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1. Opening: Advance God's Kingdom, Not Our Own

   Opening: Advance God's Kingdom, Not Our OwnWell, last Sunday, we talked about what it means to be stronger together as a church. And if you remember, we started off with an illustration of an Olympic rowing team, and we talked about the importance of everyone rowing in the same direction. And we ended off last Sunday's, sermon with Jesus's prayer in John 17, where Jesus prayed that his followers would would... Followers would be united so that the world would believe that God had sent him. But Jesus never intended for our unity to end with us. He has actually brought us together as a church for something much bigger than ourselves. And that something requires us to think very differently about what the church is here to accomplish. Why we gather together as a church. Now, I want to take you back to the year 2002. We were meeting across the street in the gymnasium at East Paulding High School. I'm wondering how many of you were with us in that time. I want to just... Okay. Many of you. I want to say thank you to those of you who were with us during that season, and you've stuck with us all these years. And for those of you that left and you never came back, just missed a whole lot. I just want to tell you that. So, but we still love you. But West Ridge was meeting across the street at East Paulding High School. At that point, I think we were probably maybe six years old, five or six years old, and God began to put a vision on my heart to train up church planters and then to send people out with those church planters to start new churches, not only all over our community, but all over our country, and then that vision would extend to different places in the world. And then after I shared that vision on one Sunday for really the very first time, I remember a lady approaching me, and she was visibly upset. And I'm not gonna tell you this. She was in my grill. She was she was pretty mad about it. She was she was upset. And she asked me, why would you ever do something like that? Why would you challenge our church to do what you just challenged us to do? We don't even have land yet. We don't even have a building yet. And then she went on to tell me all in all of the areas of our church where she felt that that money would be better spent. Now, honestly, I understood her concern and I communicated that to her. And and to be honest, we didn't have land yet. We were close to getting land. We didn't know that at the time. And we certainly didn't have a building yet. We didn't move into this building till December 2005. And we were bursting at the seams as a church, and and and we did have a ton of needs of our own. But God was teaching me that our calling as a church wasn't simply to build one church in Dallas, Georgia, but it was to advance his kingdom by planting multiple churches everywhere. And so I told her, I said, we are we are here to advance God's kingdom, not build our own. And needless to say, she was not happy with my answer.

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2. 1. Brought Together for Something Greater

   1. Brought Together for Something GreaterNot just here in Northwest Atlanta, but across our country and all over our world. And I believe that he has called us to accomplish that mission together, which brings us here today to Romans chapter 15. Over the past couple of chapters, we've been studying how Paul challenged the believers in the church at Rome to set aside their personal differences, to love one another, and to really lean in to pursuing unity. If you remember, the church in Rome included both Jewish people and Gentile people. They were believers who whose differences, cultural differences, created a lot of tension. But through Jesus, God had actually brought them together, And Paul's message to them is now live like it. You need to live like it. And so as we come into Romans chapter 15 starting in verse eight, Paul begins to show these believers that that God had brought them together for something much greater than themselves. And through Jesus Christ, Jews and Gentiles had now become part of the same family. They were one. And now God wanted to use them to take the gospel to the world, to be on mission together. And so here's the big idea today that I want us to remember. And if you have your hand out in front of you, is where we're gonna begin to fill in blanks. God has brought us together through the gospel so that we can take the gospel to the world. God has brought us together through the gospel so that we can take the gospel to the world.

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3. 2. The Gospel Brings Us Together

   2. The Gospel Brings Us TogetherNow I want to show you three truths from this passage that I believe is going to help us understand what it means to accomplish that mission together. And here's the first truth. The gospel actually brings us together. Verse eight, Paul begins to write. He says, For I say that Christ became a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises to the fathers. And so the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, therefore, Paul says, I will praise you among the Gentiles, and I will sing praise to your name. Now Paul begins reminding us that Jesus came as Israel's Messiah. When he mentions the circumcised people, he is talking about the Jewish people. Jesus came to fulfill God's promises. The the promise that he made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and to David. And God here was keeping his word to Israel. But notice verse nine. Christ also came so that the Gentiles would glorify God for his mercy. Now who is Paul talking about here? Who is he talking about when he says Gentiles? And I listen, know most of you know this, but some of you may not know, and I want to make sure that you do know. He's talking about everyone who isn't Jewish, and that includes most of us sitting in this room. Through Jesus Christ, God's mercy and salvation have been extended to people from every nation. The gospel is good news for Jews and Gentiles alike, and it's the same good news that God has called us to take to the world. Now, some of you may be saying, well, what exactly is the gospel? Well, the gospel, the word gospel means good news. The apostle Paul explains it this way in one Corinthians chapter 15 verses three and four. He says, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. That is the heart of the gospel. Every one of us has sinned against a Holy God. Sin separates us from Him, and there is absolutely nothing that we can do on our own to make that relationship right. But God loved us so much that he sent his son Jesus to die on a cross for our sins. Jesus took the punishment we deserved, he was buried, and then three days later he rose from the dead, defeating sin and death. And when we repent of our sin and place our faith in Jesus Christ alone, God forgives us, God saves us, He brings us into a personal relationship with him and he gives us eternal life. That's the gospel. That's the good news. Okay? But here's something else I want you to understand about the gospel. It doesn't just change our relationship with God. It changes how we live. Author, Pastor Tony Evans makes an important distinction about the gospel in his book, Oneness Embrace. He discusses the content of the gospel and the scope of the gospel. The content of the gospel is what Jesus has done to save us through his death, burial, and resurrection is what we just talked about. But the scope of the gospel involves how that good news transforms our lives.

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4. 3. The Gospel Compels Us

   3. The Gospel Compels UsIf the gospel is such good news and it has changed our lives, what are we doing to help people hear it? Which brings us to our second truth. The gospel compels us to reach lost people. Now, beginning at verse 14, Paul gives us a personal look at his ministry. He talks about what God has called him to do and then how Christ is working through him. And then he talks about the people that he's determined to reach. And so first of all, Paul says his calling came from God. Look at verse 14. Paul says, My brothers and sisters, I myself am convinced about you that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless, I have written to remind you more boldly on some points because of the grace God, excuse me, grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles serving as a priest of the gospel of God. God's purpose is that the Gentiles may be an acceptable offering sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Paul begins by encouraging these believers. He says, listen, he recognizes, listen, you guys are growing in your faith. It's amazing. Now you actually have the ability to help other people grow in their faith as well. You become disciples and now you're making other disciples. But then in verses fifteen and sixteen, he reminds them of something really important. He says, God had given him a very specific calling to take the gospel to the Gentiles. Now notice how Paul describes this calling in verse 16. He says, God's purpose was to present the Gentiles as an offering acceptable to him made holy by the Holy Spirit. What is Paul talking about here? Paul wanted to see Gentiles come to faith in Jesus Christ and to have their lives completely transformed by Jesus. This wasn't a mission that he came up with on his own. Jesus had radically changed Paul's life. I mean, was one of the worst people you could ever meet. Jesus had radically changed his life. And now he had called him to take that same life changing message to the Gentiles. That's his life's mission. And Paul's making that very clear. Now here's something I don't want you to miss. Every follower of Jesus has been called to participate in this very same mission. Now here's the thing. I realize not everybody's been called to plant a church. Not everybody's been called to move overseas to be a missionary. All right. But every follower of Jesus has been called to be a witness. Every single one of you in this room, whether you're in the room or watching online, you have been called to be a witness of Jesus Christ and what he's done in your life. Now, when you walk into our atrium out there, whether you're coming from that door, that door down the steps, you will notice that there are four huge words that are written across the balcony. They've been there for a lot of years. Love, grow, serve, share.

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5. 4. Own the Lostness of Our Community

   4. Own the Lostness of Our CommunityYou've heard me use this phrase for quite a while over many years. Okay. We have been called to own the lostness of our own community. We've been called to own the lostness of our community. I shared these updated statistics with you back in September during anniversary Sunday, but I want to just share this and then expand it a little bit so you can see it again. I put this on the screen. According to our most recent demographic research, approximately 414,000 people live within a 10 mile radius of West Ridge Church. And we know that about 80 to 85% of those people are not in church on Sunday morning. Take that and expand that now to Metro Atlanta. And we're talking about approximately 6,500,000 people. And according to Pew Research more than one in three adults don't identify as Christian. Think about what we're talking about here. Atlanta. Across Georgia there are 11,300,000 people. The Georgia Baptist Mission Board estimates that more than 7,000,000 people do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That's roughly six out of every 10 people in our state. Now, I want you to consider The United States and we'll throw in Canada. Why not? Okay? Together, there's approximately 385,000,000 people. June of this past year, the North American Mission Board reported an estimated 200, listen to this now, two ninety two million spiritually lost people across those two countries. That's approximately three out of four people who do not know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Those numbers are staggering to me. Staggering to me. I am deeply burdened by these stats. And here's what I want us... Don't forget this behind every single one of those numbers is a person. Someone that God loves, someone that Jesus died for, someone who needs the hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ. And some of those people live right next door to you. That's what it means when we talk about owning the lostness of our own community. We believe, listen, that every man, every woman, every student, every child in our community should not only have the opportunity to hear, but to also see the gospel of Jesus Christ and then respond to him. We want them to hear the good news about Jesus and then see the difference that he has made in the way that we live our lives. But we simply listen, we simply can't hope that somebody else will tell someone. We have to take personal responsibility for the mission that God has given every single one of us, not just as a church, but individually. Now I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to just go down this road for just a moment. Okay. Cause I know that some of you, I know you're burdened by this. It grabs your heart and some of you may be sitting here thinking, man, why should any of this matter to me? Well, first of all, we are commanded. Okay.

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6. 5. The Gospel Advances Together

   5. The Gospel Advances TogetherHe knew that he couldn't accomplish God's mission by himself, and he needed other believers who shared his passion. And so do we, which brings me to the third truth, the gospel advances when we work together. You see, what does that look like? Well, tells us through, he says through our relationships and support. Now, as I read into this next part, you're going to notice that Paul's wrapping up this letter. It's a long letter, right? He said a lot of things, a lot of deep things, but he's beginning to wrap it up. And here's what he says. He says, this is why I have been prevented many times from coming to you, talking about the church in Rome, but now I no longer have any work to do in these regions. And I have strongly desired for many years to come to you whenever I travel to Spain For I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there once I have first enjoyed your company for a while. Now remember what Paul's just told us. His passion was to take the gospel to places where where where people had never heard about Jesus. And that's what was keeping him up until this point from visiting Rome. But now he's planning to travel to Spain, and he's hoping to visit these believers in Rome along the way. But I want you to notice what he says in verse 24. He says that he wanted to enjoy their fellowship and to receive their help for the journey. What's happening here? Well, even the apostle Paul understood, I can't do this by myself. I can't accomplish this mission alone. He needed other believers to encourage him, to support him, to help send him. The true, excuse me. The same is true for all of us today. Listen, there's something powerful when you, when you think about this, when we encourage our partners, when we encourage our global partners, our missionaries, when we support our church planters and encourage them as a church, and when we help send people out, we become partners in taking the gospel to people who need to hear it. But working together isn't just about sending people. Sometimes it's about meeting the needs of others. We not only work together through relationships and support, but also through our generosity. Look at verse 25. Paul says, right now I'm traveling to Jerusalem to serve the saints because Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Yes, they were pleased. And indeed they are indebted to them For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual benefits, then they are obligated to minister to them in material needs. So when I have finished this and safely delivered the funds to them, I will visit you on my way to Spain. I know that when I come to you, will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. It just sounds like a personal letter that he's writing to his friends, right? Paul, before Paul traveled to Roman Spain, had to make another stop. He said, I went to Jerusalem. What was he doing there? He was taking an offering from Gentile churches to help Jewish believers who were struggling financially. They were poor. Now think about this for just a moment. We've spent much of our morning talking about how the gospel brought Jews and Gentile believers together.

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7. The charge: One Person, Prayed for by Name

   The charge: One Person, Prayed for by NameSo here's what I want to challenge you to do right now. I want you to think about that person. I want you to think about one person in your life who needs to know Jesus. Ask God, say, listen, Lord, would you put that one person into my mind right now? And will you begin praying for them by name? Will you begin praying for them by name? And then will you ask God to give you the opportunity to... And and the courage to share Jesus with them? And I know some of you are like, listen. The Holy Spirit of God, we already talked about this. Here's the promise. We'll come alongside of you because the Holy Spirit's been doing the work of drawing them to Jesus, and now you get to be part of that. And so the Holy Spirit is gonna give you what you need to do, what needs to be done, knowing that ultimately it's not on you to save that person. It's on YouTube. Share the message. Church, we've been reminded this morning that God is faithful to his promises. Amen? He kept his word to Israel. And through Jesus Christ, he has made salvation available to people from every single nation. And the God who has been faithful to his promises is the same God that we trust to carry out his mission. So here's what we do. We trust him, and we obey him. And then we take the gospel to the ends of the earth, to the rest of the world. And we start here, and we expand expand out to Georgia, and then we go into The United States and into Canada, and then we go out into the rest of the world. That's what God's called us to do. Like, I don't know if I wanna do that. Well... Then you're being disobedient. Can I just say it? I'm not trying to shame you. I'm just trying to get you in line with what God has us here doing. Listen. Did it ever occur to you that there's a reason Jesus hasn't come back? You're like, yeah. You know, I think it's because God wants the Bulldogs to win another national championship. That's not it. That's because I... Well, God wants me to, you know, have a lake house or... No. No.

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Ear check. The shaded sentence is 69 words. It may be hard to say in one breath. The check marks it and leaves the wording to you. At that point, I think we were probably maybe six years old, five or six years old, and God began to put a vision on my heart to train up church planters and then to send people out with those church planters to start new churches, not only all over our community, but all over our country, and then that vision would extend to different places in the world.