The Joy and Reward of Serving Christ (Rom. 15:14–33)

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Sam Allberry
If I can be someone who is now a worshiper of God, if God can change my heart around, I can’t look at anyone’s heart in this world and think they would never become a Christian. I will always see possibility, because if he can save me, he can save anyone.

Ray Ortlund
Welcome back to you’re not crazy. This is Ray ortlund. I’m with my dear friend Sam Albury. Hey, Ray and we are plowing through Romans, chapters 12 through 15, which paint the picture of what a beautiful life giving Christ, honoring church looks like, the great theology of chapters one through 11 of Romans that all of that truth does not hang in midair as an abstraction, but becomes embodied in a church. So these chapters, chapters 12 through 15 of Romans, are just as urgent and authoritative and glorious as chapters one through 11, because now Paul explains what that truth looks like when it takes human form in a local church.

Sam Allberry
That the gospel can be not just received and believed but socially embodied. There’s a way to make it visible in our life together, and that’s what these chapters are helping us to do.

Ray Ortlund
Right now we want to look at chapter 15, verses 14 through 33 this is the last section we’re going to think out loud together about, and then we’re going to you and I Sam, we’ll just sort of think out loud together about maybe our primary takeaways, yeah, from chapters 12 through 15 of Romans, and that’ll be it today.

Sam Allberry
Yeah.

Ray Ortlund
Alright so, for starters, chapter 15, verses 14 through 33 what stands out to you here?

Sam Allberry
Lots of things right? As I look at the passage, I’m already struck by verse 14. Paul says, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to instruct one another. And I just thought, Paul is not unpleasable As a Christian leader, he can say of these Christians, I’m satisfied about you. I know that you’re full of goodness. I know that you you, you have understanding that you can instruct each other. And it’s, it’s a reminder to me, for all of us who are pastors, not to be pastors who are unpleasable, that there’s a right way to say to our congregations, how, and there’s, there’s a wrong way of saying this, of course, but how proud we are of them, how thankful we are for them, how how much we see what the Lord is doing in their lives, how well they’re doing. Yeah, exactly there’s, there’s affirmation here. I’m not sure always we’re always good at that, because I think sometimes we think of leadership as we’ve got to keep pushing people to the next thing. So there’s always a Come on. There’s further to go, more work to be done. And that is certainly true, and Paul’s going to get to that as well. But I love how he just, he didn’t have to say that verse. He could have just started with the next verse. You know, on some points I’ve written to you very boldly by way of reminder, but he wants to set even that in the wider context of just just how great they’re doing.

Ray Ortlund
I think, Sam, if all I do as a pastor is challenge people. I think that’s the word that’s often used challenge. I will end up with an exhausted congregation who are disheartened and less capable of bearing fruit.

Sam Allberry
It makes it harder to believe that we can be acceptable to the Lord if we never feel acceptable to our pastor.

Ray Ortlund
So a congregation that is imperfect, still in formation is nevertheless worthy of affirmation in some ways. Yeah, so let’s celebrate the wins.

Sam Allberry
Don’t have to be perfect, don’t have to be complete to be to be doing. Well,

Ray Ortlund
I’m struck by that, how magnificent that is. There’s a real beauty there. And what stands out to me is is immediately on the heels of that, in verses 15 and following where Paul says he, he says he calls himself a minister of Christ, Jesus to the Gentiles. And then listen to this in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. So he looks out at the nations of the world, and he sees darkness, he sees danger, but he also sees possibility, and he sees himself as a priest, moving out as an evangelist, a church planter, a pastor, an author and so forth, gathering people together. They’re being converted to Christ. They’re coming. Coming together in congregations. And he’s lifting these people and these young churches, lifting, lifting them up to God as an offering, a sacrifice. And he’s the priestly figure preparing and lifting this offering to God, may the lamb receive the reward of His suffering. And Paul would resonate with that. It’s what he’s talking about here. I want the lamb to receive the reward of His suffering. He’s lifting up the nations converted to Christ, up to the Lord who shed his blood for them.

Sam Allberry
And he sees, he seems to look at the world around him through through the lens of gospel possibility, doesn’t he? You know, he’s seeing the Roman Empire. He’s seeing these, these Gentile cultures and groupings. Who would, you know? You wouldn’t have looked around. I thought, Oh, these guys look like they would all be potentially amazing Christians. You’re just seeing people being very, very pagan. But Paul is scanning the horizon there, and he’s, he’s imagining what sanctified versions of these, of these different groups, would look like. He’s seeing what they could be through the intervention of Christ.

Ray Ortlund
Crazy sinners can make great Christians.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, and let’s just just remember Paul’s own history himself. I mean, here he was being almost bestial in his opposition to the church, I mean sort of raging against the church. And yet here he is. You know, we’ve noticed in these chapters so much care for the health of the church. So he knows how people can change so profoundly.

Ray Ortlund
And before we started recording you, you, you described Paul in such an interesting way. You really captured the vibe and the tone that with which he’s writing here. You spoke of his How did you say it was boldness or confidence? What was it?

Sam Allberry
Ambition.

Ray Ortlund
Oh, he uses that word?

Sam Allberry
Yes, he uses that word a bit later on in our in our passage, but there’s driven this. He’s energized because, I mean, quite apart from anything else he’s he’s seen how much the gospel has turned his own life around, and that that’s such a healthy perspective. Anyway, Ray if, if God can change my heart, and if I really know what my heart was like apart from God, you know, Paul has shown us earlier in Romans that, by natures, we’re enemies of God. If I can be someone who is now a worshiper of God, if God can change my heart around, I can’t look at anyone’s heart in this world and think though they would never become a Christian, I will always see possibility. Because if he can save me, he can save anyone.

Ray Ortlund
So Paul is not looking at the mission field through this lattice work of self protection. He’s not bracing himself trying to filter out anything bad that might come his way. He’s leaning into it using the bold word ambition. I love how you summarize that drivenness and being energized. Sam, if you and I are in this world to skate through with as little trouble as possible, we will be cowardly and exhausted. But if we’re in this world for the lamb to receive the reward of His suffering, even through us, we will walk through this world with a sense of pastoral privilege and possibility.

Sam Allberry
And rejoicing. I mean, listen to these words, verse 17 in Christ, Jesus, then I have reason to be proud of my work for God, 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. So Paul, Paul knows he has a very particular calling as an apostle to the Gentiles, but that all in this I mean, and we know for Paul this, this ministry was not easy. There were beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks and all of those trials. But you get the sense, there’s excitement, there’s a there’s adventure, there’s rejoicing. He can actually see ways in which Christ has used him and better, to have some some scars. But ministry, you can genuinely think, you know, the Lord has actually done something through my labors.

Ray Ortlund
Yes. I got involved in this, yeah, privilege.

Sam Allberry
Even if I got beaten up in the process. Yeah, that is, that is, that is a much more that is so much richer as a life than the self protecting, guarded hesitant, I’m just I don’t want to do anything that might be risky.

Ray Ortlund
Paul Winter was a missiologist, taught at Fuller Seminary for many years, missiologist in my dad’s generation. And he summarized it well. He said this, you do not. Evaluate a risk by the probability of success, but by the worthiness of the goal. And here he’s talking about the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit that is a worthy goal, the lamb receiving the reward of His suffering through His shed Blood and the miracle working power of the Holy Spirit. And you and I get to be involved, whatever the price might be. And sometimes we might hesitate, we might falter, but then we’ll regain our sanity and keep going.

Sam Allberry
Yeah. Thomas Cranmer, yes, had a very public Yes, faltering of nerve and beautifully, got back up on the horse, proclaimed Christ and was willing to to die for the faith that he had been nervous of confessing to even even our failings and mistakes the Lord can factor into how he will ultimately use us.

Ray Ortlund
Such grace. Why would we ever say no to him and his call. You know, maybe a young pastor listening to this right now, maybe today, before the day is out, you might want to get alone with the Lord and get down on your knees and reconsecrate your life to Christ. Maybe with this passage open before you and say, Lord, this is harder than I expected it to be, but I want to be involved in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. I want to be involved in that. I long for you to accomplish that through me, as Paul says And Lord, I consecrate my life to you all over again. I’m all in. Give me everything I need to fulfill my ministry.

Sam Allberry
That is not presumption to pray that prayer. It’s, it’s, it’s actually faith, because we’re trusting God can use imperfect, fallen beings like us in His ministry.

Ray Ortlund
I believe it would be wrong not to pray that prayer.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, if the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe, then actually I’m thinking too much of myself, if I, if I’m saying, Well, I got, you know, my own failings are too big an obstacle for the power of the gospel. That’s great. And you know, Paul has a very particular calling within that, within that ministry. So he talks about having fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. 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. So Paul knows he he’s got a particular the Lord has given him, a particular calling, a particular focus, as a as a bringing the Gospel to new places. We don’t all have the same kind of calling. We may not have something that specific, but we we should have from the Lord something that feels like an ambition the Lord has given us. For some people, it will be, I want to go where the gospel has never been heard. That that’s not going to be the case for everyone, because we still need reached people’s team that still need to hear the gospel as well. But to have a sense of okay, I feel like, Ray, this is, this is what I’ve loved about being in my 40s, in my 20s and my 30s, I I enjoyed getting to do anything for the Lord. I was always wondering if I was doing the right thing, and kind of thinking, Should I, should I be doing that thing over there or this thing over here? I feel like by my 40s, I know. I know what the Lord has me to do, and so I’m not constantly thinking, do I need to change lanes? Do I need to should I be doing something else? It’s taken me till my 40s to think, Okay, I think these are the things the Lord has helped me to be ways. The Lord has helped me to serve his people. I think these are the things he’s given me that I, by His grace, can do. There’s a whole bunch of other stuff I can’t do, and I don’t need to worry about that. But I feel like it’s helped me in this part of my life. I hope to have a my own godly ambition of thinking, and the Lord can wreck that anytime he wants. But I feel like, okay, I feel like I know the lane the Lord has given me to be in, so I can focus on that.

Ray Ortlund
What a gift. You know. You’re reminding me of Colossians chapter four. This is the last verse before Paul signs off at the end of the letter. There’s one more thing he wants to say before he says goodbye, he says and say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord see that you fulfill the ministry you have received in the Lord. Ministry is. Not a career track. Ministry is not a gig. It is a gift that we receive in the Lord and we are called to it. We lose our own selfish ambitions and big plans and our own grandiosity. We step into something far bigger, more beautiful, more consequential. It says say to our campus, see that you fulfill the ministry of your seat. Now that that word fulfill implies there’s a grandeur here. There’s a magnificence. There’s scope and room to grow, and there’s room for further accomplishment fulfill the ministry you haven’t it’s not over yet. You’ve got more fruit to bear. You got more things to say. You have more friends to win for Christ, fulfill the ministry that you’ve received in the Lord. There’s a stewardship, isn’t there? Yes. So I would say to a young pastor in his 20s or 30s, keep following Christ. He will show you the lane, as you were saying a moment ago. Sam, that that he wants you driving in. If you come to your 70s and it still isn’t working, then you can quit, yeah, but until then, because you don’t really even see what God has in mind for you for decades. So don’t freak out. You don’t have to feel like you’ve landed in the ideal place for ministry and everything is just going swimmingly. That’s all right. You’ve got decades to go.

Sam Allberry
The late Australian evangelist John Chapman always used to say, the first 50 years of ministry are the hardest. However long you’ve been in ministry, the first that many years are the hardest. And just keep adding to that number as you go on.

Ray Ortlund
A couple more things stand out to me in this amazing passage. One is Paul prays that his service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints. He says that in verse 31 here’s why that’s striking to me. Sam, there was no swagger in Paul. He respected people, yeah, so he’s going to Jerusalem. He’s recruiting the Christians in Rome to help him on that journey, support him. He’s not going to show up in Jerusalem and say, You people are lucky. I’m here. Yeah, I’m finally here to set you straight. No, he’s going in as a servant, and he is his prayer, and he asks them to pray that his ministry there in Jerusalem will be acceptable to the saints, that they would be able, with whole hearts, to receive his ministry, rejoice over his ministry, open up to his ministry, that they would be able to respect his ministry so their opinions and their thoughts and feelings about his ministry mattered to him.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, and that’s not fear of man, because we know elsewhere, Paul is very happy if he knows it’s for the sake of the Gospel to be unacceptable to different kinds of people. But I love the spirit of this. There’s there’s no posturing with Paul. There’s no kind of this is just the way I am. Take it or leave it. He wants to make it easy, as easy as possible, for someone to receive the ministry of the Gospel through him.

Ray Ortlund
Yes, he doesn’t want to introduce his own complications.

Sam Allberry
Yes, not you will have to adapt to me, and this is just the way I do it. But actually, I want my ministry to be acceptable to you, because my ministry, again, is about pleasing you, not about pleasing myself.

Ray Ortlund
It’s humility. Yeah. So he walks into Jerusalem. He’s mixing with the people, getting to know them, listening to them, and he’s asking the question, what kind of service here for Christ will make the most headway for the gospel? And it reminds me that a pastor, at one level, a pastor, is the servant of that church where he’s serving. But even more profoundly, he is the Lord’s servant. In the midst of those people, he is prepared to disappoint them, if if loyalty to the Lord requires it. If he has a choice between pleasing the Lord and pleasing people, he’ll please the Lord, yeah. But, as is often the case, he ever if he has a choice between pleasing himself and pleasing people, he’ll please the people, yeah. So he says in Galatians chapter one, can you see how I’m perceiving this whole situation there with the legalists moving among you, am I really trying to kiss up to them or even to you? No, if I would do that, I wouldn’t. I would no longer be a servant of Christ. But then in First Corinthians, chapter 10, he just sums up his whole missionary ministry. Is. I try to please everyone in every way. He was widely adaptable. He was the Lord’s servant in their midst, widely adaptable for the Lord’s sake, and knowing the Lord would make huge allowances for him, adapting to different human cultures and expectations within the Lordship of Christ. But it was never about Paul himself.

Sam Allberry
Evidence of his humility, Ray is verse so he’s been building up to you know what his plans are, and all the rest of it he’s he says in verse 22 for this, this is the reason I’ve often been hindered from coming to you. But then verse 32 so then once he’s done all these other things, so that by God’s will, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. So he’s an apostle. These are Christians who are much younger than him in the faith, Christians in chapter one that he said need strengthening through him, and yet, Paul is still aware that he can be refreshed in the company of of junior believers. He needs them. Yes, his spirit needs them. His joy needs them. His mood needs them. He’s not self contained. He’s not above it all. He talks in other letters about his heart being refreshed through others. In Philemon especially, and I love that Paul is open about that, you know, I may come to you and then sort you out. No, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company and not being above needing the refreshment ourselves of other saints. And it’s good for our congregations, if we’re pastors, to know that actually, even if there’s there’s challenges in the church and difficulties we we still need the refreshment of being together. We need church ourselves.

Ray Ortlund
This is the last thing that stands out to me. Sam in verse 29 I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. He doesn’t say, I will come in the blessing of Christ, but in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. So he he is expectant that when they come together, the Lord will enter into that encounter in some way, that there will be a fullness of blessing, not a modicum of blessing. Every time before I preach Sam, I ask the Lord, of course, I pray, but I ask the Lord. I know this might sound ridiculous, but I don’t care. I ask the Lord that that sermon, by God’s grace alone, for His glory alone, might be the best I’ve preached, yet the most blessed, the most consequential, the most renewing. I don’t pray it’ll be the best ever. I pray it’ll be the best yet, because I want to be on a growth trajectory so I’m not coasting, I’m not giving up, I’m not going through the motions. I want to be on that upward trajectory of increased blessing and fullness of blessing all the way until the day I die, and I think of a verse like that gives me warrant for thinking that way and expecting that way and praying that way.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, we were talking before the episode right about Dick Lucas. And I believe, from people who know Dick Lucas in the UK, who know him personally, that he’s in his late 90s now, I think he’s not far off turning 100 if I’m if I’m right, but people who spend time with him say he’s he’s still making discoveries in the Scriptures. And I love that I want to, you know, we never, we never get beyond having more to be struck by and to to learn and to grow. We’re always going to be disciples.

Ray Ortlund
What if we pastors give ourselves permission to begin to dare to think this Sunday, when I come to church to serve and lead, pray and preach, care for people. I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. I’m never settling. I’m not going to slow down. I’m not going to give the devil a day off. I am going to come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ, by His grace, for His glory, may the lamb receive the reward of His suffering.

Sam Allberry
Ray, as we pull some threads together from these four chapters, and by the way, we love Romans 16, we’re not admitting it because we don’t think it’s got useful things for us, I’ve I’ve written on Ray. 16. I’ve, I’ve tried to preach Romans 16. It’s not the end credits, it’s, it’s full of gospel nuggets, through and through. But we wanted to do this because it is a particular section that language of of Christ receiving. What was the wording you used?

Ray Ortlund
The lamb received the reward of His suffering.

Sam Allberry
A significant part of that reward is the relational health Paul has been walking us through in these four chapters. And so this is why it matters so much. This is why this, this whole section of Romans matters so much. I was going to say we’re bringing to completion the work of Christ in us as we let it sweeten our relationships together. That’s not to imply there’s an incompleteness in anything on Jesus end. It is simply to say that actually our reception of the gospel includes our living it out relationally. And if we’re not living it out relationally, we have good reason to suspect we may not have actually received it, because this is where it lands, as you, as you were saying earlier in language, I think I understand this is the touchdown. The gospel is not just there to save individual souls. I mean extraordinary though that is it is there to manifest itself in a kind of community that is not anywhere else visible.

Ray Ortlund
That’s right. Jesus is not sprinting through this world today, picking out isolated individuals here and there and leaving them in isolation. He is sprinting the risen Christ is sprinting through the world today, saving people left and right, having a great time doing it and gathering them into a new community that this world could never create. And my favorite verse in this whole section Sam is chapter 15, verse 13, Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I can’t think of a more timely verse for American Christians in 2024 this year of a presidential election where everyone feels tense, whatever the Sunday is after that election, in early November, that Tuesday Election, our churches across this country have the sacred privilege of exploding with all joy and peace in believing, so that we abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit in an age where probably half the nation is going to Be angry and scared and that word abound in hope doesn’t mean, of course, that our lives are a Zippity do da joyride with no bumps along the way. The word abound simply means we keep getting back up. Yes, yeah, so we get knocked on our our faces and we wonder what had just happened. You know, that was horrible, but we get back up again and we say, I have no idea how that made sense, but I’m going to trust the Lord with it. Here we go, and we keep going with joy and peace by believing the Gospel of chapters one through 11.

Sam Allberry
Wonderful Ray. Thank you for that. Thank you, those of you who are listening, we don’t take your time for granted. We pray that this is of service and encouragement to you in some way, and we pray this blessing on your ministry as well. And we’ll see you next time.