Summer in Rome | Romans 15:7-28

In this message from Romans 15:17–28, Pastor Ben Kaempfer explores Paul’s commitment to joining God’s work with humility, courage, and purpose. Rather than taking credit for his accomplishments, Paul recognizes that everything achieved through his ministry was accomplished by Christ.

The passage reveals a life shaped by mission. Paul is determined to share the gospel in places where Jesus is not yet known, while the generosity of other believers demonstrates how the church can participate in that mission together.

This message challenges listeners to consider how God may be working through their abilities, resources, relationships, and everyday obedience. Ultimately, it reminds them that serving God is not about building a personal platform, it is about faithfully participating in the greater work Jesus is already doing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to Downtown Community Church. We are so glad that you decided to listen in today. At DCC, our mission is to love God, make disciples, and be great neighbors. And one way we get to serve this initiative is through generosity. Giving can include tithes and offerings, but generosity is not just limited to finances. It can also mean offering time, talents, and a willingness to serve. For anyone looking to give their time or become more connected, there are plenty of opportunities to serve with DCC. Visit Downtown CommunityCurch.com to learn more and discover the right place to get involved. To stay updated on everything happening at DCC, follow DCC Tally on Instagram and Downtown Community Church on Facebook. There are also two very important dates coming up. First, DCC will hold a church family meeting on August 9th to share updates about the church. Immediately following service, we hope you will join us in a community cookout to celebrate our kiddos going back to school. And once our bellies are filled, we will begin our meeting. So be sure to set a reminder for this Sunday, August 9th. Then, beginning August 23rd, DCC's new fall service times will be 9:15 a.m. and 11 o'clock a.m. Make plans to join the church family at either time. We are so excited to see all our friends, new and old, and to worship and serve our King together. Today's message is part of the summer series Summer in Rome, and teaching from Romans 15, Pastor Ben Kempfer explores Paul's commitment to joining God's work with humility, courage, and purpose. Rather than taking credit for his accomplishments, Paul recognizes that everything achieved through his ministry was accomplished by Christ. His example reminds listeners that serving God is not about receiving recognition. It's about faithfully using their time, resources, and opportunities to participate in the work Jesus is already doing. Thanks again for tuning in, and we pray this message stirs your heart to follow Jesus more closely and that you find something new in the Word today. Now, here is Pastor Ben Kemper with today's Word.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Please stand for the reading of God's Word. For God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Lyricum. I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been, namely I build it build on someone else a foundation, but as it is written, those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you. Once I have enjoyed your company for a while, at present, however, I am going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Akai have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem, for they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings there also to be of service to them in material blessings. Blessings. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered them to them what has been decollected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. Romans 15, 17 through 28.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

You may be seated.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

That was awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's fantastic. Kids, y'all may be dismissed. Thank you for being here. Love you guys. Have fun. Or as much fun as you can, at least. All right, church, welcome in. Um my name is Ben, and I have the honor of serving as a lead pastor here at Downtown Community Church. Um, I want to give a couple uh shout-outs as we start. We love you, we do, we love you, we do. Um like I said, my name is Ben. I have the honor of serving as the uh lead pastor here. And I just want to say, uh, if it's your first time here, man, we're stoked that you're uh that you're here with us. Every Sunday when we gather, um, there's people from all over the place, all over the map, in terms of spiritually, in terms of denominations, all those kinds of things. And so no matter who you are, no matter where you're from, we're excited that you're here. We have a number of friends that are here with us from the Heritage Retreat. And so I want to say thank you, yeah. Um so church family, the rest of you guys, if you see some folks around who don't know all of the places and spaces uh in this kind of location, um, man, make sure to reach out because uh when you are, you know how it is, the Heritage Retreat, if you don't know, is a bunch of folks who are coming to Florida State, especially for school, and it's their first time on campus and around and looking to connect with people and Jesus and all that kind of stuff. So you are the church that they are looking to connect with, connect with while they're here. Make sense? Cool, let's do our job. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Jesus, would you speak to each and every single one of us, no matter where we are in terms of our relationship with you? Would you work in us? Would you work through us? Would you help us to see what it looks like to live a life for you, King Jesus? For those of us who have been following you for a while, would you help us to see how you've called us to make an impact through what we do in our daily lives for your gospel across the world? Would you help us to see for those of us who have just recently started following you what it looks to have a life patterned after you and the patterns of you, King Jesus? And for those of us who are trying to figure this whole thing out, God, we don't know what to think, we don't know maybe what we believe, we don't know God, Jesus, Bible. We're trying to figure this whole thing out. Jesus, when you were on the planet, people who were so far from you or who felt so far from you were so close to your heart and they were magnetized to you, and they changed, life changed, perception changed, belief changed, faith changed when they met you, King Jesus. Would that do and happen today? And it's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. So if you've been tracking with us as a church, we've been going through um the latter portion of the book of Romans, and a lot of the reason why is because Romans um is all about this kind of life together. Uh to in some ways oversimplify, but in some ways kind of categorize what has happened and is happening on the Meta. Um, again, there's these this massive kind of coming together of these two different people, there's the Jews and there's the Gentiles, which are coming together under the umbrella and the banner of Christ. It was really tense and it was really difficult because they were of different places and spaces and backgrounds, right? Depending on your background, there's some things that you have that you bring into Jesus, right? And some of those things are great, some of those are helpful, some of those things help you to see Jesus clearly, and some of them help us to see more cloudy. And everybody has those. There is not a demographic of people who has the perfect perspective on God. And in some ways, that's legitimately the point of the diversity of the believers of Christ, every tongue and every nation. Not because of the fact that just in and of itself differentiation is a virtue, although it's nice, it's because differentiation communally helps us to see Jesus more clearly. In the same way that I can have one friend who brings out one side of me, another friend who brings out a different side of me, depending on who they are, depending on where they're from. If I have a lot of friends, then they bring out a lot of different parts of me. And if that's true of finite me, how much is that more true of an infinite God that we can only see him clearly through the eyes of one another? See, the point of diversity is not just simply that we would be differentiated together, is that we would actually see Jesus and represent him more clearly and more fully. And here's Paul's point. That's tough. That's incredibly difficult. But he spends, and if you read the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters legitimately kind of innerworking and interweaving this crazy reality of the reconciliation that God has done to us. This fact that the Gentiles who were off to their own and who were doing their own thing, that they were far from God and had abandoned God, and then you looked at the Jewish folk, and they, even though they had the law, even though they had the prophets, even though they had, you know, this is the lineage of God, they still didn't do it. And God basically looks and says, hey, no one, no one is going to be saved. No one is coming to me because you're good enough. Because you're smart enough, because you're pure enough, because you're holy enough. No one is coming to me on the basis of the fact that you're good. And it's not that you're not good as people, it's just that none of us are God. All of us, we would stand before God and we would just pale in comparison. It's like saying, I can touch the sun without getting burned. His holiness is that pure. And he made a way for us through Jesus. He reconciled us to himself. And so here's his whole point. I know it's difficult, but this is the display of the reconciliation that I have done to you, to the rest of the world. That I want you to be a new reconciled community. Chapter 12, verse 1. I want you to present your bodies as living sacrifices. Don't conform to the patterns of this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. What does that actually mean? He begins to explain what a transformed, a renewed life is that's that's sacrificed. And he starts off by saying, Don't think too highly of yourself. Use your gift. You have a gift, and your gift makes you think highly of you. In fact, what you need to realize is you have a gift to be used to love and to serve everybody else around you. It's not for you, but it is from you. He goes on to talk about how we're to live in this beautiful, reconciled way. He talks about how under the banner of state, he talks about under the banner of differentiation, we go to the same thing and eat and meat violates your conscience and doesn't mind. And he says, okay, so if you're right, I want you to again make space. And he continues on with this continued ministry of this thought of what life looks like. If God has reconciled us to him, what does this new reborn reconciled community look like? And at the very end in these verses, I want to connect something to you because Paul connects his ministry in almost like a hierarchy, not really a hierarchy, more so like a flow chart of how his ministry globally works. And here's what I want us to see in this whole thing. Let me kind of get to where the end of where I'm going with this whole sermon and tell you as we kind of look for it. As I started looking through this, there's kind of two big chunks that we read through. One is Paul saying, This is my ministry. Two is Paul saying, This is how the church helps. And I'm going to connect a third part of scripture in Corinthians that shows kind of what that daily activity looks like. But first, let's start in chapter 6, or chapter 15. When he looks at kind of this global ministry of reconciliation that God's called him specifically to. He says this chapter 15, verse 14. He says, I myself, now again, this is towards the end of the letter, he's starting to wrap things up. He's kind of starting to, you know, kind of bring this to a close. In fact, you can think of chapter 15 as kind of like the content conclusion, and chapter 16 as kind of like the relational conclusion. He says, verse 14, says, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and able to instruct one another. But on some points I've written you very boldly. In other words, he's like, hey, hey, hey, I know as I've been writing some of this, he would say to the church at Rome, some of y'all are already there. You already get this, you already know this. This isn't new information. This is just by way of reminder. But there's some things that I was very bold on. And it's because God gave me grace to be bold on those things, he says. To be a minister of Christ to the Gentiles in the priestly service of God of the gospel of God. He says this so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable sacrifice by the Holy Spirit. This is interesting. I want you to look at how Paul begins to view evangelism globally. He looks at the Gentiles and doesn't say, you know what? I'm just gonna go preach and hope they pray. I'm just gonna go say something and hope they convert. I'm just gonna go give a couple of words and see what happens to this whole Gentile audience. He says, No, no, no. No. God's called me to go to the Gentiles. He's called me to love the Gentiles, He's called me to serve the Gentiles. And in such a way that the way I view this, he's almost like, it's almost like I'm a priest and to his Jewish audience, you know, they would remember this. To the Gentile audience, they're like, okay, yeah, we've we've been around it more, we understand what you're saying. And the priest would come and they would make this sacrifice, and the sacrifice would be to God. And Paul's like, hey, hey, my work is to see these Gentiles and to love them so well, to serve them so well, to invest in them so well, to pour in them so well, to pastor them so well, to shepherd them so well, to apprentice them so well, to disciple them so well, so that it's not just this, they're gonna sit in this group in this program, but I'm actually gonna pour my life. He's gonna say in a little bit, that's what's kept me from Rome. Why? Because he looks at the Gentiles and says, I want when I die for you to be this sacrifice that people look at, that God looks at and says, Wow, that looks a lot like Jesus.

unknown 14:10

Right?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

For most of us, it's kind of like, wow, we just want to get people in rooms. People to pray a prayer. He said, No, no, no. I want to, I want to develop them. So they are disciples who are making disciples, who are making disciples. There's multiplication that's happening, there's depth that's growing. I mean, this whole thing, it's not just about telling some people, giving some people the opportunity. He says, This is this is me saying, This entire people group, my life's work is to offer them as a sacrifice to God. He sees it as a priestly ministry, not just an evangelist based off, you know, obligation. He said, In Christ Jesus, I have reason to be proud of my work. He's not not in me, not in what I've done, but in Jesus I have reason to be proud. For I'm not going to venture to speak anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed. Let me ask you that. Do you believe it? And what I mean by do believe, do you believe it? Is do you mean, do you believe that God, that Paul only accomplished all this through Christ? Or is it because Paul was incredible as a minister? Is it because Paul could put some thoughts and some words together, some ideas, some complexities? Is it is it really now, granted, I think God was using Paul in his gifting and his wiring. And here's why I say that. It's our tendency to read the rest of this and assume a heroicization on Paul. And what that heroicization, what putting him on a pedestal, what putting him on a platform actually creates, is a distance between us and him, thus giving us an excuse not to be like him. Not to let God work through me in the same way. Because that's Paul, who could be like Paul? Paul's like, no, no, no. You need to see that everything that I'm doing, this is the work of Christ through me. And if it's the work of Christ through me, I have the same Christ that Paul had. He says, I'm not gonna venture to speak of anything except for what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles in obedience by word and deed. By the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem all the way around to Ilikirium. I man, those words as a pastor, at some point I'm gonna figure out how to say. Still today, I'm just like, you know, I'm winging it. I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ, and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but it is written, those who have never been told of him will see. And those who have never heard will not see, that's my goal, man. It's not just, I'm not trying to, you know, build off of, you know, again, you know, you know, second Baptist, you know, third Methodist, and fourth, you know, non-denominational, which starts with the letter E, you know. I'm just not, I'm just, I'm just gonna, I'm I'm going to places, I'm going to people that aren't reached. This is what I love. Like, if you know Jesus, right, the goal is not to give everybody from everybody else's church to come to our church. The goal is that we would reach people who are far from God. Why? Because God has reconciled us to Him. It's like, it's like as if it's like as if the doctrine of adoption is lost on us sometimes. And what I mean by that is, God is this great, amazing Father. He has adopted us to be his sons and daughters. We are all the adopted family of God, and when we come together, it's like, hey, we're just gonna gather together with the adopted family together, and we're going to celebrate, worship, praise, give thanks to remember our father who adopted us. And the thing about adoption is it's not just that we're adopted, he's an incredible father looking to adopt anybody and everybody who would desire that adoption, insofar as we would say, okay, we're not just gonna go tell all the adopted people, hey, come to our adopted place. Let's go find everybody who is lost and fatherless, who wants a dad, who wants a father, who's looking for that and say, We found him. He says, So I'm not just going to all the places that I've already been and everybody's already gone to. But no, it's those who have never been told of him, those who will never heard of him, those who will never understand. And let me just tell you the the beauty of this is that some of us, some of us, let me just put this clearly, some of us are called to go, to bring the gospel to places where no one has ever been. Some people are absolutely called, and some of you might be called to do that. I might be called to do that. There was a time where I thought God called me to start a church in South Africa. It was one of those moments where I remember praying and saying, God, that doesn't make any sense. But I'll go. I remember through a process and a period of discernment. The answer was no. What's interesting is Paul is about to talk specifically to the church at Rome. Because for most of us, when we hear that, there's some kind of this, let's be honest, you've sat in enough, if you've been around church for a while, you've sat in enough talks where people talk about global missions where you feel this internal tension. Most of us. You have a life, you have a trajectory, you have a responsibility, you have a family, you have a hundred things to do. And the thought of leaving all that, giving all that up, walking away, that sounds incredibly difficult. And let me just be honest, and I will be honest. Most of the people in this room, actually, let me say this first. All of the people who follow Jesus in this room are called to go therefore and make disciples. Every single one of us. But some of us, how we go make disciples of unreached people groups is to go to those people groups. But Paul is about to ask the church at Rome for something. And I want you to see what he doesn't ask is, I want you to pray for as many of you as you can to join with me. Here's what he says to connect the local church to his mission. He's not just saying this and saying, hey, I'm cool, look at me. Look at what he says in the very next verse. He says, This is the reason, by the way, why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. He's like being, because I'm finishing this work of gospel to the folks who have not seen, but I want to see you, he says, but now, since I no longer have any room for work, he's kind of completed the work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, he says, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain. His point is, hey, I'm going to see you, but I'm on my way to Spain. They haven't heard the gospel yet. There's a bunch of Gentile folks over there, and that's where I'm going. I would love to see you on the way to Spain. And to be helped on my journey there by you once I've enjoyed your company for a while. Now, this was fascinating. Paul, Paul, who had never been to this church before. Paul, who had some relationships and some commonalities, Paul who wrote this incredibly robust letter, Paul who had a deep under understanding of what was happening in their church. He says, I haven't visited you yet. But when I'm on my way, I plan on being helped by you. And this was every single person who knew this letter in Rome or heard this letter in from Rome, they knew exactly what that meant. That meant Paul was coming by. And for them, in the early church, churches were like fueling stations. For missions. Churches were like fueling stations for missions. They were the place where if somebody was coming and they were going to this place, they would go help. In fact, sometimes, sometimes this is beautiful. If one church in one place had a bunch of need, and other churches in other places had extra, the churches who had extra would help the church that in need, and all of those churches at different times would become the church in need and the church in help. What's fascinating about this? I was reading through this and I was thinking, you know what's fascinating? Just in my common thing of what we would preach about, we would look at this and we would say, Paul's saying, I'm called to them to go to the nations, and so are you. He says, Hey, I'm called to go to Spain. Now, when I come through, help me pay for it. And it's interesting. But he doesn't stop there. He says, actually, there's this, there's almost this ecosystem in how these churches work together. He said, A present, however, I'm going to Jerusalem. Why? To bring aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Akkadia. I've been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. In other words, hey, there's these other two places where the Christians have been incredibly generous and they've been contributing and they've been helping. In fact, there's a number of different places. We're going to find out. That they were pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem, for they were pleased to do so. And indeed, they owe it to them. Why? For the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, so they ought to be of the service to them in material blessings. And hey, what happened? The Gentile church. This wild thing, the Jews have the Gentiles come to know Jesus. And now the Gentiles churches have some extra. They're helping the Jewish church at Jerusalem. He's really struggling. And I want to go one more layer deep, and then I'm going to kind of create a picture for us of what I actually think this looks like in reality. You see, as Paul is saying, I'm going to go to Jerusalem. He's saying, okay, so here's some churches they're helping. They're meeting the needs over here, they're meeting the needs of the saints over there. And at the same time, I'm going to stop by you so you guys can help me go to kind of this global place. One of the times when Paul is about to collect this offering to go to Jerusalem, he's talking to the church at Corinth, and if you've got your Bible, you can kind of flip over there. But it's going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 16. 1 Corinthians 16. Verse 1. Now concerning the collections for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so also are you to do. He said, okay, now, I'm going to talk about the collection. So pause. He just told Church at Rome, Rome, I'm going to go to Spain. And when I do, I'm going to need your help. I'm going to need your help. Sometimes that was that was fueling with just like companionship. That was oftentimes a letter to the next place that they were going. Sometimes they would send workers with them. More often than not, they would help to kind of fund them and kind of pay for them on the next step. So he said, I'm going, but before I go, I got to stop by Jerusalem. And when I go to Jerusalem, it's because I'm going to bring a bunch of other stuff and a bunch of other need to these people in need. This is what was interesting to me about it too. Is I started looking at it and thinking, you know what? Paul is taking a pause in his global ministry to unreached people groups to make sure the churches are cared for. It's a really interesting sense and cycle of generosity. And he's about to go to Jerusalem to drop this off. And now we read a letter of what he wrote to a specific church saying, this is what I want you to do to think about this church in Jerusalem. The collection of the saints is I directed in the churches of Galatians. So you're also doing the words. I've told the other folks this, I'm telling you this as well. On the first day of each week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper. So that there will be no collecting. When I come. Just take what you got and set it aside. Take what you got and set it aside. Take what you got and set it aside. It's not like we want to show up. It's not like, hey, what are we going to do? You already got it. You know what? I can't wait for it. I really want you to be there. I'm going to start here and say, just I'm I just want to be very transparent. This is the dream. I hope that guy gives us the ability to get there. When I started reading these passages, you know what? Let me just be honest, you know what I started to feel? It was not a weight of conviction of this is what the saints should do. It was a weight of conviction of this is what the church should do. I've been so compelled recently by the model of church that equips the saints to do the work of ministry. Where the shepherds are shepherding, the deacons are serving, where the where the saints are empowering, where the disciples are discipling, they're making disciples, they're doing the work of ministry, they're giving their gifts, they're contributing. Everybody's doing all of this. You know what happens when that happens? It actually doesn't cost much to do church. It doesn't cost much for me to disciple you. It doesn't cost much for me to invite you into my living room. It doesn't cost much for me to meet you somewhere, to go for a walk around. Like that just doesn't cost. And what if everybody in the church begins to do that and say, you know what, you know what? Actually, I can fix a battery in a car, in the van. Here, I'll do that. Hey, here, you know what? I can I can come. Emily Warren, who who on at VBS was like, man, I can help, kind of like, you know, she's she looks at some of the stuff and she's like, give me a day in a label maker. I was like, I'll give you as many days as you want with as many labels as you want, you know. You just because organizing, not my thing. She comes and does that. Now I want you to imagine, here's why I say this, this is what I've been convicted around. Typically, how church budgets work is you've got, you know, and if you are in business, you might you should know this, by the way. I'm gonna pause almost for a second and wear a slightly different hat. My day job is I'm the CEO of a company called Register Sausage. We sell smoke pork sausage in about six or seven hundred grocery stores across Cut of the Southeast, Publix, Walmarts, Wendix's, Sam's working on Costco, still. But nonetheless, the point of that is to say what almost, and if you don't know this, how almost every church meeting and church budget goes is we're gonna allocate, let's say, 10% emissions, right? 10%. This year we bring in a million dollars, 10% in emissions. Next year we bring in two million dollars, 10% in emissions. Sounds great. See? Sorry it gets tricky. But what happens if costs don't scale at the same rate as revenue and attendance? Said differently. What if it only takes you 1.5 million to run a $4 million budget? Why would we allocate 10%? Why would we why wouldn't we just allocate $2.5 million? That's what we always talk about, like helping people, serving people. That's what we talk about. Here's the people we're able to clothe, here's the people you're able to feed, here's the people, like people come from our church every year to go on global foreign missions, and we can't help them. The physical need of our city, of our world. And what I'm saying is this, I've become so convinced and compelled that the way to do church, that the reason that this worked is because this church was able to collect and set aside four ministry and four missions. And the way that we're creating this whole thing is not a way that as money grows, so does our cost. We're able to set aside. We're able to help people who have no food. There's people outside, literally in our city right now, just getting rained on. Maybe we could help them, I don't know. But the way to love that, to see that, and to steward that. For too long. More money meant a bigger LED screen behind me. And I'm not anti-LED screen behind me. Just saying that's not us. We're investing in people, we're investing in them going to places. Paul was saying, no, no, no, I don't just want you, like I want to go to Roman. I actually want to see you, I actually want to meet you, I actually want to talk to you, I want to pour into you, I want to, I want to enjoy you, I want you to enjoy me, I want to experience one another, and then I want you to help send me because I want you to see that this thing, this global mission opportunity that we have. Is it not being called to go to Spain? And he here's the thing about Paul, he didn't even look at him and say, and pray for it, pray about it, ask about it. He just said, when I come by, that's what I expect to see. I think what happens a lot of times with this is we have two. Hey, I appreciate you back there trying to make this whole rain microphone. Is that David Grew? What a guy. Everybody said thank you. What Paul's asking the church to do is to say, I want you to consistently decide to set this aside. As Americans, we love the emotional weightiness of spontaneous generosity. But for some reason we think consistent regimented loses its heart. Paul says, look, you want to be generous, you prioritize it. You want to read your Bible regularly, you prioritize it. You want to pray regularly, you prioritize it. You don't just do whatever you feel like, and I, whenever I do those things regularly, it's the same time every day. Paul says it's the same thing. One of the lies of the enemy is that our individual generosity does not make a global impact. And what I want you to see is I dream of a church. I dream of a church that doesn't give 10%. It gives 90%. Gives as much as we possibly can. And not just give, but to invest, to actually see missionaries go to unreached places, to invest in places where there is the height of global poverty and good grief. We live in the United States of America. It thought they would take that much more for us. It just takes everybody setting aside something. At the beginning of the week. Here's the beautiful thing about church. No one has to be a hero. I know some of you, you're like the rich guy in the room and the rich girl in the room, and you're like, okay, I get it. This one's for me. The college student, you're like, ah, not really for me. No, no, no. This is literally everybody. This is the whole saints. This is the body of Christ coming together. Individual acts of generosity. Out of God, you have given so much to me, and not just acts of generosity in my money, acts of generosity and my time. And just because the entire life, the entire world is about building this kingdom of God. And not just this church. So, all that to say, as Paul begins to finish this, I'm going to read these last couple verses loudly. He says, When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what was been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. And so I appeal to you, brothers, by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf. That I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God, that by God's will, I may come with you, come to you with joy, and be refreshed in your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Now, here's the reality. Paul's heart was that people would know Jesus. People from every place, space, and walk of life would know Jesus. He felt a specific call to people who have never heard of him. But here's what he knew: local churches. Local churches. They were like the fueling station for the ministry of reconciliation. They were the fueling station for the ministry of reconciliation locally, and they were the fueling station for the ministry of reconciliation globally. Paul used both of those things. And he invited the believers to play an incredibly meaningful contribution, not just a contribution, but it's because they saw this as their entire life. My entire life is the mission of God. My entire life is sacrificed for him. My entire, I mean, I'm serving, I'm loving, I'm giving, I'm ministering, I'm walking out of my day, I'm putting on Christ, I'm being transformed to the image of him. And so, yeah, yeah, Paul, you're going there, dude. How can we help? That we feel a sense of honor and the obligation to be able to go help. Because Paul, you have given us the words of life and you're going to give those to other people, that's what we want to keep doing. Man, that's our dream and our goal collectively as a church. If Jesus has changed your life, if you have received this ministry of reconciliation, it is the natural outer working to pour that into the rest of the world. And if you have never done that before, the best way to start is by prioritizing it regularly. Maybe start weekly. Start with the percentage. Start wherever it is that you feel like there's a clear sense of what God has called you to. Some people ask, by the way, is it 10%? It's a more complex answer than that, to be honest. 10% was somewhat of the floor in the Old Testament. You don't really want to know the answer because it was oftentimes a lot more. But the idea of the New Testament was that love will take you farther than the law ever required. If the Old Testament was give 10%, the New Testament is give your life. Not 10%. Let's pray. Jesus, we love you. Our lives are consumed with you. We want everyone in the world to know you. We want everybody in the world to see you. To see reconciliation, to see restoration. God, I pray that you would make us a sending station. You would make us a place that binds up the brokenhearted, that loves the poor. You would make us a place that continually sends people. And God, you would make us a place that sends people to unreached people groups. Those who have never heard your name before. That you would send us to places with extreme global poverty. That we could be hope to the hopeless light and the darkness. God, I pray that you would make us a church that reinvests in the people around us. God, I pray that you would collectively, as we do this, as we continually love, serve, invest, love, serve, invest, love, serve, invest over and over selflessly, I pray that we would give away more and more and more for your kingdom to be built. And as that happens, Jesus, would you make us that shining city on a hill, that place where people see that they can't deny you just can't hide a city on a hill? And not because a city decided to be so visible, but because the light of the city was so obvious. Would you make us a place not so consumed with ourselves, not so consumed with our programs? Would you make us a people consumed with people for whom you died? And we would leverage our lives for that. And of course, weekly, we'll set aside because it's important. Would you make us a generous, missional people? And would you give us as a church the ability to steward that in a way? In a way that leads with love, leads with generosity, leads with serving the world around us, so that people far from you, Jesus, would come to know you. As they not just hear of your reconciliation, but they see the church living reconciled lives. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.