Preaching Where Christ Was Not Named

Well, good morning. So today I'm actually going to finish up this section, and we're going to go on to a new section. You know, this is what's called the non-doctrinal section of the Book of Romans. But there's just a tremendous amount about Paul's life. So I've titled this, Preaching Where Christ Was Not Named. That's going to be an interesting thing today.

Is that to be, I'll just kind of give you a little taste, is that to be the model of evangelism? Should all evangelists be, should that be their focus? Think about that question. Answer that question. Should that be the focus of evangelists we send out?

Okay, so here we go. So let's go back. I used this chart a couple weeks ago. So this is the outline of 14 through 33 the end of all of chapter 15 and then all of chapter 16 We're down to the very end. It's going to go quickly here and about six weeks will be done with this section and We'll talk about what's coming up after that. Some of you guys already know but anyway, here we go. Okay, so This verse was read.

This is Paul's persuasion, you know, just a beautiful passage I got to teach that a couple weeks ago, you know Paul, he talked about the church at Rome. He said, there are three characteristics of the church at Rome. And I think this is three characteristics of any church that knows who they are in Christ and is walking by the Spirit. I think they can have these three characteristics. They are, he says, they're full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to admonish one another. Just until you think, well, I can't do that. And you're right. You can't do it. Only the Lord through you, through the Holy Spirit, can do that in your life.

So that's 14. Then 15 has been this section we've worked on for the last couple of weeks, talking about Paul's ministry. You know what we find in those verses? If you look carefully, it's directed, talking to the Gentile nations, I'll call them. It's talking about God's working with the Gentile nations. And it actually gives more information. Remember Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles? It gives us probably more information about that ministry than we have in many other places. So we're going to finish it out today. And then in the following week, we're going to talk about Paul's desire.

And his desire was that he had travel plans, right? He's a traveling man. He wanted to travel to Spain. I don't think he ever got there, from what I understand. And he wanted to go to Rome. He never got there either, but he had great travel plans. And we're going to see a picture of that.

And then he had a request. He had a prayer request. He wanted you to pray for him. Like we asked for prayer, he asked, pray for me. He wanted to pray that God would work through him for his ministry. And then a couple of the end points here, we have a couple of benedictions. 533 is one, and then there's a cool benediction at the very end, three verses. One of the longer benedictions of Paul, maybe the longest, 1625 through 27. And then we have kind of the salutation. And this is actually a cool section.

I've been listening to Macaulay talk about this section. It's really talks all these different names of people, all these different families. And it's men and women. And especially this lady Phoebe, she apparently was a person that took Paul's letter to Rome. He entrusted it with a woman. Think about that. I know, I'm making a joke of that. But she was something to be reckoned with apparently. She moved in the high places and she was a trustworthy person to take Paul's letter to Rome. Okay, so we're going to concentrate on Paul's ministry. OK, so let's backtrack a little bit. I'm going to cover a little bit of what Mike covered last week.

So let's look at, you know, I try to look at, you know me, I try to look at complete sentences. I want to do a complete sentence and that complete sentence, I want to find out what's the main idea of that sentence, the main subject and verb. That's what I'm and that's why these little Diagrams I have the goal is and then from that main Sentence I want to see what's a modifier what's happening here and it helps me teach it helps me understand the verse Hopefully it helps you understand the verse too Okay, so here we go So it's for or literally of course.

I Paul will not dare the dare is the is the interlinear translation of the Greek word I think it's probably a little bit more to the point I will not dare to speak of anything, we're going to see that's kind of an interesting phrase, to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished, what Christ has accomplished.

So that's the main, in that sentence, what Christ has accomplished, the subject is Christ, has accomplished the verb, that's the main part of that sentence. What follows below that is what modifies or tells us more about what did Christ accomplish, okay? And Paul's going to say, Don't want to speak of anything. I want nothing in the way of talking about what Christ has accomplished and It was through Paul so he starts off he first one of the modifier sections one of the pictures here Is that it is through me?

Resulting in this obedience of the Gentiles. We're going to talk about that. What does the obedience of the Gentiles mean? What's that? What's that about? by word by word and work, by word and deed, depending on your translation. So that's one set of modifiers.

The other set of modifiers is, in the power and power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit, and the order of these, I flipped the order around a little bit, so that, with the purpose that, I flipped it a little bit, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.

So he says, I have, this is amazing, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. That's like saying, I've completed the course, right? I've run the race. He said other places, he says, he has, God asked him to do something and he did that and completed that task. And he's saying, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. That doesn't mean necessarily he got every, talked to every person on all his travels, but he fully did what he believed God wanted him to do. And then he gives the area from Jerusalem through and about as far as Illyricum.

I had to pronounce that with Vani a bunch of times. I may mispronounce it along the way. I'm sure you'll forgive me. OK, here we go. All right, so that's a big picture. The center part is this is Christ's accomplishments through Paul. And his direction was to this obedience of the Gentiles And then the other path is, well, how could this happen? How could Christ accomplish that? And it is through the Holy Spirit, basically, and Paul is fully preaching it. So, two different parts, but the main part is what Christ has accomplished.

Okay, so let's get down into the details a little bit. For I, Paul, will not presume, that's the New American Standard word, or dare, And it's actually, it's going to be a negative. I dare not, if you, I dare not be bold, not to venture. He doesn't want to go off the track to speak of anything. And I kind of got the, this last little thing is from McGee.

This is the idea that to speak of anything, Paul never wanted, he wanted to only talk about what Christ did through him. You know, he could have talked about, as I mentioned, he could have talked, he didn't want to take credit for anybody else's work. And he didn't even want to, you know, and it's not because he was trying to show that he was the best guy in town. He just wanted to show that God was leading him and directing him. So he didn't want to take credit, like for Peter's work with Cornelius, with the Gentiles. He only talked about what Christ did through him. And accept what Christ has accomplished, like I said, has accomplished to bring about, to work out.

So here's our two strands of modifiers. in a second here. So actually what you find the verb tense here is kind of interesting. It looks at the, so you look at Paul's accomplishments with the Gentiles. He didn't speak with the Gentiles just one time, right? How many times did he speak with Gentiles? I mean, I haven't counted it, but it's a huge number, right? But this kind of looks at the whole package. God, commissioned Paul to be his minister to the Gentiles, and he looks at the entire package, that's an event, and Paul accomplished that event, is kind of the deal. And we see it documented through the whole New Testament. So the first string is that it was through me, through Paul, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles.

And he was their instrument, through me, he was the instrument of Christ, in Christ's hands, so to speak, the Amplified says. So Christ has accomplished obedience, or we could say, I think salvation would be a good word, the obedience. They trusted Christ as their Savior. But the caveat here, and it was by Christ's word and Christ's deeds. They trusted in Christ with his word and Christ living through their lives. Okay, so that's one strand, if you will. So let's go to the second strand. It's by power of signs and wonders. So this is kind of interesting. It kind of shows up. So it's telling us this is how Paul accomplished that.

And in the early church, signs and wonders were a big deal. Miracles were a big deal. As the New Testament was completed, they began to fade away. And today, we don't have that methodology, signs and wonders. But Paul did. So Science and Wonders, this is Constable I believe, Science and Wonders is a phraseology, if you will, for miracles. Okay, so, and there's verses that talk about, so Science and Wonders, they validated or accredited the message of God as it was proclaimed. So here's a verse in Acts, and we see that all through Acts, you guys have been studying Acts, all through Acts you see this many times. At the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were taking place among the people. And one of the commentaries I read talked about the number of...

Paul never talked much about signs and wonders. He never bragged about signs and wonders, because that would focus on him, right? He only wanted to focus on Christ. Once again, carrying out the idea of Christ working through him. The second strand, which kind of follows through this, Kind of amplifies that it's by the signs and wonders happened by the power of the Spirit So this power is from the Holy Spirit not Paul and here's a verse that kind of helps you here in 1st Corinthians 15 10 But by the grace of God, I am what I am. This is Paul speaking But I labored even more than all of them yet. Not I but the grace of God within me so Paul's always focused on Christ is working in my life by the Holy Spirit. It's not, you know, it's God's grace through me that's performing these signs and wonders.

Okay, so let's carry on. So now we're going to see the territory first. From Jerusalem roundabout to Lyricum. So this is Constable. I've seen different numbers, not everybody agrees. So they say the area of Paul's ministry was about 1,400 miles. And it went from Jerusalem all the way to this place, this province of Illyricum on the east side of the Adriatic Sea by Italy.

We'll see a picture here in a second. I didn't get it from AI though. Bob was shown his AI this morning. I mean, I should ask for a picture of Wayne. We're picking on Wayne these days. Or Courtney. I say, A.I., give me a picture of Courtney. Okay, never mind. So here's this cool statement.

I have fully preached. So the idea, it means he fully completed. He completed the ministry. Like I mentioned before, he fully completed the ministry. And this is a parallel verse, if you will, using the same phraseology of this church. Now this is Colossae. of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit so that I might fully carry out, same kind of, fully carry out, fully preach the preaching of the Word of God. So Paul believed that he had fully, and I think it was true because, you know, it wasn't contradicted in Scripture, he fully carried out what God had for him. He said I've run the race, you know, the crown of glory waits for me Pretty amazing. Okay, let's carry on here. So here's today's verses. We'll see our picture here in a minute. I have a picture of this area for Paul in a second here. Okay, so here's the verses for today.

Thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man's foundation. But as it is written, they who had no news of him shall see, and they who had not heard shall understand." So don't forget, if we're talking about the Gentile nations, that's kind of important to keep in mind.

So this is going to be a pretty simple picture. It's not a very long verse. And so you say, why even do it? I've gotten used to it now, so you have to put up with me from now on. OK. I, Paul, aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, So that I would not build on another man's foundation.

So this was Paul's ministry plan. This is what his plan was. So we're going to answer the question here shortly. Should this be the ministry plans of our evangelism today? Okay, let's carry on. Let's dig down a little bit. So, and thus could be translated indeed. I aspire, the idea is to strive, to pass, it's present tense, continuous action, I continually strive, I continually aspire. So you could say, it's literally, this is my ambition. His ambition was to preach the gospel. Amazing, that's exactly what God called him for. That was his ambition, to preach the gospel, that's what God called him for.

So here's a verse that talks to that in 2 Corinthians. Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him." And I meant to say, this is the same word, the same word that we have as ambition up here. Okay. So I aspire, I make it my ambition to preach the gospel.

This is a cool word in the original. And it's one word in the original, euangelizo. I think it's pronounced euangelizo. It's to preach the gospel. It's just one word in the original and it's almost always used of the good news It's used in a ton of places, but it's almost always used as a good news about Jesus Christ God's Son and the gospel dying for our sins Being buried and rising in the third day.

So that's a this word I aspire my desire my ambition is to preach the gospel and here's a verse that I speaks that again. So for my part, I am eager, ready, willing to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. So that was his desire. And here goes kind of his mission field as he saw it. Not where Christ was already named. Not where the name of Christ was known. He wanted to be in territories that were un-evangelized, unknown, they didn't know who Christ was.

So that, or with a purpose that, I, Paul, will not build another man's foundation. And the foundation here is that, you know, this is, if you will, this is the faith. The foundation of our belief is the faith, the truths once for all presented by the apostles. As Zola said, the elementary doctrine and instruction of the faith. So, this is a comment by Denny, via Weiss, he says, he, Paul, never sought to preach where Christianity was already established. A point of honor, not of rivalry. Rivalry is involved. So Paul wasn't doing it to say, I can do better than you guys. This is what he was called to do, and that's what he did. So, okay, this picture. What's funny is, Mike sent me this picture. So I said, it's a great picture, Mike.

I got Jerusalem down the very bottom right. You see, there's Jerusalem way down there. I go way over to Italy. I'm looking for a lyricum. I can't find it. And I don't know. Maybe they don't know where it's at. But anyway, the line goes up in the top there on Italy. So I don't know where it's at.

Anyway, that's the 1,400 miles approximately, the width of this picture, from Jerusalem up to Antioch, all those lines. There was no legend on this picture either. But from other pictures I know, that's all these different missionary journeys. What always amazed me, look how many times they retrace through certain places, through Derby, Anyway, a lot of times they went the same path, but many times they went to places only one time.

So that was Paul's ministry field. He went where the gospel was unknown. Okay, so let's carry on here. So now, here's a question. I'm finally going to answer it. So what is to be the practice of the church today? Okay, so we saw Paul's teaching about what his That was Paul's direction he felt from the Lord to go to territories where Christ was not known about. So what's made the Church Age focus?

I think it's given here in 1 Corinthians 3.6.

It says, I Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So you look from this here. So Apollos was building on what Paul planted, right? So Paul doesn't say that's wrong. He said, I did this, but then he comes back in Corinthians and says, well, oh, by the way, here's, you know, but he wants to point out, however it happens, whether you're building on another man's ministry, the key part of all that is, is given in verse 7 and 10 here.

So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. And then 11 even amplifies it more. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the foundation of any ministry, any gospel ministry, that's the foundation.

Whether you go to where Christ is not named, As Paul did, that's okay, it seems like. But it seems like in the church age, this is more the picture, right? I was thinking, let me have one more bullet here. So our foundation must be on Jesus Christ, it's clear from these verses. But to me, it seems like it can be on another man's work in the Lord, or it can be the un-evangelized territory. I was kind of thinking about Holly Hills. I was ratcheting back, I was thinking about, okay, here we have I can't go much beyond Merriman.

So we have Merriman, then our brother Hal comes along and he builds Merriman. Then Mike and I come along, hopefully, and Vern, and we're building on Hal's ministry, who built on Ron's ministry. Then amazingly enough, we've got this guy from Canada who just loves what we teach and wants to come and build on our ministry. And I know Andrew wants to build in our ministry, and so on. It's a wonderful thing to build in another's ministry, to see what God has done in that life, and if you agree with it, you're amplifying and building upon that ministry.

Okay, so that's my sermon for the moment. Okay, so let's carry on here. Okay, 1521. But as it is written, this is pretty cool. This is one of these sleeper verses that you think, well, not much here, right? As it is written, so I hope you guys are familiar somewhat. You know Isaiah 53? Isaiah 52, a couple of verses before that, is what's called the prelude to Isaiah 53.

So as it is written in this Suffering Servant section, which is going to be Isaiah 52.15, says, they who had no news of him, they, I think in this context is applying the Gentiles, shall see, and the idea here is that a discerning, they will discern, they who had no news of him shall see, was discernment, they who had not heard, Gentiles again, shall understand, to comprehend or perceive. I'm sure you guys, you know, Verne Peterman loved this.

This is Hebrew parallelism, right? Am I looking at it? It looks like we got one statement, they who had no news of him shall see, followed by another statement, which sounds very similar, they who have not heard of him shall understand. So the bottom line is you're going to discern or comprehend what Christ is all about. Amazing. Cool stuff. Okay, so let's go down a level here.

So another little pick up here along the way, not every but is a contrast. Not every but is a contrast. Allah is a Greek word. So in this case, this is not really a contrast here. It's just more information. This is more information about Paul's presenting to back up his claim for the Gentiles. This is not a contrast, but more information. So but or Allah can be either a contrast or more information.

As it is written, In the prelude to Isaiah 53, which is the following, Isaiah 52, 15, this is what's being quoted in our verse 21 here. He, these are my words, the suffering servant, you read the context, that's Christ. He, the suffering servant, will sprinkle his blood on many nations. Kings will shut their mouths on account of him.

Boy, that just, you know. It would be wonderful if kings would shut their mouth, but I don't know. It doesn't seem like their mouths are always going these days. Anyway, some do sometimes. Okay. And then here's the quote we have. For what had not been told them, they will see. And what had not been heard, they will understand. Okay, so Paul apparently, and I think this is Macaulay, I'm not absolutely sure, I'm pretty sure it's Macaulay. The Apostle Paul applied this verse to the preaching of the gospel in this virgin and largely Gentile territory. Okay, so let's look at, let's kind of go through it here again.

They the Gentiles who had no news of him shall see. So had no news, the idea of news here is the idea to declare, to announce, It's typically of a heavenly message. So they had no news of him, of Christ, I believe. So the Gentiles had no heavenly message until Israel's rejection of Christ, right?

We've been reading through the Gospels and Brother Bob is consistently faithful and pointing out, hey, here's where they rejected Christ. Well, okay, the whole tenor changes. So the Gentiles are in view then. So without that rejection, that's why I think they couldn't hear the news. The news was not to them, right? Christ said, I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So once they rejected him, the shift, it changed to the Gentile nation. So now they had no news of him. So then the last part applies. So Paul was appointed as apostle of the Gentiles.

They shall see. Hurrah, it's the idea, it's not just seeing, it's discerning or discerning mind. I think that's the word when I presented the Christmas message or Easter message, one of those messages where you, it must be the Easter, you go into the tomb and this is a word that, I think it's Peter, he rushes in and he sees it says, well, he hurrah, he discerns something, he looks in the tomb and he says, He sees that something went on here. Christ is not here, and he looks at all this stuff. He discerns something. That's the idea of this hurrah.

So the verse I used here, which is funny, you should want to use this verse. You shall hurrah, shall see a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. Remember, this is James, so don't get too, you know, works are to validate your faith. This would contradict Bob's message this morning in Galatians. It's by faith alone that we are justified. Works only validate your faith. Anyway, you need to read James carefully and understand James. That's another story. Okay, let's carry on here. So part two. And they Gentiles who have not heard shall understand. So they didn't hear of him, right? Until God directed his works to the Gentile nations, they did not hear of him. Only to Israel heard of him.

Here again is a kuo. The usual idea is to hear, but it also can mean to comprehend or understand, very similar to the other word we saw. So in John 1.1, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, John's writing here, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and so on. It's about the Word of Life, the Lord Jesus. So they were seeing, comprehending, if you will.

So the Gentiles did not understand or comprehend about Christ. And that was a permanent state. The perfect tense here, they permanently did not understand. Totally, you know that verb tense validates so much of scripture right there They permanently Gentiles were outside of Christ with no hope in this world.

They permanently were out of the picture But God and his mercy changed that shall understand him Understand is to comprehend to perceive So in Matthew says here Jesus I like this is a cool verse I Jesus called the crowd to him and said, said to them, hear and understand what defiles a man.

That's the rest of the verse. Hear and understand, hear and understand. That's our, that's what we should be doing. When we look at God's word, we're to hear his word and we're to understand his word. We just don't, we just don't read it. We want to understand it, whatever it takes to understand it.

Some people, you know, if you have to listen to, I started out in my Christian life really early. I would drive back and forth to work. I had these tapes. I was overseas at that point from this pastor in California. I'd drive back and forth to work. I wasn't a believer yet. I'd gone to a Bible study. I'm driving in my car, listening to these tapes. At that point, I said, this is amazing. I don't understand any of this. I was studying the book of Hebrews. My first book I read was the book of Hebrews. I'm like, Roger, there's no hope of understanding anything. You start in Hebrews, right?

Well, somehow the Lord, you know, I'm driving along. I'm a sinner. Wait a minute. I'm a sinner. I need a Savior. Anyway, that's another story. Anyway, you've heard that story before probably, but it's good to know you're a sinner. If you know you're a sinner, then you have a chance. If you don't think you're a sinner, you've got some problems. Anyway, okay.

So now the Gentiles, you know, can understand about Christ because God sent Paul and he started with, you know, back in, we read in the Gospels too. The picture changed. God went to the Gentile nations. So that's the rest of this. Now the Gentiles can understand about Jesus Christ also. Okay, in summary. Unconstable. So verse 20 talks about Paul's desires to visit Rome. And he kind of explains that why.

He desires to do pioneering missionary work throughout his zeal for the unsaved people. He wanted to reach the unreached people. And Constable thinks that he realized they weren't going to come to him. They weren't going to come to Jerusalem to hear him. He had to go to them. So that's why he wanted to go out to these nations.

And verse 21, he used that message from Isaiah as encouragement in the prophecy about Isaiah, which is described with the servant Savior. So that's kind of a little, not a lot to say, but so Paul desired to go to the unreached people of the world. So whether you go there or you go to the rich people, Wherever you go, you take God's word and God's message. All right, let's close. We thank you, Father. Thank you for your word, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have. In Christ's name, amen.