Romans 15:22-29

Reciprocal Love: Paul's Love Offering

by Pastor Jim Lincoln on June 10, 2007

 

Last Sunday, we began to consider this last major piece of Paul's letter to the Romans. With his formal teaching about the faith completed, Paul begins to write about his personal circumstances, future plans, and the fundamental motivations for his life and ministry. And just as we would have expected, the gospel shines just as bright through his life as through his doctrine.

This gospel, that reconciles sinners to God through faith in the Lord Jesus, forgives our sins and saves us from the just wrath of God which is guaranteed by Jesus' faithfulness, life, death, and resurrection, defined Paul's life and ministry. This gospel that gives us peace with God, access to God, makes us children of God, heirs of God, and makes our heart the home of the Holy Spirit also folds us into the one family of God, breaking down the deepest racial barriers known to man. This gospel guarantees a future world where all things will be put to rights and guarantees eternal life to all who believe in the Lord Jesus.

The Gospel and Worship:

This gospel with its tender mercies melted Paul's heart and set him on fire at the same time. Through it, he came to see all of life as an act of sacred and glad worship. So, he defines worship in 12:1-2 as a matter of offering one's life to God as a living sacrifice on the basis of God's infinite mercies.

Here in verse 16, he reveals how this doctrine of authentic worship shows up in his own life by describing his life and work as an offering of worship. He calls himself a minister to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest, the gospel of God. The word he uses for minister and ministering is the specific word that describes the duties of a priest at temple worship (laturgon). It's the word from which we get our word liturgy. As an act of worship, he takes whatever he is and does, his successes, achievements, and raises them up before God as an offering of worship. He also takes his failures, disappointments, and unmet expectations and offers them as well to the Lord as an act of worship. He envisions himself in success and in tribulation dressed in the dignity of priestly garments offering up all of life as sacred worship before God.

Beloved, something incredible happens in your soul when you do this. It's one thing to offer our success to God as worship. It's quite another to offer our disappointments to Him as an act of worship. But the moment you do, you are reminding yourself that God accepts your efforts in faith, with joy, and that even your failed efforts are a pleasure to Him. No effort given to God in worship is ever a waist of time or a useless activity. The moment your soul recognizes this, the discouragement and oppressiveness of disappointment begins to fade because authentic worship and hopelessness can't occupy the same space at the same time.

My guess is that you can give your successes to God easily enough but you find it much harder to give your disappointments to him as an act of worship. Paul is showing us how he does it. How he worships with his life. And it resulted in the expectation of blessing on himself and others.

A Service of Grace (15:8):

This worship, he says, is motivated by the miracle of God's grace. All he has done, the conversion of Gentiles, the signs and wonders, and the 1,400 mile mission trip from Jerusalem to the Adriatic coast was what Christ had done through him, not his own doing. He saw all of his life as an opportunity to brag on Jesus and His amazing grace. And that sustaining grace inspired him to take the gospel to places that had never heard about Jesus.

The Love Offering:

Now, there is only one thing left for him to do before he can come to Rome and see them. He must deliver the offering he had been working on since the beginning of his ministry.

"But now, I am 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. Therefore, when I have finished this, and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ." 15:25-29

For years, Paul had been calling the Gentile churches to save up money for the believers in Jerusalem who had suffered severely under the famine in Judea. Outside of establishing new churches and caring for these churches this offering was the biggest project in Paul's life. This morning I want us to consider the historical background of this collection, why it meant so much to Paul and then make some applications to us for today.

First, what was this offering all about?

Acts 11:27: Let's begin with the first place the need for this offering is mentioned in Acts 11:27. Somewhere about 47 AD, Paul and Barnabas were co-pastoring the church in Antioch. For about a year an amazing thing happened, Gentiles were coming to faith in Jesus in Antioch. The church was growing and Barnabas went to Tarsus and recruited Paul to help him pastor the church. Some prophets came down from Jerusalem to speak to the church. One of them, Agabus, stood up in the congregation and prophesied that a severe famine was about to come upon Judea. In response, the disciples in the church determined to give an offering for them, and they sent that offering to Jerusalem through Paul and Barnabas. This famine persisted throughout Paul's ministry and created a long term need among the believers in Judea.

Gal.2:10: Two years latter, Paul refers to the famous Jerusalem council of Acts 15 in Galatians 2:10. After Paul's returned from his first missionary journey there was some discussion in Jerusalem over what to require of Gentile churches. One of the requests James, Peter, and John made of Paul was to tell the Gentile churches to remember the poor. It's hard to escape the implication that they meant the painful poverty of the church in Jerusalem.

1Cor.16:1: Six years later (54AD), Paul writes to the Corinthians encouraging them to join with the churches of Galatia who committed to send financial support to the church in Jerusalem suffering from the famine. His instructions were:

1. Set aside some money on the first day of each week. (16:2)
2. Put aside some as you have been prospered. (16:2)
3. Don't wait till I come, but save it up (16:2)
4. Appoint a trustee of the funds to go with me (16:33). He wants to do this with accountability and no hint of personal gain.

2Cor.8-9: In his second letter, (probably his third letter) to the Corinthians, Paul had to write and encourage them to fulfill their commitment and to keep their promise. Their commitment to the project was fading. In chapter 8:1, he used the experience of the Macedonian churches to inspire them to keep their word. Notice a few things about how amazing God's gospel worked among these churches.

1. (8:1): It was a testimony of the grace of God not their superiority. Like him, they can only claim and brag on God's grace as a just reason for it all.
2. (8:2-4): He mentions amazing contrast and evidences of grace, "in great ordeal of affliction they had an abundance of joy. In their poverty, they overflowed with generosity." They weren't cajoled or pressured to give; instead they begged for the opportunity to be a part of it.
3. (8:8): He didn't command or order them. He simply wanted the sincerity of their faith in Jesus and commitments to be validated. He wants them to prove that they are the real Christians.
4. (8:9): He appeals to the example of Jesus who, though he was rich, he became poor so that through his poverty we would become rich in eternal life. There is more here to be enjoyed, but we'll have to come back to it another day.

Now, that is the background of the collection. Return to Rom.15:25 and see what he says to the Romans about this collection. In 15:25, "But now I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints." Once again Paul doesn't use a typical word for serving. Instead, he used a word for the priestly duties carrying out their priestly temple worship (laturgon). Once again he ties together his life and worship. He sees his mission as priesting grace to the saints in Jerusalem. Of course, his service is first to God but then to them. All of this is an act of sacred worship.

Managing Funds: Worship?

Paul takes this mundane, and at times, unpleasant subject of bringing up money, dealing with money, with all the temptations, accounting for it, collecting it, and protecting it as sacred worship. Think of the problems associated with a collection that size. How does he get it from place to place safely? There was no paper money, traveler's checks, or credit cards in Paul's day. . Money was made of precious metals. Lots of money was heavy and therefore difficult to transport. Money has no provenance. You can't tell by looking at coins who they belong to. Money belonged to whoever possessed it at the time. So, it was risky to transport.

In the summer of 1325, Pope John needed to pay his mercenary soldiers their wages in Italy. So, he had sixty thousand gold florins bagged up and loaded on pack animals. He sent along from Avignon, one hundred and fifty cavalrymen to guard the convoy over the Alps and into Italy. Near Pavia, the convoy was ambushed by robbers who managed to get off with half the gold. They also held hostages and forced Pope John to pay most of the rest of the money in ransom to get his soldiers back. In those times, money was difficult to transport.

Paul also had to deal with the money changers and all their shenanigans. Dealing with these kinds of challenges and issues is not what we would call worship. But Paul says that's exactly what it was for him. As we said a few weeks ago, nothing given in the service of the Lord is ordinary, if it is offered first to Jesus. A meal to a stranger, working on the church yard, balancing the church check book, teaching a Sunday school class or repairing a computer, playing the piano or setting up a microphone, all of this, if offered up to the Lord, is worship. Paul says, do what you do to the glory of God and rejoice! All of life is an act of sacred worship.

A Joyful Obligation:

In verse 27, he conveys the Macedonian's motivation for doing this. "Yes, they were pleased to do this and they are indebted/obligated to them. For, if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are obligated to minister (laturgon) to them also in material things." They were pleased to participate in this, and they too saw it as an act of sacred worship. But, notice that their motivation was not only to relieve suffering; it was also to fulfill an obligation.

Unlike our modern idea of grace that jettisons obligation, Paul sees grace as producing an obligation. Today, if you do something as an act of obligation many will say it is inauthentic. Nothing could be so wrong. Beloved, fulfilling your obligations is the most genuinely authentic, righteous thing you can do! To abandon your obligations is a monumental sign that your word is precisely inauthentic!

These Christians were please to be obligated. They were motivated to participate in a reciprocal action of mutual obligation between Jew and Gentile believers in Christ. This would add evidence to the reconciling power of the gospel and prove their love and mutual support. They were thrilled to do it. They needed each other and they needed to serve each other. The Gentile Christian has received from Israel a great heritage, the blessings of Christ, God's word: His promises and commandments. They (and us who believe today) have been folded into and made one with the commonwealth of Israel. We have a debt to a spiritual heritage so huge we could never pay it back. They recognized that grace is so glorious that it earns and produces an obligation. No, we could never pay back this debt. We wouldn't even attempt to pay it back, as if we could merit it. But grace does obligate us to honor what it has merited for us. And that's what these believers did. And they saw it a great joy to participate in a mutual confirmation of God's reconciling love.

Reconciling The Irreconcilable:

In Paul's day, Jew and Gentile hostilities had reached a boiling point around the Mediterranean. Zealot nationalism in Jerusalem was brewing hot. Twenty years later, Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed over these hostilities. I think Paul knew this was inevitable. This offering, where Gentiles would sacrifice to help Jews and where Jews would gladly receive financial help from Gentiles, was a sign of the reconciling grace of the gospel in a polarized world.

In verse 28, Paul said that he wanted to seal this fruit of theirs. By their fruit, I think he means the first fruits of many refreshing and generous harvests of love yet to come.¹

Beloved, standing behind this offering was the principle of Christian love and unity. This collection was a massive symbol and a great prophetic sign, blazoned across half a continent of the reconciling power of the gospel. This gospel brings irreconcilable people together: first, sinners to God and then to each other.

Today:

Let me make some applications for us.

1. God is very often more interested in our journey with Him than our immediate goals and plans. Paul made his plans to make this quick visit to Jerusalem, hand off the offering and then travel to Rome for a sabbatical. God had other plans. When he went to Jerusalem there is no mention of the offering other than that Paul was pleasantly received by the apostles in Jerusalem. We assume it got there without incident. However, as soon as Paul arrived thousands of his enemies were out to put an end to his life. Forty took an oath not to eat or sleep until they had killed Paul. His safety was of first importance to the church in Jerusalem the moment he arrived. It didn't go as Paul had planned. He was dragged out of the Temple and beaten severely. He was arrested and put in prison and spent two years in jail under arrest before he was put on a boat to Rome under guard. The boat he was on sank at sea. Much happened to Paul that he didn't plan. Things didn't go as he envisioned in his letter to the Romans. We tend to focus on our goals. To a point this is good. God seems more interested in the journey and the process. It's through the process that we have to let go of many of our plans, pick up His plans, and learn to trust Him as God. Paul did this, and he did this with joy. I think it was because he saw all of life as sacred worship.

2. Love means that you sacrifice for those you love. There had to be tangible evidence that the Gentiles loved their Jewish brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. Paul knew this. Many will say to me, "Jim, I'm overwhelmed by the need around the world." OK, but start somewhere. World Vision, Mercy Corps, and The Free Church offering for our brothers and sisters in Sudan and Darfur would be a good place to start.

3. Our love for other believers will continue to be the tangible evidence of the reconciling power of the gospel. Jesus taught us this in John 17 and said that our love for each other would make it believable that the Son of God had indeed come to us in Christ. May God give us the grace to be credible and faithful witnesses of this gospel that reconciles sinners to God and sinners to each other.