Priestly Service of Paul

Good morning. Ooh, loud. You ever notice that two guys in the church that use a stool are Roger and me? So what I'd like to do today, let's take a minute before we start, and if there's anything between you and the Lord, it's a good time to get it squared away, and then we'll begin. Okay, so I'm working through these verses. I'm backing up a little bit, and you'll hopefully see why when I do it.

Back in verse 14, Paul says, concerning you, my brother, and I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge. and I'm able also to admonish one another. I'm gonna spend some time, more time, on this word admonish. It's a really cool word. And verse 15, but I have written very boldly to you on some points so that to remind you again, and I'm gonna remind you because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. There's a lot there. spent just a few minutes on it. I wanted to talk more about this word, admonishing one another.

I think the word, the Greek definition, it means to put in mind by implication to caution or reprove gently, and it also goes along with the idea of reminding and remembering. And Donna said to me a minute ago before I came up here, she said, you know, that word admires, it doesn't mean you go around expressing your opinion to everybody else. It has nothing to do with opinion. It has everything to do with what God's word says.

And I think the Lord has set things up within the body of Christ that we can admonish each other or we can educate or bring to mind things that we already know. I think it's a privilege to belong to a church like this one where everyone continually brings before us the precious things of God. I think that's priceless. There is a preserving and a stimulating power in such activities. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that we'd had a week where we had a Bible study on Monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and every one of those Bible studies was uplifting because everybody involved in them admonished one another. They were criticizing. They were helping us all understand. I think that God is always giving us impressions or revealing things about the word to us.

And he gives you one thing and me another, and maybe not the whole understanding. And if we communicate these impressions to each other, we're both going to benefit. So this word has nothing to do with argumentation or or dispute or anything like that. I'll show you some places where Paul uses it. We should not hesitate to speak of things that are on our minds, they are given to us to put into circulation.

Do you realize that what you learned yesterday by spending time in the word is not just for you, it's to be circulated? Acts 20, 31, Paul says, I get him right, Luke says, therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one of you with tears. What was he doing? Making them cry?

No, he was teaching, reminding, sharing, Acts 27.9 says, when considerable time had passed, and the voids was now dangerous, and since even the fast was already over, Paul began to admonish them. What was he telling these guys? The boat was gonna, they were gonna all be drowned? And he was telling them, you're not doing a very good job? No, he was encouraging them.

Romans 5.14, the verse that we're looking at today, that with filled with all knowledge, you're able to admonish one another. That's something we should do.

1 Corinthians 4.14, I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. You get the flavor of what this word begins to mean.

1 Thessalonians 5.14, we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Boy, that sort of puts it in a capsule, doesn't it? Or 2 Thessalonians, do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. talk to him as a brother.

One of the coolest things about a place like Holly Hills is that we can spend time talking about the Lord with each other and it isn't, well, I know this and you need to shut up and I'm gonna tell you and yeah, you need to shut up so I can tell me. Sometimes we're reserved because we feel that the fellow believers know very well the thing which we have on our minds, not necessarily but that is no reason for not saying it to them. In other words, if the Lord has given you something that he wants you to talk about, talk about it, talk about it. You're not gonna be foolish, you're not gonna be considered less of a Christian or more of a Christian or anything like that. It's really a great tool that God has incorporated into his, church and amongst people so that they can communicate.

The next verse, he says, I've written boldly to you so as a reminder again, because of the grace that was given to me. You ever notice how much reminding goes on in scripture? Ever notice how much repetition there is about the same subject, same, all the time, all the time. That's what admonishing does. It reminds each other, what is proper, what is doctrine.

Over and over, Paul makes a statement like that of the present verse, insisting that he and his glorying were before the unseen God and not before men. He's not functioning to impress men, he's functioning to impress the Lord, and that's why he reminds. God is my witness whom I serve, 2 Corinthians 5, in my spirit in the gospel of his son, we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God. And I hope that we are made manifest also in your conscience."

What is he doing in that verse? He's admonishing. So, and then he talks about ministering as a priest, the gospel of God. I must admit that until I saw this verse, I really didn't recognize the priestly aspect of Paul's ministry, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by God. What a motivation he had.

This word ministering, priest, one who offers sacrifices and has the charge of things pertaining thereto to God, that's his job. Israel was primarily designed as a nation to be a kingdom of priests and offering service to God means they were all to function as temple workers or officiate as a priest, they were always to be presenting things to God. Representative of the people, that's what a priest does, he represents the people to God. When you intercede for someone in prayer, what are you doing? You're representing them to God. You're acting as a priest.

So Paul had a special ministry or a special measure of grace given to him, and he had an official place. He was a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentile nations. That's what God called him to do. but he always had in mind the results for God so that he carried out his ministry in sacrificial service. Now think about this. A lot of times we focus on the ministry itself without thinking, well, what's the end game? The end game is sacrificial service to please God in what he's called us to do.

What he had before him was, that those of the Gentile nations should be brought and offered up as in Christ Jesus, they would be set apart, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and as a result, they would be acceptable to God. One of the things that the Levitical system did was God told them, I want you to sacrifice to me, but there's things that are acceptable and there's things that aren't acceptable. And so they had to learn what was acceptable. Paul knew that his sacrificial service to the Gentiles and everything he had to teach them and were them was acceptable to God. That's what motivated him.

So we get to today's verse. We're going to do 17 and 18. Therefore, in Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God. The word therefore refers back to verse 16, and that The ministry of Paul is described in 16.

That's what his ministry was about, and that's how he conducted it. So he says, so therefore, based on that, I have found reason for boasting to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest of the gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

That's what he's gonna brag about. But you know what's interesting about that? A minister, according to the Greek, is one who discharges a public office at his own expense of the Apostle Paul in his evangelical ministry, fulfilling it as a serving priest. That was what he was doing. And really, that's what we are too.

Paul had some to boast about in Christ Jesus in relation to God. He carried on the message of the good news, the gospel, in sacrificial service, in view of what is he looking at? He's looking at the results. What's the end game here? It was a holy and priestly character of his service. That's how he viewed it.

So Paul brings those of the Gentile nations for God's holy service and pleasure. So who's he really bragging about? He's only really talking about what God is doing through him. He's not bragging about himself and how proficient he is and what the ministry that God gave him, but he had a goal. His object was that the Gentiles of all the nations might be acceptable offering to God.

With that in mind, he is the one that was charged with the responsibility that what makes them acceptable and how do they know that they are acceptable? Well, that's what Paul's epistles are all about. This is a priestly side of the gospel service. Paul said that he served God in his spirit in the good news of his son. That's what he was about.

If you look at Romans 1.9, Paul says, 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. All about his ministry.

So boasting, let's talk about this. Boasting really is a simple word. It means to brag. It means to self-importance. So what was Paul's object? Was it what he was doing or was the object of what he was doing, he could brag about. And you could say, you can brag about good or bad sense, that's what this word means. I may glory, glorify, I'm rejoicing. And Paul says, what?

In the things that belong to God. Not in me, not in what I've done, but only in the things that pertain to God. You and I who live under grace, we have nothing to brag about but what God has done. You can't go to God and say, oh, look, I've got this, or look what I've done. Comparing ministries. If you compare the ministry of Paul with the ministry of Moses, it's really interesting. Moses operated under God.

Under the eye of all the nations, they were watching to see what he would do. They knew about Israel. Humbling the proudest of the nations, because the Jews would defeat these nations every time. Leading Israel in the wilderness by marvelous and continuous and physical miracles.

I would have liked to have been Moses. He had it pretty wired. 40 years he did this with God defending him publicly, even opening the earth to swallow up his opposers. I don't think I would want to have been an Egyptian calvaryman. Moses's ministry was overwhelmingly magnificent. It was outwardly as his whole life and ministry were. Now let's compare it. with Paul. On the other hand, Paul shared or boasted in a good sense, he operated in a place of earthly rejection with the despising of his Lord.

His great desire, Philippians 3.10, to be conformed to his death. Moses would have never said that.

It requires spiritual discernment to see Paul's place in ministry. You have to understand about the priestly part of his ministry. Paul's public position was that he was the official administrator of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. That was his job. However, in his own spirit, he was in a priestly attitude, thinking of the results for God.

At the end of the day, is what I'm doing going to be acceptable to him with all of these Gentiles? Answer yes. The object of the good news is that there may be a company of persons in Christ Jesus sanctified by the Holy Spirit, wholly apart morally from the flesh, acceptable to God for his holy service. He's still doing that. If you read Paul's epistles, he is still doing that. And that's the whole reason for his existence, why God called him.

So verse 18 tells us, I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished, and I put in parentheses, or which has not accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed. So he's not bragging about himself. The Weymouth translation says, I will not presume or I will not dare to mention any of the results that Christ has brought about by other agencies than mine in securing the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed." He was sent to the Gentiles. He was sent to bring them as a sacrifice to the God of the universe. Romans 12, four through six, let's take a look at that. For just as we have many members in one body, All the members do not have the same function. So we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another.

And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly. What Paul's telling us here, I think, is that Paul was given a ministry Paul was given a special grace, a special faith in what he was doing, so is every member of the body of Christ. We all differ in the gifts, we all have them, and it's all been given to us by grace. None of us earned any of it, none of us got a straight A class in seminary, so we deserve this ministry or that ministry. Everything about us is grace-based, and everything that we do and every gift that we have is grace. God gave it to us undeservedly.

Chapter 12 here guards against being copycats of each other's service, for it reminds us that even each has God's given measure of faith. Everybody in this room, look at the person next to you, they have a gift that's different than yours. But we're all one. And so all of those gifts, all of those measures of faith contribute to the health of the whole body of Christ so that when the offering is made, it's acceptable to God.

I only really have divine support as I pursue the line for which God has dealt faith to me. What this is saying is that Not everybody's a teacher, and not everybody is a pastor, and not everybody is an orator, and not every, you know, everybody does their, what God has called them to do. You know, the example of the human body is really a great one. My thumb can't tell, well, can't tell my finger what to do. This finger only listens half the time.

So Paul says, I will not presume or dare to speak of anything, anything, except what Christ has accomplished or which Christ has not accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed. So if there's any bragging to go on, it has to go on based on what Christ has already accomplished in and through you. not because you did anything special. I'm not gonna speak about another's ministry. I'm not gonna speak about, oh, how great, you know, God did 97% and I did the last three. He says, I'm not gonna even speak about other's ministries that did not work out Christ through me. In other words, there were other ministries going along, if you read Paul's epistles, and you read the gospels or read Acts, there's a lot going on around Paul that he really didn't have anything to do with, but the church was growing.

And so he recognized that if you're gonna brag, make sure you're bragging about what the Lord has done. Paul had a special measure of grace. He had an official place as the minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentile nations, a really interesting job. God gives a distinct degree of faith to each of us and each of us has to fulfill his own amount. So we should all know what God wants us to do. It may be something real simple. Maybe he wants you to be a dad or a mom or an example in the workplace or a person that helps people behind the scenes that you never see. Maybe he wants you to just pray for people. and their circumstances.

Interesting, the last part of this verse, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed. So Paul announced Christ, as he tells the Colossians, and admonishes and taught every man to the end that he might present every man perfect in Christ. That was the purpose of admonishment. so that he could present every man perfect in Christ everywhere, every place, every believer made perfect in Christ. That was his goal.

From Denny, from Kenneth Weiss says this, all other boasting he declines. In effect, this means I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ brought through me. That's the explanation of I therefore have my glorying in Christ. You see what he's doing? His glory is that Christ gave him this ministry. Christ is accomplishing the ministry to and through him. He gets the glory in Christ. He gets to brag about what Christ is doing, not the fact that he's the vehicle. The things which Christ did work through, Paul, he shaped with a view to obedience on the part of the Gentiles. And obedience is a really simple word here. It just means that they would believe the gospel. They would believe. So there's a combination here.

Christ working in Paul to make the Gentiles obedient to the gospel is the vindication of Paul's action in writing to the book of Romans. Why did he write to the Romans? Roger's gonna talk about that next week. What happened is he looked around Asia Minor and he explored all of that, so now he's gonna go to Rome. That's the next big group of Gentiles that Paul's gonna deal with, and that's why he writes the Book of Romans.

It's not on his own impulse, but in Christ that he does it. And the Romans as Gentiles lie within the sphere of which Christ worked through him. And then he's thinking, I'm gonna go to Spain after that. So Paul means to show here the absolute distinctness of his calling and his work, that it was distinct.

Make one more comment about, although as young Christians, you look around to see how, I remember I did when I was first saved. I thought, well, now that I'm a Christian, what do they do? How do they act? And so you start looking around and watching them, and you see some do this and some do that, and some, oh, I like what he does or she does. I think I'll imitate them.

Now, I mean, they may be there to teach you, help you along with your gift, your faith, but God has this distinct personal thing for you that you glorify him in doing. Now, this last part, there's a handout that you got this morning. Take it home with you. I just want to go through it because I thought it was really good. It's from Miles Stanford.

And it talks about and helps explain the difference between a grace-based view and a law-based view. Born by grace as a new creation, a new Christian, you are able to understand that you were born again on the principle of grace, the unearned free gift of God. Your salvation is unearned and it was a free gift. The gift of God is the eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord for by grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourself, salvation is the gift of God. and then we'll be conformed by grace. As a new Christian, it is important that you realize also that God saved you in order to conform you to the image of his son.

Imagine that. God in the universe is gonna conform each one of us to the image of his son. The Lord Jesus is the express image of God. And it is through him that God realizes his original purpose. What was the original purpose? Let us make man in our own image. That was the original purpose. Or to live by grace. God created, God gave, and God works. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Philippians 2.13. Your father's good pleasure is that you may become like his beloved son. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. Live by grace. Works versus grace.

In time, however, it may be a few months or a number of years, you may begin to falter in all of these areas. Most of you know that news, it's not new to you. Your love for the Lord cools and the elements of your old life begin to reassert themselves. By means of your struggle and failure to live the Christian life, the Lord Jesus is teaching you the indispensable grace principle, not I but Christ, not I but Christ. That principle has to be learned, and most of the time it takes a long time to learn that. During this downward path, you will finally learn that you cannot live the Christian life on your own strength, nor even with the Lord's help. That's a real surprise to some Christians.

When you consider John 15, the grace is vine, the Lord expressed it in the principle of John 15, five. Your part as a branch, you know how that goes. There's the vine, there's the branches and the fruits at the end of the branches. Who produces the life? The vine does. We're the branch. The problem with this is that we're supposed to keep our focus on the vine, but most of us wanna keep sneaking peeks at the, see how the grapes are going. Wrong direction.

God's in charge of production. Your part as a branch in the vine is to rest in him, depend on him, and fellowship with him. You're divine. and his life will flow in and through you, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in your mortal flesh. He intends for that resurrected life of Christ to flow through us. Branch.

You'll find it's a great revelation and relief in the midst of your failure to hear these words. Now, thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph in Christ and makes manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. You do not triumph by means of your own strength or your own strategy. It is your father who gives you life and growth in his son. Walk by grace. Slowly you will learn, is the mic cutting out? I better stop doing this. Slowly and painfully you will learn to be dependent upon your heavenly father. You'll learn to trust him.

For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for what? Unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Good works are his idea. He decided, and he decided that you're gonna walk in the ones that he has decided for you.

So, that means that we serve by grace. You are going to learn that your service is also according to the principle in grace. Regeneration by grace, growth by grace, service by grace. Your father has promised to provide you with all that you will ever need for whatever he calls you to do. God is able to make all grace abound towards you. that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. Does grace really work?

The fact that the Christian life and service are by grace does not mean that you flop down and wait for him to work apart from you, as in what it means. The growing Christian is a very active individual. He becomes a willing instrument, like Paul, of God's blessed will, and he can say with Paul, his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me, 1 Corinthians 15, 10. So my last comment is from Miles.

God works not with what he finds, but with what he brings to us close. Father, how thankful we are for your grace. Thankful that you are a gracious God and that you have determined and that you will carry out everything that you said in and through us so that our boasting would be only in you, in the Lord Jesus, in the work and the power of the Holy Spirit. We're thankful, Father, and we pray in your son's name. Amen.