Sermon Tone Analysis

MBC - 6~/13~/2004 - Pastor Doug Thompson

*/“How To Be An Effective Servant of God”/*

Romans 1:8-15

 

How would we read this if it had just been unearthed by archaeologists and verified as having been a part of the original scroll dictated by Paul and written by Tertius?

 

ROM 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

ROM 1:9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,

ROM 1:10 always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.

ROM 1:11 For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established;

ROM 1:12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.

ROM 1:13 I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.

ROM 1:14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

ROM 1:15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Intro on Ronald Reagan . . .

what legacy did he leave? . . .

what will you leave?

What will you have accomplished? . .

.

What made Paul so effective?

How did he balance all of the pressures and expectations and demands on his person and his time?

What are you going to leave here when God calls your number?

Sum up the two priorities that we must keep in balance:

 

Be a people person, and be a planning person.

Be a person who loves and touches people’s lives, and also be a person who has a plan and a strategy for doing that.

We all lean one way or the other:

 

Ø      Some of you are more naturally, people-oriented.

You don’t like being alone, and when you are alone, you feel lost.

Your idea of fun is being with people; playing golf, fishing, playing cards, watching a movie, bar-b-queing, or just hangin’ out.

You love to run into friends in the store, and you block the aisles talking for ½ an hour while your ice cream is melting in your cart.

It’s no problem--people are priority over ice cream.

For you, the best part of a church pot-luck, or a Bible study is when it’s over and you can just shoot the breeze with people.

You get panicky and your feel cutoff if you don’t have /several/ different ways of keeping in touch with people: cell-phone, pager, e-mail, snail mail, instant messaging, FAX, 2 orange-juice cans connected with string!

And when you are gone on a trip and disconnected, the first thing you do when you get home is rush to turn on the phone answering machine--while you check your e-mail, and tear open letters that came in the mail while you were gone.

Life revolves around people and relationships.

Ø      And some of you are more goal-oriented.

Life revolves around your plans, your objectives, your calendar, your day-runner, your palm-pilot, your outlook, etc.

You don’t mind at all being alone--that’s when you are the most in control of your plans!

And maybe your plans have to do with people, but sometimes you feel that people are getting in the way of your plans and objectives.

When the phone rings, your muscles tighten because you don’t think, “A friend!” you think “An interruption.”

Ø      You have your list of what you want to get done: books you want to read, a foreign language you want to learn, a new business you want to explore, furthering your education, etc.

When you run into a friend in the store, you tiptoe down to another aisle because you really don’t have time to talk, because you are on a tight schedule--always.

You have to get home and cook dinner to be able to eat by 5:15 to be able to do your workout at 6:00, have a half hour of family devotions, watch one hour of PBS--or the history channel--then read 3 chapters in each of 3 different books you are reading before you go to bed at the same time every night so that you can get up at exactly the same time every morning so that you can have your devotions, drink your protein shake, program your palm pilot, and be out the door--at exactly the same time every day.

A successful day for you is getting everything done on your to-do list.

Which way do you lean?

What we are going to see this morning is that both extremes are wrong.

We need a balance.

You can be so addicted to your goals--even ministry goals--that you step on people, and you begin to see people only in terms of how they can help you succeed in your ministry.

When that happens you aren’t serving people, you are /using/ them.

But you can be a people-person to the extreme too.

If you have no objective in your relationships with other people, you could be doing more harm than good by spending time with them.

And if you neglect other priorities and responsibilities--like you own walk with God--to be with people, you aren’t doing them or yourself any good.

Prov.18:24 is a fascinating verse to ponder:

 

Ø      PRO 18:24 A man of too many friends comes to ruin, [The Amplified Bible say: “The man of many friends [a friend of all the world] will prove himself a bad friend.”

[You can spread yourself too thin, relationally, and more can become less.]

By the grace of God in his life, Paul had the right balance.

I want you to see 2 priorities woven into this passage: people and planning--Paul loved people, but his love had an objective, it wasn’t just vague sentimentalism.

Look back at:

 

Ø      ROM 1:5 we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name's sake,

 

This is a statement of Paul’s life mission.

Paul could sum up his life by saying, “I exist (by the grace of God) to bring about the obedience of faith among all peoples for the sake of the glory of His name.”

Yes, Paul loved people, and this is the way Paul loved people!

There is nothing in the world more loving than to bring a person to Christ and obedience to Him--right?

 

and it’s because Paul kept these two in balance that he changed the world for Jesus Christ.

Paul kept in balance two priorities that made him an effective servant of Jesus Christ:

 

*I.

The priority of loving people.*

Look with me at v.8: “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all.

V.9: “God is my witness . . .

as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,

V.10: always pleading with God that I can come and see you.

V.11 I long to see you. .

to impart some spiritual gift that you may be established

V.12: Paul longs for their ministry to him,

V.13:

He wanted them to know that he had often planned to come to them,

V.15:

He was eager to preach the gospel to them.

Remember, Paul had never met these Christians.

He didn’t plant the church in Rome.

He says later in 15:20, that they were built on another man’s foundation and it wasn’t him.

But before he launches into his explanation of the gospel he wants them to know in the strongest terms possible, that he loves these people.

And it is a genuine love.

He isn’t some double-tongued politician.

He isn’t a salesman.

He cares for them deeply.

I’ve been reading Paul’s letters for over 30 years now, and my impression of Paul is that he leaned toward the goal-oriented side of the scale.

He was so intent on his objectives, he was so self-disciplined, and I get the feeling from his letters that he didn’t come across as a naturally warm, affectionate person.

Now John was different.

When John tells believers that he loves them in his letters--it was an easy sell.

John comes across as fatherly, compassionate--mushy--he is the one Jesus loved, the one leaning on Jesus’ breast in the upper room.

Paul is the intellectual and the debater.

Paul is the one stirring things up.

People want to kill Paul!

So it seems that in his letters, Paul struggles to convince his readers that he really does love them:

 

Ø      1TH 2:7 But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.

Ø      1TH 2:8 Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

Ø      1TH 2:19 For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation?

Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming?

Ø      1TH 2:20 For you are our glory and joy.

Look at what Paul said about his fellow Jews who hated him and regarded him as an infidel:

 

Ø      ROM 9:1 I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit,

Ø      ROM 9:2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.