. The “barbarians” here are simply people in the Roman Empire who didn’t speak Greek and thus were considered less cultured. The terms Greek and barbarian run parallel to wise and foolish here. Paul’s just referring to them as they would’ve been regarded by people in those days. What he means is that he feels an obligation to preach to every sort of non-Jewish person, with no discrimination.
Up to that point, in doing that gospel preaching, Paul has reaped a harvest. As we noted last time, Paul was writing this letter from Corinth. There was a Christian church there. It had been founded by Paul’s preaching. The preaching of the gospel bore fruit with repentance and faith. It then brought about radical change in people’s lives.
Now Paul wants to take that same sort of scenario over to Rome. He wants to reap a harvest of gospel-produced fruit over there too. He wants to see repentance and faith happening, perhaps with the next generation of Roman church members too. He wants to see believers responding to the gospel with the fruit of changed lives. When it’s preached, the gospel doesn’t only give people encouragement within, it also leads to people concretely changing their lives so they follow Christ as Lord. The gospel of Christ as Saviour leads to the recognition of Christ as Lord. It leads to a life of submission to Christ as Lord. This is all the sort of fruit Paul was hoping to be able to reap in Rome as well.
For us today, we should be eager for gospel preaching because, when it is received in faith, it does bear fruit. Through the power of the Holy Spirit working with the word, things change in our lives. It can never happen that the gospel is faithfully preached, people believe it, and then everything stays the same in their lives. There’ll always be a harvest to be reaped. And when it is reaped, what results is more praise and glory for God. What results is that we’re together more impressed with God. Loved ones, we should be eager for gospel preaching because it results in worship for the God who loved us and saved us. Let’s pray that when gospel preaching happens here, this harvest will always be reaped. Let’s pray that when the gospel is preached among us, that it’s received in faith, and leads us to increased love for the Lord and a commitment to live for him.
To conclude this morning, let’s imagine a couple of hypothetical scenarios. What if gospel preaching were taken away from you? What if the government shut down our churches and forbid any preaching of the Bible? You couldn’t go to church anymore, at least not like we’re accustomed to doing. How would you feel about that? Would you be relieved that finally you don’t have to go to church anymore and listen to someone ramble on for an hour? Or would you be deeply troubled and do your best to find preaching of the gospel no matter what the cost? That might not be a very likely scenario in the short-term, but it could happen in years to come, just like it’s happened in other times and places. Your response to it would show how eager you really are for gospel preaching.
But let’s consider a more plausible scenario. This scenario has actually happened at churches with the word “Reformed” in their name in different places around the world. So let’s say hypothetically, the consistory decides we’re not going to have a second service anymore. No more afternoon services on Sunday. It doesn’t seem to be valued by the congregation, and do we really need it after all? How would you feel about that? If you’re eager for gospel preaching, wouldn’t you want to get as much of it as you can? If you’re eager for gospel preaching, I hope you would never allow the consistory to get away with making such a horrible decision. I urge you to think about it. If you’d be totally against the consistory getting rid of the second service where the gospel is preached again, are you showing up for the second service as much as you’re able?
Loved ones, let’s be eager for gospel preaching all the time. Let’s never take it for granted but embrace it wholeheartedly. Let’s value it, not only for the blessings it brings to us, but also for the praise and worship it brings our God. AMEN.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the preaching of the gospel. We confess that we need it because we’re weak and sinful people. We need to be constantly reminded of what you have done for us in Jesus Christ. We’re grateful for the blessings that come to us through the preaching of the gospel. Thank you for grounding us in the reality of who we are and who you are and what you’ve done for us in Christ. Thank you for encouraging and giving us hope for both life and death. We pray that all the gospel preaching we hear would produce a rich harvest for the glory of your Name. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, let the gospel preached produce repentance, faith, and transformed lives. Please help us always to value your Word, and especially the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Dr. Wes Bredenhof, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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