Romans 1. We're going to continue our series and our studying of Romans chapter 1. And though I'm going to only be on verses 8 through 12 this morning, I kind of want to read for the purpose of review, starting from verse 1. So Romans chapter 1, verses 1. And I'm going to read all the way to verse 15.

"Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.

Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of the Son, that without ceasing I mention you, always in my prayers asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.

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. I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented, in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask for your blessing over this time. We pray that the word that goes forth will judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart.

I pray that you would open our eyes, soften our hearts, Lord God, that your word will go forth and will not return until it has accomplished its purpose. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Again, I think you and I are tremendously blessed because we have so many options and choices.

I see so many people who have ability to travel now. Again, even just 30 years ago, not just in foreign countries, but even in the United States, to be able to go out to the East Coast or go to Hawaii, it took major planning, major commitment because traveling was not something that you just kind of did on a whim.

Today, I mean the flights are cheaper. In fact, our whole church is on the point system, so you can use those points to go wherever you want. And even food, especially when you travel to outside the country, you realize how spoiled we really are because we're used to eating different food almost every day.

You eat Mexican food today, and tomorrow you can't have that because you're sick of it already. You have sushi, so tomorrow I have to have steak. You had Korean food, so now tomorrow I have to have Indian food. So we have all these options. And even when you travel to rich countries, they don't really have all the options that you and I have.

So it's a blessing, even spiritually. If you don't like this sermon, you feel like, "Ah, you know, Pastor Peter, he bombed today." You can go home, go on the internet, you know, and there's thousands of other pastors who are preaching this morning that you can download and listen to them.

It's like, "Okay, now at least I got a good sermon this morning." You have all kinds of options. You don't like the temperature of this building, you go somewhere else, you know. I mean, in one sense, it's a blessing, but if we're not careful, that all these blessings that we have can easily bind us.

And it easily binds us because, because of so many options, we become less committed. We become onlookers and kind of picking and choosing, like, just like if you had one thing to eat, there's nothing to think about, you know. I just need to eat, period. But with all the options, you're always thinking, like, "Should I eat this?

Should I not eat that? I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that." And you and I are living in a generation where commitment is difficult. Even when you have every intention to attend this particular event. And again, this is not just our church. I think this is just universal.

People don't tend to commit to anything until the last minute, just in case. Who knows what's going to happen from now until three weeks from now. Maybe, maybe some, you know, musician's going to come into town that really want to attend, and I don't want to commit to that.

And as a result of that, we've created a generation of onlookers, consumers. I want to weigh my options. And so this clear commitment, this clear conviction has become watered down. One of the things that I really love about scripture is scripture is absolutely crystal clear, especially in our generation where everything's kind of wishy-washy.

Everything's in the gray area. Where the Bible teaches with conviction, He speaks with authority. And that's why when the people were hearing Jesus they were amazed. Not simply because of the miracles, but they were amazed that Jesus was speaking with such clarity and conviction. And they said, "That man speaks with authority unlike the scribes, unlike the Pharisees.

When He speaks, He speaks with clarity that this is right and this is wrong. Here is light and here is darkness. Here's the children of God, here's the children of the devil. Either you are living or you are dead. Either you love God or you hate Him." And He spoke with such clarity.

Here's the line, "Do you stand with me or do you stand against me?" And again, because you and I are living in a generation where speaking with that kind of clarity almost always, automatically brings some kind of scrutiny. Not only outside the church, but oftentimes even inside the church.

When we look at Paul's ministry, he hasn't even jumped into his content yet. In the first chapter, the majority of it is just an introduction. All the way up to verse 17, he hasn't even jumped into the meat of his letter yet. But he's introducing himself. So the first part of the sermon, the first part of the message when he said, "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle," he talked about his identity.

His identity crystal clear, that I am a slave of Jesus Christ. There's no in-between. He's not a part-time worker, he's a slave of Jesus Christ. He was an apostle set apart for the Gospel ministry. He knew exactly who he was. Not only did he know who he was, he knew exactly what the message was.

And we talked about that last week. How this message, this Gospel was given from the prophets, from of old. This wasn't just something that Jesus just brought a new thing to a new generation. He said, "This is at the core of who God is." God has been preparing from the beginning of the fall of man until the end of time, that this is at the core of his heart.

So when we talk about the Gospel, we're not talking about a good news. There's all kinds of other good news. We just believe that the good news is the best news. No, what Paul is saying, this is the news. This is the story. This is at the core of God.

So Paul knew exactly what it was. This is at the core of God. He said, in fact, this Gospel is about Jesus Christ and the whole purpose of this Gospel is to bring about obedience of faith. Today and for the next couple of weeks, we're going to be talking about Paul's ministry.

We're going to be talking about his heart. We're going to be talking about what his intention is. Why does he want to come here? What is the goal of why he's writing this letter? It's all contained in the next maybe about 10 verses. So we'll take maybe at least two weeks, maybe three weeks just unpacking this to see, again, have a greater glimpse of Paul, his identity, his message and his ministry.

So as we jump in this morning, there's one clear thing that I want to emphasize this morning and hopefully at the end of the sermon that again, there's one point that I'm trying to make is that for Apostle Paul, his ministry was very, very personal. This was not just his job.

You could see even by the way he addresses God, he's not just talking to the God or a God or the most powerful God. He uses a very intimate word and he says, "My God." Look with me in verse eight. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you.

Now, when you read this, you can just kind of read it and just pass by it. It's like, okay, you know, I think my God and just a part of the introduction. But you see in Paul's letters that oftentimes when he talks about God, he's a very personal God.

I give thanks to my God always for you in 1 Corinthians 1.4. Philippians 1.3, I thank my God in all of my remembrance of you. Philippians 4.19, and my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Philemon 4, I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers.

Over and over again, he's not referring to a God or the God, he's talking about my God. Now, why is this important? And again, this is connected to everything else that he's going to say. If the God that we worship is not a personal God, he's just the God, he's just a holy, holy, holy God.

And everything else that we do easily becomes drudgery, just easily becomes something that we have to do, it becomes a job. We do not present an impersonal God. He didn't give us a set of facts for us to regurgitate to other people. See, it's not good news until it is good news to you.

If I said to you this morning, "Somebody won the lottery," which is true, how does that affect you? It doesn't affect you at all. So what? People win lottery every day. What if I told you that somebody in your local neighborhood won the lottery? Oh, really? You know, and you're kind of curious, right?

Who is that person? Maybe have a better effect, but maybe not personal. If I say somebody, somebody in this room won the lottery, then you're going to be all curious, "Who won the lottery? Are they going to tide that? Are we moving now?" Right? It's going to affect you.

What if I said somebody in your family won the lottery? Like, "How much are they going to give me?" Right? If I said somebody, if I said you won the lottery, so you have a different effect depending upon how personal it is. But if it's not, if it's not personal, we say, "Somebody won the lottery." Right?

"Somebody won the lottery." Okay. That's good. I'm happy for them. Not really, but you know, I'm happy for them. The good news isn't good news until it is personal. We don't spread the gospel of a bunch of information about some theological truth that's true to the world until it is true to us.

You know, I don't know if those of you who've ever worked at telemarketing, but if you ever work for telemarketing, first thing that they train you to do is to have a little paragraph they want you to memorize. And they literally want you to say this word for word.

And again, they do this for two reasons. One, because they've tested out that these are things that actually has effect and they see that these are things that you need to say and these are the things that trigger people to make decisions. Another reason why they do that, for legal purposes, that you need to say certain words or certain phrases to legally be able to say, "Oh, we're going to switch your phone company," or, "We're going to sell you this." Or if you exaggerate something, right?

And legally, like they find out like, "Oh, you said something you shouldn't say." And then you turn that in, they'll reject that because legally they can't switch their company. So for those two reasons, you have to go and say these things perfectly. See, the gospel is not a set of facts that have been given to us where He says, "Here it is," and regurgitate this information to other people.

If you examine Paul, and it's not just Paul, but if you examine the authors of the books of the New Testament, it was very personal. They weren't just telling, "You know, this is what I heard in my dreams and now I'm going to tell you." Right? They were personally deeply affected.

He wasn't just proclaiming some impersonal God, a set of information that's good news to the whole world. He says, "My God, I thank my God whom I serve with my whole heart." That's why when Jesus asked His disciples before we went to the cross, you know, we often ask the question like, "Why did He spend three years?" You know, in reality it was less than three years, but why did He commit three years to ministry?

Couldn't He have just gone to the cross? Right? I think the primary reason why He spent three years with His disciples was to give them conviction of who He was. So when He asked the question, "I know what the world says who I am. Who do you say I am?" And that was the most important question.

I think that was at the core of Jesus' discipleship. To bring them to a point, "I know what they say, but we say, 'You're the Son of God. You are the Christ.'" And even as people were turning away when Jesus said, "Are you going to turn from Me too?" And remember the disciples, "Where are we going to go?

You have the words of life." The question that we, again, repeatedly have to ask ourselves is not, "What does our church stand for?" You know, I hear people say all the time, "Oh, you know, our church is involved with mission. Our church is involved with this." And we just kind of vicariously think that we're living in obedience because our church, you know, our pastor, or our leaders.

But who do you say He is? Who is He to you? Not to the church, but to you? See, with Apostle Paul, again, I've highlighted a few verses, but one of the things that you'll recognize with Apostle Paul, it was extremely personal. Not just in the way that he addressed God.

If you keep reading, he says, "I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son." So, not only is God a personal God, he says His serving is in His Spirit.

What he means by that is not saying, like, physically He's doing this, and spiritually there's something else going on. It's very, actually very common what he is saying. He's saying that my service to Him is not just external. I'm serving Him wholeheartedly. He is completely committed. That's what he means.

He's serving God externally and internally. See, it was extremely personal to him. It wasn't just a job where he checked in and said, "Well, what do I do from 9 to 5?" You know, you date entry with this, you meet these patients, and you do this and that, and then you clock out at the end.

Right? What Paul is saying is my service to God is wholehearted, complete, inside and out. That's exactly what he says in Ephesians 6, 5-6. "Slaves, obey your masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart." Not just to check off the list. Right? So, "Oh, I read my Bible, you know, I memorize Scripture, and I'm serving the church, so externally I'm doing everything." He says, "Not by way of eye service, just so that when people are watching you say, 'Oh, I did it.'" Not simply by eye service, as people pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

Right? If you ever see anybody who is working and laboring for the Lord, and complaining and grumbling at the same time, you know that that service is not going to last long. At some point, there's a breaking point. At some point, it's not going to be enough. See, Apostle Paul, what he's saying is, "I serve my God." And again, it's very personal to him.

"I'm serving my God wholeheartedly in my spirit." Because there are certain things that you just absolutely cannot do half-hearted. You can watch a movie half-heartedly, which 99% of the time, that's usually me. You know, I'm usually not that engaged when I'm watching movies because I fall asleep probably about 70-80% of the time.

Especially if I'm home. Esther and I, it's a running joke. Like, who's going to fall asleep first? Right? We have a movie night. "Oh, let's go get a movie." And then we're just kind of watching each other to see who falls asleep first. Right? And if we missed it, so what?

You know? I fell asleep on, you know that Up movie? Some of you guys who watch that. I fell asleep at that point when the wife dies. Yeah. And I woke up, and he's chasing some strange bird. And I didn't understand the whole movie. Like, why? Why is he here?

Why is he chasing this bird? And then Esther had to, like, "You missed it? How can you miss that?" It's like, "Ah, so it's just a movie." Right? I understood later why everybody liked it. But, you know, there's certain things that you can do half-hearted, and there isn't a huge consequence because it's just entertainment.

I've seen some of you guys take the bar. Especially the California bar. Supposedly, it's supposed to be the hardest bar that you can take. You know? That's not something you go in half-hearted. You don't just say, it's like, "Oh, you know what? I forgot to study. You know, I'm supposed to take the bar tomorrow.

You know, three days of eight-hour tests. And I'm just going to cram it Sunday night." You know what I mean? You have to prepare for that. You don't just half-heartedly walk into that. You know it's coming, and you have to schedule all your life. You know what I mean?

If it's happening in June, starting from January, you're going to have to plan who you can meet, who you can't meet, when you can go out, when you can't go out, when you're going to sleep. You have to plan all that out because you know that you can't just casually walk into that.

I've seen some of you guys take the CPA exam. I was just surprised how hard that thing was. Initially, I thought, "Jeez, not that, you know." Initially, I thought, "Whatever." When I started seeing everybody taking it, it's like, "Wow, this is no joke." You know, you fail one, and they give you a certain period of time, you got to take all of it.

And I know some of you guys are preparing, some of you guys have already taken it. You don't just enter into that half-heartedly, right? You don't start a business half-heartedly. You don't just say, "Hey, you know, I saved up $200,000, and I want to invest in the business." I'll just do that one.

You know what I mean? You don't just do that. It's like 95% of the businesses fail. You might as well just throw your money away. You go in there, you make sure you have a business outline, what you're going to do, you know, and how long it's going to take for you to make a profit.

You go into all of that thoroughly prepared. Same thing with marriage. You don't just walk down a street and fall in love and say, "We got married tomorrow." You know what I mean? You get a lot of prayer and thought into it because you're going to be connected with this person the rest of your life.

A lot of prayer, counseling goes into making this judgment. There are certain things that you can do half-heartedly, and there are certain things that you absolutely cannot do half-heartedly. Scripture tells us clearly that following Christ is not something you can do half-heartedly. You cannot, you can't go in and become a lawyer and say, "Ah, you know, I did some okay, or some I didn't." Either you pass it or you didn't pass it.

"Ah, that guy got a C-." So he's a C- lawyer. "Ah, that guy got a CPA, but he didn't pass all his exams, so he's good in the beginning, but it just never balances out at the end. But he's kind of a CPA." Either you are or you're not.

The Scripture says to count the costs. What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ? And the sad thing is, in where you and I live, that that cost isn't calculated until a lot of times way into our Christian life. We don't really think about it until we start working and we see the consequence of what it means to be a genuine follower of Christ.

We start thinking the consequence of when we get married and have kids and making decisions that's going to alter the projections of our life, and then we start thinking about, "Wow, you know, this is the cost of following Christ." In Jeremiah 29, 13, it says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Personal relationship with Christ is not something that we can do casually.

You don't casually walk into the presence of God. You don't casually commune with this holy God. I remember one of the best sermons that I heard about prayer and why prayer is so difficult for so many people. And again, it was so contrary to what I heard prior to his preaching that it really made a huge impact on me.

And his main point of his sermon on prayer was that prayer is the most difficult thing that a Christian can do. And when you really think about it, it's like, "Why is it so difficult?" Like, reading the Bible, you have to actually set a time, read the Bible. Some of you guys are better readers than others.

And then you need to actually think about it. You need to comprehend it. You need to know what it says, and then you get lost. And, you know, so it requires a lot more work to study the Bible. But then prayer is just close your eyes and hear God, and you just kind of have some thoughts about God.

Why is that so hard? In fact, you hear, say, "Oh, I pray when I run. Oh, at the gym when I'm lifting weights, I'm praying." You know? And sometimes when we eat, we pray, "Thank you, Lord, for this." You know, we thank God while we're eating, right? It's so casual.

But what Martin Luther, Lord Jones was saying was, "Prayer is communion with the Holy, Holy, Holy God." To come into His presence casually, and that's why prayer is so frustrating for so many people, because it is looked upon so casually. See, prayer requires a commitment. In Psalm 119, verse 2, it says, "Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart." God is not somebody that you're going to just casually walk around and then bump into.

It's like, "Oh, I met God today." He says, "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart, when you have made a commitment that this is what you want." Even in your prayers, just casually, "Oh, Lord, you know, this is where I am.

Can you please help me?" "Amen, amen." So you feel like, "I did it." Right? "I said it. I put in my time. I prayed. How come God's not answering my prayer?" Because the Scripture says, "When you seek Me with all your heart, I will be found by you." So how much of our prayers ain't affected because we haven't made up our mind that this is absolutely essential to me?

How much of it is just so casual? And if we, like a magic formula, if you just say the right words, abracadabra, and if you put in the right amount of change into a vending machine, somehow something's going to come out. See, with Apostle Paul, you know, it was very personal to him.

Even his work, even his labor, he said, "With all his heart." We can't stand before God and say, "Lord, I want to know Your will just in case I decide to obey." See, that decision has to be made before you come before God and ask God, "What do You desire?" We can't come before God and say, "Lord, I want to know Your will.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to commit yet. I'm not sure. I want You to answer my prayer, but I'm not sure if I'm committed to this yet." We can ask for revival, but revival means that God's going to examine our lives. The Holy Spirit's going to come and examine every aspect of our lives because He's going to be there.

He's not going to just walk into any room. He's going to walk into rooms that are prepared for Him. Is my devotion to God absolutely committed? Even in worship, you know, we can walk in so casually. Like if I go to sleep on Sunday and Saturday and wake up in the morning, put on clothes, you know, and come in, you know, and the quality of the worship depends upon how much time I spent in prayer, how much time I prepared, how many good illustrations that I've given to you, and how engaged I can be in the way that I talk.

So I say, "Oh, you know, he did a good job. I was blessed. Oh, he didn't do a good job. The worship team, did they pick the right songs? Did they prepare enough? Did they get us to focus?" And how much of that is dependent upon what we have brought into the room, that we have committed, that this is important to me.

See, God is not somebody that we can pursue casually. He made it absolutely clear. You can come and put in your time. You can give to the church. You can, you know, socially, you know, build relationships. But to meet with Him, to have Him, to have revival in your life is not something that happens casually.

It's not something that simply happens because I've prepared. See, you can't even serve Him half-heartedly. You can't. Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Paul says, "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, in view of this mercy." Eleven chapters of exposition of His grace and love. In view of this tremendous mercy that we have received, he says, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Now, let's examine for a minute what he means by "living sacrifice." Because a Jew who heard the word "sacrifice" meant, what did it mean to him?

Death. Because an animal wasn't taken to the temple and then let it run around for a few minutes and then taken back home. An animal who was taken to the altar was slaughtered and was dead. His life ended. So when Paul says, "In view of this mercy, in view of this tremendous gift that we have in Christ, let not just give our offering, not just give our animals, give your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship." So what is he saying?

Even our sacrifices, even our serving cannot be done casually. You will seek me and find me if you seek me with all your heart. Have you made up your mind that this is the most important thing in your life? That's why he says, you know, the letter to the Laodicean church, notice carefully what he says to the Laodicean church in Revelations 4.

"I know your works." He's not just talking about your heart, but he says, "I know your works and what you are doing. I know that you are neither cold nor hot." You're not, in other words, what is he saying? You're uncommitted. You're doing stuff, but you're uncommitted. You're giving, but it's uncommitted.

You're crying out to God, but it's uncommitted. Neither hot or cold. I wish you were either hot or cold. You make up your mind, right? And isn't that what Joshua was saying at the end where Herod was quoting? Because you keep tottering between this and that, right? If serving the Lord is a burden to you, then go serve what you want to serve.

Stop teetering between one and the other. See, that's the rebuke that the Laodicean church got because they were uncommitted. Because you were lukewarm, neither hot or cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. So, you know, an uncommitted worship, uncommitted prayer, uncommitted service is unacceptable to God. We can't casually come to God.

We can't casually pray. We can't casually meet God. When you hear the Gospel, the first thing that we need to ask ourselves is, "Is this true?" See, you can't even preach the Gospel casually. You can't, how can you possibly preach the Gospel casually? I remember, some of you guys remember, you know, when Rita, she's no longer a student, she's married and has a child in China, but some of you guys remember how we were praying for her for years.

And there's some people in this room that played an important role in seeing Rita come to Christ. But I remember right when she was on the verge of becoming a Christian, we went out to visit her. And I remember Rita having dinner with her and she was asking, this is before she became a Christian, she said, "You know, all of my friends are telling me to stop meeting with you.

And the reason why is because they tell me that the only reason why you're here is because you want her to convert to Christianity. And if you are not interested in Christianity, they're not interested in being your friends." You know, and she said, "Is that true?" So I remember sitting and thinking through that and I said, "Well, I better answer this correctly or else this will be the end." Right?

And all the years of laboring and the people that have been meeting up with her. And so I said, "Okay, you know, I should be honest with her." And I said, "Rita, they're absolutely true. Your friends are right. They observe correctly. You know, and I know you're not dumb.

You know, we come out here for that reason. We're not here to make money. And it's pretty obvious we're not here to make money. We're not here because of the great weather, because it's not good. You know, we're not here for the great food. We're here because of you." She said, "What kind of friend would I be?

If I, whether you believe it or not, I believe that the only way of salvation is through the blood of Christ. And as long as I'm your friend, there will never be a time where I will not be working to bring you to Christ." And if you, if you ask me that question, you're absolutely, that's why we're here.

That's why we're spending thousands of dollars coming here. That's why people are packing up their bags and moving to a foreign country so that you can hear the Gospel. And that's the only reason why we're here. Now, to make a story short, you know, obviously a few months after that, she committed her life to Christ.

But that is true for every one of us. Gospel preaching cannot be done casually. It is not a set of information that we are to regurgitate and to hand off to other people. This is not a message where you have a scripted thing that you memorize and you just pass out to other people.

Until you are convicted, until this is your God, until this message is yours, until you've been deeply affected, you cannot be effective. For Apostle Paul, this ministry was very personal. And that's why the third and final thing that we see is that even in his prayer, you can see how intimately entangled he is with this ministry.

Remember, Paul never met these people. Paul never met these people. They weren't friends. They weren't family friends. They weren't no business contacts. He's never met these people. And that's why he's writing this letter. And yet, he's writing this letter. He says, "I thank my God for you. Because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world, I long to be with you." Now, is he just saying it because that's just what Christians say?

You know how Christians say, "Oh, I'm sick. I'll pray for you." And some of you pray, and some of you may not pray. But that's what we say. That's what we say. It's like, "Oh, hi. Bye. We'll pray for you." Is that what Paul is doing? Is this just something that a Christian says, right, and tells people?

And if not, if he actually means it, is he really rejoicing? Is he really longing to see them? I'm absolutely convinced that that's exactly what he's saying. In fact, he says that over and over again to all the other churches. So, humanly speaking, we can look at that. We have a hard time praying for people that we don't personally know.

Now, when was the last time you really pleaded with God for lost souls that you've never met? It's much easier when you've met them, right? Or you know them personally. So, we tend to pray for ourselves, our family members, our good friends, our co-workers. These are people he's never met.

The reason why Paul was so personally engaged was because he sacrificed everything. He sacrificed everything to bring the Gospel to them. So, he rejoiced when he saw the Gospel bearing fruit. That's what he says in 2 Timothy 2.10. I endure everything for the sake of the elect. And everything that Paul is talking about is beating.

It's confiscation of property. Risking his life, spending nights and months and years in jail. He said he's risking all of that so that you may come to Christ. And that's why he says in Philippians that some people are preaching Christ out of envy, but I rejoice. Whatever your motive is that Christ is being preached, that the Gospel is being spread.

That's how personally involved he was with this message. And again in 1 Corinthians 9.22, I became all things to all people by all means that I may save some. When Rita came to Christ, you know the people who rejoice the most are the people who talk to her, who prayed for her, who are concerned for her, who share the Gospel with her.

And I know the other people rejoice too, but the people who committed, people who sacrificed, people who are engaged in this work. When we heard that Rita came to Christ, remember that day when she sent an email and I read her email? And we, I'm literally, I mean it was momentary revival.

Right? We were just so elated that she came to Christ. And even those who didn't know her personally, those who prayed with us in the church, you know, it felt like a family member that came to Christ. See, Paul is spiritually, emotionally, socially engaged in this work. It wasn't a half-hearted commitment.

He was willing to die to preach the Gospel. And that's why Apostle Paul, when he says, "I rejoice," that these aren't just words. This is a testimony of an individual who's given everything to bring the Gospel to the lost. See, someone who is not engaged in the work, it's just news.

If you haven't been engaged in praying for the lost, when you hear that somebody comes to Christ, it's just news. We talk about somebody, you know, like, "Oh, somebody became a Christian and they're going to give their testimony." Right? If you're not personally engaged in that, it's like, "Oh, you know, your mind tells you you should rejoice, because the Scripture says that.

Your mind tells you, 'I should be excited. I should be happy. I should be rejoicing to hear their testimony.'" That's what your mind tells you, but your heart is not there, because you're not engaged. Your sacrifice, your worship to God, there's no sacrifice involved. You haven't pleaded on their behalf.

You haven't given up anything important for the Gospel ministry. So when somebody comes to Christ, unless it is somebody in your family, somebody that you know personally, we don't understand, like, "You rejoice over a bunch of these strangers." Paul was absolutely committed. Not only was he committed in rejoicing, I mean, it hit him personally when they weren't committed.

2 Corinthians 11, 28, it says, "And apart from all the other things, all the other sufferings, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches." Why would he? Why would he be so personally affected that other people were not thriving in their faith? Because he invested so much in spreading the Gospel.

He invested so much in discipling them. He invested so much in praying for them, night and day. So he rejoiced when they were doing well, just like your children. When your children do well, you rejoice. When they don't do well, you grieve, because you've invested so much of your life in them.

So, Apostle Paul, his ministry, his relationship with Christ, his preaching the Gospel, his building up of the churches, his discipleship, all of this was extremely personal. See, God is not somebody that you can follow casually. Uncommitted. You can come to church uncommitted. You can serve the church uncommitted. You can give uncommitted.

You can fellowship uncommitted. You can go to foreign countries for short-term missions, uncommitted. You can do all kinds of stuff uncommitted. But you cannot seek Him and find Him uncommitted. You will never know Him uncommitted. You will never know the power of prayer uncommitted. You will never experience revival uncommitted.

You will never know the joy of bringing a loss to Christ uncommitted. You will never weep for the loss uncommitted. You will never grieve and cry out to God for the lost world uncommitted. See, Apostle Paul, to him it meant everything. That's why he didn't just pray. He cried out.

When he prayed, he prayed for open doors. He prayed for open doors. And then he said when the door gets open, he prayed that he would have boldness to preach. And then he said not only for that to happen, but to pray rapidly so that as many people can come to Christ.

His whole purpose of writing this letter is to prepare them because he was ready to pack up his bag and go out to Spain. Again, my prayer for all of us is that you and I live in a generation where being committed is a foreign thing. It's a foreign thing in our generation to be committed to anything.

The best commitment is, well, you know, I'll do my best. Like I said, there are certain things that you can do uncommitted. You can watch a movie uncommitted. You might even go to school uncommitted because you're not completely sold out. You might actually even maybe go to work uncommitted.

He's like, I have to pay the bills. But you cannot be uncommitted in your walk with Christ. You can come to church all your life and completely miss him. If you can take a few minutes to pray with me as I asked the praise team to come up and lead us in worship.

And again, to come before the Lord, to examine Apostle Paul and his commitment in his life. Who am I? Where do I stand with Christ? What is the message that I'm so committed to? And this personal commitment of Paul to ministry, to our God. Is he my God or is he the God of this church?

Let's take a few minutes to come before the Lord and ask the Lord to bring renewal and revival in our hearts as we seek him. (papers rustling)