If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 15, verse 22 to 27, and I'm going to read that one more time with us before we jump in. Romans chapter 15, verse 22 and on. For this reason I have often been prevented from coming to you, but now with no further place for me in these regions, and since I have had for many years a longing to come to you, whenever I go to Spain, for I hope to see you in passing and to be helped on my way there by you, when I have first enjoyed your company for a while.

But now I'm going to Jerusalem serving the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them, for if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things.

Let's pray. Gracious and loving Father, we come before you corporately to worship and honor you. We desire more than anything else to meet with you, to hear from you. We pray that your word, Lord God, would become clearer to us, that what we give to you would be a reasonable response to all that we know and believe that you've done for us.

Bless this time, Lord God, that we have come to bless you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. So, as you guys know, if you've read this passage before you came, like this is one of those texts that typically if you're studying through the Book of Romans, we get to this part of chapter 15, and then chapter 16, you just kind of skim over it.

It's almost kind of like he's done with the letter, you know, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing, so bye, I'll see you later, say hi to these people, and then the letter ends. Typically, if you're not careful, you may read that and just skim through, because he's done with all of his main teachings about justification, salvation by grace alone, and the ramification of that, and what happened after that, and what should we hope for.

Therefore, we need to give a proper response to live our lives as a living sacrifice. So he's done all of that, and now chapter 15, he's kind of wrapping up. But it is not to our benefit for us to skim through this process, because Apostle Paul, in this chapter, particularly in this section, is telling us that this is the reason why he wrote the letter.

So we get a glimpse of who he is, we get a glimpse of his ministry, we get a glimpse of the early church and their activity and what that looked like. And so we need to understand that Apostle Paul, this whole letter was written in the context of him preparing to go further out his ministry.

He said in the previous text that we looked at last week that he spent about 10 years doing ministry somewhere between Jerusalem to Ilikriam, which is about a thousand mile distance, and we know that Paul, in his official status, made about three separate journeys. Just the trip alone, even if he wasn't planting churches and stayed there and was laboring and raising up leaders, even just visiting physically, that would have drained anybody.

I mean, just looking at his travel itinerary, it would have been enough for any human being to look at that and say, "Wow, this guy really traveled a lot." But in 10 years, he poured his life out and doing ministry. Now he says, because he's been so diligent, he's run out of places to preach the gospel, not that every single individual heard the gospel, but the areas that he's been targeting, he's already finished, he's finishing up, and now he's trying to expand his ministry beyond Ilikriam to stop by Rome to get some support and move on to Spain.

So that's the whole reason why he wrote this letter. So it is in the context of his mission work, his ministry and preaching the gospel in which he writes this letter. Now, the reason why this is so, so important is because not only the book of Romans is written in the context of mission work, the whole Bible is written in the context of God pursuing sinners.

So if you study the Bible to find out how to have a healthy family, what does it mean to manage your money well, how to raise your kids so that they love Christ, you can do all of that. But all of those things are sub-points in the major, major theme of the Bible, which is pursuing of sinners, being reconciled with the holy God, and how to get this gospel out to the remotest part of the world.

So if that is not your paradigm, if that's not your commitment, you will not understand what he is writing. It is no different than reading a book of 22 chapters and just kind of skimming through and taking a chapter here, a chapter there, and a chapter in the end, and then kind of just reformulating what you want it to say.

And you can kind of twist it to say anything that you want. But if you read it systematically from Genesis to Revelation, all of it is in the context of missions. So if missions is not in your heart, if mission is not your purpose, if mission is not your goal, Book of Romans will not make sense.

Because the purpose of why he wrote this was so that a proper understanding of what they believe would lead to a living sacrifice, which will ultimately lead to spreading of the gospel. If we are not committed to this in our mind, in our thoughts, in our will, in our life, the way we raise our children, the way we use our finances, fellowship simply becomes friendship.

Again, we have a tendency to call any gathering of Christians, we just call it fellowship. That's what we made it into, but the scripture makes it very clear. Fellowship, koinonia, means to partner together. So when Christians get together, spend a lot of time, and you become friends with a bunch of people, that doesn't make it fellowship.

You've become friends. Without the context of missions, partnering together to get the gospel out, you just have a lot of friends that you spend a lot of time with. Prayer meetings simply becomes meditation. Think about how much of the content of our prayer is asking God to protect our wealth, protect our health, protect our families.

That we can work hard and I want to achieve this goal and I'm praying that God would help me to get that. How much of our prayer life is based upon those things. The scripture doesn't say that you shouldn't pray for these things, but the primary prayer of the early church was about missions.

To ask God for help, to open doors, to be bold in preaching the gospel, to be a light that God intended the church to be. Bible study becomes nothing more than learning information. We're Christians, so we should know what Leviticus says. I've been a Christian for a while, so I should be better versed at the things that I profess to believe.

You gain a lot of knowledge coming to church, hearing a lot of sermons, attending a lot of Bible studies. But Bible study was never meant to simply inform the church. It was for the purpose of equipping. That's why the scripture says that it is useful and profitable for teaching, rebuking, training and righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

It was for the purpose of equipping. Equipping for what? Equipping so that we can have a better life? Equipping so that we can be a better businessman? Possibly, but the primary purpose of Bible study is to equip us to be a better light, to be a better witness to the world.

So if we're not committed to the missions, if we're not committed to disciple making, if we're not committed to be a light, and we're not being intentional in doing that, Bible study probably has become old to you already. Every once in a while, you might study something that's kind of interesting.

"Oh, I didn't know that." And it might have just interested you. But you're no better equipped knowing or not knowing, because your intention was not to be equipped to do anything. It's just to know. It's just to say that you have more knowledge. Without missions as the primary fuel that pushes us and guides us, Bible study becomes nothing more than gaining knowledge.

And knowledge without use is the reason why there's so much pride and arrogance and division in the church. You know what I found? Whether it is in China, or whether it is in India, or whether even it's here, whenever I meet somebody who is absolutely committed to the gospel ministry, even if they are from a different denomination, even if they have a different background, there's a camaraderie that we feel the moment we get together.

And it's a lot easier to be gracious toward different views when we know that at the center of what we're doing, we're committed to. Because you don't meet a lot of people who are engaged and crying out for the law. So when you meet somebody who happens to be of another denomination, but yet at the core of what they want, we're the same, there's a connection that we feel.

But you can be in the same denomination, same church, same theology, maybe even the same Bible study, but there isn't this desire and this commitment to get the gospel out, and we can be talking about the same thing, reading the same books, but there isn't this fellowship, there isn't this connection.

Because all it is is regurgitation of information. Church planting becomes nothing more than community building. We need to plant a church over there because we don't have a community there. We need to plant a church over in LA because we need to have a Christian community over there. And all it becomes is just a gathering of people where we're going to just share lives and just do life together.

That's all church planting becomes. See, the primary theme behind all of Genesis to Revelation is a holy God pursuing sinners for his glory. And so Paul writes the book of Romans, who has the heaviest content, heaviest message of the gospel. He says the whole reason why he wrote it is because he's preparing to further the gospel out.

He's just stopping by Rome to spend some time, to gain encouragement, maybe collect some funds, and to move forward. See, Apostle Paul is a man who encountered Christ, and his life wasn't just changed a little bit. The gospel changes the trajectory of our lives. If you encounter Christ, and I think this is one of the best illustrations that I've heard about this, because in our generation it's kind of confusing.

How do we determine if somebody is a genuine follower of Christ or not? Because if you grew up in a Christian home, you're supposed to go to church, and it becomes habitual, right? Just like you brush your teeth and go to the bathroom, and there's certain things that you do in the morning, certain things that you do at night, that has become habitual, and you don't even think about it, right?

And then you feel weird when you don't do it. And a lot of times coming to church feels like that, that you've gone to church for so long, you don't really give it much thought about what I'm doing on Sunday morning, because you're supposed to do it Sunday, right?

And that's one of the dangers of growing up in the church or being in the church for a long time, because you don't put any much thought into what you're doing. See, when we encounter Christ, and every genuine believer, whether it happened gradually, whether it happened in a one-time encounter with Christ, once you encounter Christ, you cannot continue to be on the same path.

And Paul Washer gives a great example of this, how he was talking to an individual and how to determine if somebody is a genuine Christian or not, and he says, "If you say you're walking down a highway and a semi came, and you said that it came and just hit you, and then the reason why you came to work a little late is because I got hit by a semi, and then what happened is like, oh, I just shrugged it off and then I came to work.

So if you say that, either you're lying to me or you're a superhuman. But an average person cannot be hit by a semi coming down the freeway and then say, "I got hit by it, and then I just shrugged it off, and then I walked into work." And he uses that illustration to illustrate a Christian who confesses that he has encountered the living God, and just walked away and shrugged off and said, "You know what?

I met him. I've seen the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ." And then he continued on his path like nothing ever happened. It is inconsistent with what we profess. It is inconsistent with what we see in Scripture. Either you have not encountered Christ or something seriously has gone wrong.

The gospel that you and I proclaim, the gospel that Apostle Paul was proclaiming absolutely converted and changed his life. Nothing about his past was the same after he met Christ. In Galatians chapter 1, 13 to 16, it says, "For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and try to destroy it." He wasn't just an average Jew.

And this was very well known. It wasn't just the Jews and a few people. His former way of life was so well known that it says in the book of Acts that as he was on trial in front of a Roman governor, he says, "Your learning has made you mad." They already knew about who he was.

He was so advanced in Judaism. He was basically a celebrity in the Jewish community that even outside they knew of him. He says, "You know about my life." He says, "I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions." But in verse 15, he says, "But when God who has set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through his grace was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood." And so the following verse, he describes what happened to him, how he was headed toward Damascus to persecute, to jail, to beat, maybe even to kill these Christians, to squash this gospel, this Jesus that they're proclaiming came back from the dead, this nonsense according to him.

And he was willing to kill and murder for this. And all of a sudden, this same man encounters the resurrected Christ and he begins to preach that he was wrong. He forfeits everything that he had, not just his weekends, not just a portion, not just a tenth. He forfeits everything that he had and he began to preach the gospel.

In fact, his trajectory was so radical, even the other apostles had a difficult time. Is this guy tricking us? Maybe he's just pretending because he was coming after to kill us. He was the reason why Stephen was martyred. And yet now he's standing up and he's preaching the same gospel that he tried to destroy.

What happened to this man? It wasn't his will. It wasn't his determination. He didn't get discipled. He didn't meet the right people. Somebody didn't sit down with him and argue and convince him. He simply encountered the resurrected Christ. And he was never the same. And so he says in the previous verse that he aspired to preach the gospel where the gospel was not preached.

And the word for aspired means he was ambitious. He was committed. That was his aim. It was his purpose. He loved the honor of preaching the gospel to the very people that he hated. If he was a real Jew, if he was a Jew among Jew, if he was a celebrity Jew at that time, you had to hate the Gentiles.

You had to hate the Romans in particular because they represented the epitome of blasphemy to a good Jew. And yet he's writing this letter to this Gentile church saying that I'm coming to you to get some support. Now if you fell asleep for 15 years and you knew Paul before he got converted and then you're reading this letter, in particular this passage, he's coming to Rome?

He's calling them brothers? He's going to get support from them to go even further beyond? What happened to this guy? The only answer was he encountered Christ. Encountering Christ absolutely changes the trajectory of our lives even more than being hit by a semi. You could see it in Paul's prayer.

Second Thessalonians 3.1, it says, "Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified just as it did also with me." So even his commitment to preach the gospel wasn't casual. It wasn't like, you know what, if you just give me another year, I'm going to finish my program and I'm going to get my PhD and then Gamaliel, my disciple, is going to move on so maybe when I have more time I'll do that.

He just dropped it. Everything that was important to him was no longer important because his whole paradigm, his whole paradigm of what was good and what was bad changed. His whole paradigm of life and death completely changed. His value system wasn't altered. It was radically different after he met Christ.

So even in the way that he spread the gospel, he said to spread it rapidly because there was a sense of urgency to get the gospel out. Now you may look at that and say, "Well, Apostle Paul, maybe he is that type of personality. Maybe he's a type A personality.

He just like a, he's just goal-oriented. He's not a people person. He's a goal-oriented guy so he needs to get this done." You're going to see that it wasn't just Apostle Paul and just logically speaking, and sometimes we turn it on on Sunday and turn it off when we're off from Sunday worship.

On Sunday, gospel is central. In fact, a lot of people complain when we're not gospel-centric. "We need to be gospel-centered on Sunday. We want the gospel to come out on Sunday." In Bible study, in small group, we need to be gospel-centered. But as soon as Bible study is over, it's almost kind of like that belongs there, but now we have to live our normal lives.

But the gospel that you and I profess and that we sing, that we study, we memorize says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And as a result of that, the wrath of God is being revealed against all unrighteousness who refuse to give glory to God and give glory to man's creation.

And as a result of that, when Christ comes in his full glory, he's going to divide the sheep and the goats, and then he's going to say to the goats, "You call me Lord, Lord, but your heart is far from me. Depart from me to eternal damnation." But to those who say and who believe, say, "We're covered by the blood of Christ and we're waiting eagerly to be adopted permanently into his kingdom, to live with him forever." That's the gospel message.

So everything that you and I experience during this period of life, that we believe and we profess and we sing and we memorize, that it's all going to be burned in fire. And it doesn't make sense to profess that, to believe that, to sing that, and to live the rest of our lives trying to build something on this sand.

It is not Paul who is strange. It is not the early church. It is not the pastors in India. They are not the strange people. What we have made normal and acceptable in our post-Christian culture is very, very strange. Because what we profess on Sunday and what we do on Monday, not only is it not similar, it's contradicting.

Our lives contradict what we profess. See Apostle Paul is a man where his testimony, what he professed, what he preached, and how he lived was very consistent. He says in verse 22 that he wanted to come to Rome a long time ago, but he was prevented. What prevented him wasn't Satan.

What prevented him wasn't time. It wasn't money. He said what prevented him was he wanted to make sure that the gospel was going to reach all the areas where the gospel was not preached. So what prevented him was his priority of the gospel. Because the gospel already came to Rome.

And the tradition is that Apostle Peter was the one who brought the gospel to Rome. So even though he wanted to come, he said he couldn't because it didn't fit his priority of the gospel. You know, a lot of us, the way we live is we live our lives and then we try to fit in the gospel in between the cracks.

We have to get a job, we have to take care of our family, we have to pay our bills, and then so we do all of these things and then we look for cracks in our lives, like this opportunity here, over there. And it kind of becomes a peripheral thing.

Well, we are engaged, kind of. The Apostle Paul, the gospel was his life. That was his trajectory. That was what his priority was. And in between the cracks, maybe he might have, you know, I don't know. Maybe he, I don't know what he did for fun, I don't know.

It's not written here, but I'm sure he's a human being, he did something, right? But his priority was primarily, first and foremost, this decision making, where he went, what he did, even making tents. All of it for the purpose, primarily, to get the gospel out. He spent 12 years just traveling in that area, planting churches.

This is not something that any human being could have done just by determination. This is a man who wasn't just committed to the gospel. He was obsessed. You know what I'm talking about? You know, some of you guys play video games. Some of you guys are obsessed, right? And I know you're struggling with it because you're failing school, you know what I mean?

You're about to get fired from your job, you know what I mean? Your girlfriend wants to break up with you because you're just so obsessed, it's ruining your life. I mean, you're not just playing video games. That's all you think about, right? You sit in that same chair so long that your butt starts to hurt.

That's how obsessed you are. You know what I'm talking about? We're not just talking about somebody who's committed. We're talking about somebody who just can't think of anything else. So if you look at Paul's itinerary in preaching the gospel, he wasn't just committed. He was a man who was obsessed.

And it wasn't just the Apostle Paul. I actually had a chart of how the gospel spread in the early church, the first maybe about 20 years of the church. And it shows a pattern of where all the apostles went. It wasn't just Apostle Paul. And I forgot to send it.

So I don't have this chart. So I'm just going to have to, you know, just tell it to you. The 40 and over group, we got together for fellowship last night and it got out of hand. And we ended up staying till almost midnight yesterday. It was crazy. That's what happens, right?

So I got home late so I didn't get time to send it back out. There's an inside joke with the gray-haired people. Anyway, so in that chart, the first 15, 20 years of ministry, it wasn't just Apostle Paul. Every one of those disciples went in every direction. And in those 20 years, they pretty much covered everything that they knew to be a place that needed to be reached with the gospel.

Those few people reached more people in the first 15 years of their gospel preaching than probably the whole Christian community has done in the last 100 years. They weren't just committed to the gospel. They were obsessed. In fact, they were so obsessed with the gospel ministry, they actually had to write letters to them and say, "Hey, you guys need to take care of your family." You know?

They were so obsessed with the gospel, they had to tell them and say, "Hey, some of you guys are abandoning your jobs waiting for Christ to come. You guys need to go back to work." That's how obsessed they were. This was not man's doing. They didn't just like, "You know what?

I think we should make this a priority." They encountered Christ and they were never the same. See, the gospel ministry that God has called us to, the logical, reasonable response is to change everything about our values because it just does. Not because I'm saying it, because it just does.

To know that our life and our hope is not here. It's not that if you work hard and if you put money away, you're going to have good retirement. You know, none of that thing is wrong, but our hope is not here. That if you give yourself to your studies during college, that you're going to graduate and get a good job, that if you invest in your children, that they're going to be raised to be good citizens and good Christians.

Our hope is not here. Everything about the gospel tells us that this world is under condemnation and when He comes in glory, we will be glorified with Him. It is not just Apostle Paul and the early church where God calls us to abandon everything. That's what, you know, when Jesus says, "Pick up your cross," you know, we kind of like contextualize that.

Picking up the cross means, you know, that I got to read my Bible in the morning, you know what I mean? We contextualize it so it'll be more palatable to what is acceptable to us. Literally, what does picking up your cross mean? He was calling them to die. He was going to die.

He was calling His disciples to die and then everybody who's going to follow Him to die. I'm not being extreme because this life that we try to live in this earth, in this world, is the source of the condemnation that's coming from God. So the more you pursue to be alive in this world, the more you pursue your own condemnation.

So the very first step, the very first call to the gospel is to die and receive a new life in Christ. He's not just asking us to commit. He's calling us to be obsessed. A few years ago, I was helping a friend who was a doctor move and some of his friends came and among his friends, there was an oncologist.

So in between moving, I was having a conversation with him and I said, "It must be really difficult because part of his job is to sit with families, mothers or fathers or children and tell them that they have stage four, late stage four cancer and there's nothing we can do.

You might have a week to live or a year to live and this is a regular part of his life and it's a man, that must be really hard." And he told me, he said, "Yeah, and initially it was really hard, but the only way that we can actually get through our jobs is we have to learn to turn it off." So he says that him and his other doctors, you know, they will go into a room and tell the patient that you have three weeks to live, devastate the family.

They're in the room crying and they walk out and they go to the break room with the other doctors and they start telling jokes and they just move on. And this is what he said to me, he said, "I know that sounds horrible, but the only way that we can do our job is we have to turn it off.

We can't bring this home." But when it comes to the gospel ministry, when it comes to worshiping God and being a follower of Christ, you cannot worship God with your emotions detached. You cannot be a follower of Christ with your mind separate from your heart. You cannot be obedient and you cannot have encountered Christ without every part of your being being affected.

You can't share the gospel of eternal salvation and the sacrifice of the Son of God with your emotions detached. It requires people to be consumed, not just on Sunday, not just on designated times, but the nature of the gospel requires that the followers pick up their cross and be obsessed with this message.

Not just be committed, not just be disciplined, not just to give a tenth, but to be obsessed where it affects everything that we do and anything less would be hypocrisy. In Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31, God says, "Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles.

They will run and not get weary. They will walk and not become weary." I can't read this passage without thinking about Apostle Paul and the early disciples because that's exactly what they did. How could they have physically done what they have done? How could they have just even covered that space with all the headache?

They weren't doing it by their own strength. God promised them. They will wait upon the Lord. A lot of times we use this verse to kind of find encouragement like when we're tired from work. "They will wait upon the Lord. They will renew my strength." You know what I mean?

Maybe you've eaten like a box of Cheetos and you're just tired. "Lord, I need you, Lord. I need to mount up on wings of eagles because we've been lazy." Like we use this verse to apply it to anything that we need strength for. What is he talking about wait upon the Lord?

Wait to do what? What do we need strength for? So that we can get to work? So that we wouldn't be tired at the end of the day? Is that what he's talking about? Why would we need his strength? To do his will. To carry out the gospel message.

To make disciples. To honor Christ. To take the gospel where the gospel hasn't gone. And when we are discouraged, when we are wearied, when we're physically tired, when we are sick in the context of obedience to God, those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will ride upon the wings of eagles that she said God promises to strengthen us.

And that's exactly what we see among the apostles. I mean, read the book of Acts. As they're running for their lives, they're spreading the gospel, these people were not just committed. They were obsessed. Because they encountered the living Christ and they were never the same. Even in the way that Paul prays in Ephesians 6, 19 to 20, "And pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known the boldness of the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains.

That in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." He said, even as he is in chains, even as he is bound, his primary prayer is not, "Pray for me so that I can get out." That's not his prayer. It's uncomfortable. I mean, it's not like jail today, right?

Not that any jail is comfortable. You know, but we're talking about in a period when he's locked up and chained to a Roman guard and, you know, it's probably freezing. It's very uncomfortable. I mean, as he is in that situation, he's saying, "Pray that I can be bold in preaching the gospel." He has a one-track mind.

Philippians chapter 1, 12 to 14, "Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstance," talking about him being in chains, "have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole predatory guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear." He didn't evaluate what was good and what was bad based upon how comfortable he is.

How often do we thank God when things go well according to the standard of this world? When we get promoted, "Oh, God answered my prayers. Thank God." Again, we're not saying that that's wrong, but consider how much of our prayer, how much of our paradigm mimics what the world sees.

When we get a job, when we're sick and we become healthy, Paul didn't evaluate good and bad, right and wrong, based upon how comfortable he was, how full his belly was, how good he was taking it, how firm his future was. It was all based upon the gospel. It's because of his imprisonment, people are being bold in preaching the gospel.

So this is good. Even more than that, later on he says he's praying so that whether by life or by death, that he would have sufficient courage to exalt Christ. So even if he does, if dying means that the gospel will be glorified, then death is what he embraces.

This is an obsessed man. First Corinthians 16, 8 and 9, "But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost for a wide door for effective service has opened to me and there are many adversaries." Do you notice that? Paul says, "I can't come right now in Corinthians because a wide door has been opened for me for the gospel." But he qualifies that by saying, "But there are adversaries, many adversaries." Because the way that you and I think is if there's many adversaries, the door's not open.

If I commit to this and my children are not going to be taken care of, I'm waiting for the door to open. I'm waiting for my needs to be met, my bills to be paid, and my family to be healthy. Until then, the door's not open because we immediately think, "God shut that door.

If I'm not comfortable, that means there's no opportunity for me." If they're not going to like it, if I have to risk my health, God didn't open the door. Paul says it's been wide open and there are adversaries there. He didn't evaluate what was good and what was bad based upon how comfortable he is in the context of preaching the gospel.

All he saw was an opportunity to glorify Christ. And it affected directly. And again, not only did it affect his time, if you look at the early church, what he says here is the primary reason why he was coming was for the purpose of help. And when he says help, he's talking about cash.

You may look at that and say, "Well, I'm going to go there and rest and let me rest in your house." And all of that is true, but what did he need to get to Spain? He recruits some people and some cold hard cash. Whenever we talk about money in the church, people get nervous.

It's like, "Oh, he's going to ask for more money." Yes. It's a nervous laugh. I understand it. I get it because the church has abused finances and a lot of people have distrust toward the church with money, and as a result of that, the church is kind of like, "Oh, we're not.

We're pure. We're not about money, so you don't have to give offering and all this stuff because we're pure." If you look at Jesus' teaching, he talks more about money than any other subject when it comes to the kingdom of God. And the reason why is because that's where the rubber meets the road.

You can talk about lordship all you want. You can talk about commitment all you want. You can tell where your heart is by what? By where your treasure is. That's in the Bible. It's in the Bible. So Jesus talks about money more than any other subject because that's where the rubber meets the road.

You can't have money being spent for your flesh and then say, "My spirit is for the Lord." He talked about money more than any other subject. He taught 38 parables, and out of the 38, 16 of them is about right attitude toward money. The gospels, the four gospels, one in 10 verses deal with the subject of money.

The Bible has 500 verses on prayer, 500 verses on faith, and over 2,000 verses about money. When we talk about the Old Testament sacrifices, the greater the sin, whether it's a high priest or a priest or lay people or the congregation, they have different values. And you have to give a bowl offering without defect for a greater sin.

Now to us, we're not farmers, so we think of that, we just think of bowl, we think of, we don't know how much these things cost. I found out how much it cost in Kenya because Beloved, I remember they were trying to buy a cow. I was like, "Oh, okay, learned something new." Absolutely useless information for me, but I knew that in Kenya you can buy a cow for about a thousand bucks.

So if you are a farmer and your primary way of distinguishing wealth wasn't a bank account, wasn't dollars or whatever it is that you use for currency, it was your livestock and you came to offering and God said in order to be reconciled to God that you need to give a bowl offering to a Jew, that's a thousand dollars.

If you gave a bowl with defect, that would be $700 because it wouldn't be worth as much. If it was a bowl that happened to be a female, it wasn't, at least at that time, wasn't worth as much, then it would be worth $600. So they had different values.

So when it talks about all these different sacrifices, a Jew of that time is thinking value of money. And that's why he gives provision for poorer people to be able to give pigeons and different gifts because they didn't have the money. So even Leviticus, you didn't know it, but we're studying about money because in the end that's where the rubber meets the road.

Now again, I'm not saying that therefore you need to empty your bank account and give it to the gospel ministry. God doesn't say that all rich people should be poor. God doesn't say that. There are plenty of examples of rich people in the New Testament. There's examples in the book of James about businessmen who are trying to make money going from city to city and say, "Don't be arrogant saying that I'm going to do this, but only say if the Lord wills." So he doesn't call Christianity, he doesn't call the church to be communist.

That's not what he is saying. It is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil. It is the root of coveting. It is the root of jealousy. It is the root of lying. It is the root of slander, thievery. See, but when the early church encountered Christ, you could see it in the way that they saw money.

In Acts chapter 2, 43 to 45, everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonder signs were taking place throughout through the apostles and all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. And they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all and anyone might have need.

You notice here that God didn't choose generous people and save them and then so therefore they were generous. He saved sinners who were living selfishly and they became generous because the gospel changed their paradigm. Their value system completely got overturned and money didn't have the same value that it had.

So some people had more, some people had less, but the way that they viewed it radically changed and they began to use it for the gospel ministry. You know what's really interesting to me is Apostle Paul writes one of the harshest letters to the Corinthian church. So if you've ever studied the Corinthians, 15 chapters of Paul and he starts out nice.

You know, I thank God for you, you know, God's doing great work and I thank God for you. So he said maybe about six, seven verses and then he's like, and then the next 15 chapters, what is wrong with you? Like that's kind of like the tone. I just summarized like what he says in 15 chapters, right?

So you guys are divided, you guys are worldly, do you not know that you're a temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you? Whoever destroys the church, God will destroy him. Like even the communion that you have is not communion before God. You know, the rich people are making the poor people and they're coming starving.

This is not honoring to God at all. Even in the way that you give worship that you say, oh, I have a gift of prophecy or I have a gift of tongues and it's creating all kinds of chaos in the church. So 15 chapters of rebuking them and then right as he is done rebuking them, he concludes the letter this way, 1 Corinthians 16, 1 and 2, "Now concerning the collection of the saints as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also.

On the first day of every week, each one of you is to put aside and save as he may prosper so that no collection be made when I come." I was like, wow, this guy, he spent 15 chapters rebuking them and then his conclusion is I'm going to collect some money when I come, get ready, right?

This guy would not have been a good health and wealth gospel preacher because if you're trying to collect money, right, you don't rebuke them for 15 chapters. You talk about how nice they are. You know, you guys are doing such a great job and I know you got some problems.

You guys are divided a little bit, but you know, you need to work on that. You got so gracious, you know, and you guys are really good people. I love you people and I need to collect some offering. Like that's what he should be doing. You don't spend 11 chapters rebuking them, how the judgment of God is going to come upon them and then after he's done, get your money ready.

I'm coming, right? It's just this guy's not good at this and the only reason why Apostle Paul could be so bold is because this was a man who was absolutely had clear conscience before God. Money was not dirty. Money was a part of the gospel ministry. We made it dirty because we didn't handle it correctly.

But when we talk about lordship, when we talk about sacrifice, when we talk about commitment, like where does that show? The way you spend your time, the way you spend your money, how much of our finances are committed to our comfort versus the gospel ministry. Let me for the sake of time wrap up.

There are people in the, I think I prayed or I told you that I've been praying, Lord, what should we do with the resources that you've given us as a church? Whether it's finances or manpower and it seems pretty clear to me that our primary commitment isn't to build a nicer church, to have better programs for our children and all of these things are good things and hopefully that we can deal with it as it comes.

But the primary calling of the church is one to worship God in spirit and in truth, right? To equip the saints with the living word of God, to build up the body of Christ through accountability and love, ultimately for the fourth vision, to spread the gospel locally and globally.

But if we're not committed to the fourth vision, all three other vision unravels. Because if all our worship means is to sing loud on Sunday, if all our Bible study means to gain more information, if all we're doing in the church is to build a better community where people like each other, then all of it is for nothing.

My prayer is that God would raise up some of us, that we would have the courage to pack up our bags and go places for the purpose of the gospel. But I also know that majority of us that that is not going to be the case. So some of us will go.

Most of us will stay. And if we stay, we need to stay purposefully. That we don't differentiate people from those who go, "Oh, thank God God is going." Those people with courage, and we're blessed by their testimony, and we encourage you from a distance, and we give a little finances to say that we're participating in your work, that we don't just look at them and say, "Thank God that's not us." That if they go, pray for them, support them, encourage them.

And if we stay, stay purposefully, committed equally to spread the gospel, to make sure that this period of time that God has given us, whether it is 10 years, 1 year, or 50 years, that the time that God has given us, that we would use it to spread His glory.

That at the end of our life, that we don't look at a pile of cash that we've amassed and say, "Well, I've done good." That at the end of our lives, on our deathbed, that we would look at our lives and say, "It was well spent." And that we can enter into eternity with a clear conscience.

Believe. Believe that Christ is our greatest treasure. Believe that Jesus is the true living water. Believe that life is in Christ and Christ alone. Believe that Jesus is, and He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, then live accordingly. Let's pray. As our worship team comes up and takes some time to lead us, let's take some time to pray.

Think of very specific people that God has placed in your life to be a witness to. Those of you who are college students coming back to campus, and I know you have a lot of things that you may be looking forward to, there's nothing more important that you will do during college than to be a light to the non-Christians around you.

That opportunity doesn't come after you graduate. Use that opportunity. Redeem it for your glory. So commit this year. Commit your freshman year, commit your junior, sophomore, senior year to be a light to the non-Christians who are around you. They're coming from all over the world. I've met people from China on campus who have never heard the gospel.

We didn't have to go there. They came here. Be a light. Some of you guys are in industries where it's very difficult to find Christians. You might be the only Christian that you know at your work. Pray. Pray for courage. Pray for boldness. Pray to be intentional. You don't have to be weird, right?

You don't have to be abrupt, but first pray. Pray for God to open your eyes to see the need. Pray for God to soften your heart to be broken for them, and pray for opportunities that you can have conversation. Pray. Some of you guys come from homes where you're the only Christian, or there's very few Christians in your home.

Be intentional. Pray for them. Pray that the next family time that you have, that God would open doors so you can share the gospel with them. Every single one of us has somebody, maybe one, maybe groups of people, where they're waiting for you to open your mouth and be a light.

So let's take some time to pray. Pray that God will give us the courage, God will give us the strength, that God would renew us so that we can be the light that he's called us to be. So let's take some time to pray for that as our worship team leads us.