Hi, church, and welcome back to this week’s Bible study video, where we bring the Bible home as you continue with the Scriptures, not just on Sundays but throughout the week too. You can treat this playlist like a Bible study podcast, starting at the beginning if you have not already watched the first few videos of our Romans series. It has been an incredible book, and you can study it on your own through this playlist. If you are new here, I am Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California, and today’s video is the fourth in our series through Romans. This is not laid out like a sermon with one big idea; it is more like a lot of little talking points throughout every verse, going verse by verse. We go ten to fifteen minutes, stop, and save the rest for the next video. In the previous videos we covered up to about verse 12, and the theme of Romans is the gospel. The last time we were in this series, we were talking about Paul’s prayer, which ended with his prayer for spiritual fruit, and we will cover some more of that in a bit, but he also prayed for comfort for them in verse 12.
Purposed but Hindered
Now in verse 13, as I scroll down here, the Bible says, “Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.” Paul purposed. Our Fellowship adult Bible class was recently talking about God’s will and the purposes of God, and also our purposes to follow God. Paul purposed; he intended to come. “I purposed to come unto you,” to Rome, “but was let hitherto.” He was hindered until now. Sometimes when people are hindered, it is because of Satan; 1 Thessalonians talks about that. “Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.” I find it interesting that if Paul could not just bind Satan with some supposed kingdom authority, then I do not suppose we can either. It is not up to us whether we will be free from trials. Those very trials and tribulations may very well be part of God’s intended purpose for you. There is a kingdom authority that will come, but that is not for this age. It is coming in the kingdom age, when we rule and reign with Christ in the literal thousand-year reign of Christ on a literal earth. I believe in the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, and I just cannot get around an actual millennium of an actual thousand years on an actual earth. In the meantime, we can resist the devil. The Bible says if we resist him, he will flee from us. But we cannot bind the devil any more than Paul could. He was hindered, and I suppose we may be as well. What he tells us is to put on the armour of God. You know the passage in Ephesians chapter 6: we stand against him, and if we have the armour of God, like the shield of faith, there will be fiery darts of the wicked coming at us, but the shield will block them. We can block the devil’s darts with the shield of faith, but it is not as if we are going to bind Satan. He will be bound in the thousand-year millennium, when he is bound in the pit.
Fruit Among You
So the apostle Paul says in verse 13 that his purpose in coming to them at Rome was “that I might have some fruit among you also.” Again, these are spiritual reasons for his travels. I appreciate that he wanted to come to Rome, but not just for tourism, right? Not just because he wanted to see the Colosseum or something. He was going for “some fruit among you also.” His desire was that fruit would be part of his travels. So I encourage you the same way. Some families of our church were recently able to do some traveling, and I think for every trip you take there should be prayers for spiritual fruit. Pray that God would allow some spiritual fruit to come of whatever you are doing, wherever you are going. We had members go to the Philippines, praying for spiritual fruit among family out there, that as godly influences they would witness to their family, praying that family members would get saved. When we take trips with our church, a camp trip for example, those are absolutely not vacations. Do not you dare call them vacations. Vacation time is rest, an intentional time of turning off and unplugging, and the point of unplugging is to recharge your batteries, to actually rest. Why would we rest? So that we can do more for the cause of Christ. The reason we rest and relax is to recharge to do more work in the future. When I recharge my phone at night, I want it to be a functional tool the next day. So a vacation is a recharge so that you can be used at a future time. But a church trip is a time of giving, not recharging, a church trip like the Philippines trip, or the trips to camp with the junior campers or the teen campers. Some adults go as sponsors, and it might look like fun when we come back with the slideshows and all that, but if our workers are doing their jobs right, they are “on” the whole time. Not this year, but last year, some of our youth staff stayed up all night, most nights of the week, and still had to work in the daytime, investing in the teens. It was nonstop. They took vacation time from their work, yes, but it was not a vacation for them, that is for sure. There are always bus and van problems, people breaking rules, and services to run. All those trips are for spiritual fruit, all for the purpose of spiritual fruit.
I recently went to South Dakota. I appreciated the time with my friends up there, the Jett family, and we did some enjoyable things. We were blessed by that. My wife and I got some nice macarons at a nice little store downtown, and it was great to catch up with friends. But I preached Friday night, pouring my heart out to try to help save future marriages. I preached three times on Saturday, trying to help teens live their lives for God, and three times on Sunday, trying to help church members love the Bible and live by the Bible. Then I flew to Arizona to try to help church planters keep their churches open and raise support at a church planters’ conference, and the following Friday I preached at a wonderful church here in Irvine, California, that meets in their upper room every Friday, a bunch of young guys, many of them recently saved. In all those trips and travels, I am praying that God will give us some spiritual fruit. We want to see spiritual fruit right here in Southern California. We want to see spiritual fruit at summer camp. We did enjoy a nice time with the people we were with, but those are not vacations. When I went away for junior camp, I used those weeks as think weeks. I want to use my time as efficiently as possible for planning, preparing, thinking, studying, praying, reading, and writing. I keep a log of every minute I spend, and in another video I detail some of that, but it is working in long chunks of time and going really deep into a subject, rather than always flitting off to the next meeting or whatever is scheduled when I am at home. So I am just saying that sometimes God’s will for us can look like, “Well, I have to travel.” Traveling and journeys can be part of God’s will for you. God’s will might sometimes look like traveling, being on the move, and ministering on the move, as it was with the apostle Paul. If God is in that, and if your life is like that too, then I hope you are doing whatever you can to follow God’s purpose for your life and seek spiritual fruit. I want to purpose to do with my life whatever I can for God, and that is all I want to do. With that, we are purposeful about vacation times, not just going, going, going all the time. We are intentional at our church about trying not to be gone too much, not to miss too many Sundays. We are pretty careful, even with the travels, that it hopefully does not happen on too many weekends a year. But sometimes it is the ministry itself, going outside our church, that leads me, or my family, away for a weekend or two. As long as God is in that, I sincerely just want God’s will for my life, and I want that for you too. Wherever your journeys take you, pray for spiritual fruit.
What does that fruit look like? Sometimes it is salvations. Sometimes it is godly living, Ephesians 5:9. Sometimes it is God’s glory; that is fruit according to John 15:8. Matthew 13 talks about sowing the gospel in the parable of the sower, and that seed yielding fruit. So we want spiritual fruit, just like the apostle Paul: “that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.”
I Am Debtor
The way Paul describes himself in verse 14 is wonderful: “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.” “I am debtor.” I feel this responsibility, this obligation. “Man, I feel I owe it to you to be there with you. I am entrusted with this calling, and I have to fulfill it. I am accountable for debts. I am accountable to God for preaching this gospel. I just have to do it.” He says, “I have to preach to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, Romans and non-Romans, to the wise and to the unwise.” He was a highly educated person, but he is trying to reach the educated and the uneducated, the unlearned. In Paul’s eyes, everybody is loved. We want to reach everybody and help everybody. We had a missionary come through our church, the Means family, and he had been a devout atheist, the type of atheist who wanted to convince Christians they were wrong. He got his PhD in physics, along with multiple degrees; he said he was overeducated. When he got saved, he had an addictions ministry. God called him to a country full of atheists, a country that respected higher degrees, and a country with a high rate of alcoholism and drug addiction. The very three things God prepared him with, even in his unsaved life, God wanted to use in his future. So Paul said, “Man, with my background, with what God has given to me, I just feel I am a debtor. I have to go bring the gospel.”
I Am Ready
And so in verse 15 he said, “So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.” “I am ready.” This is like the headline of the book coming up; it is all about the gospel. “I am ready to preach the gospel.” In that passage in Ephesians chapter 6 we were in, our feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. He was ready in his preparation, ready in his passion: “I cannot wait to get to Rome. There are people there who need the gospel.” And that is a learned trait, to be ready, so that if the door opens, you are able to step through it. Our church would know Valerie, a lady in our church. A couple of weeks ago, when my wife was doing the ladies’ Bible study, Valerie asked her, “How do you have gospel conversations with people? If you are having a conversation, how do you get it around to the gospel?” My wife had just told the story of trying to witness to her hairdresser, talking about abortion and all of that and bringing it around to the gospel, and Jamie just said, “Well, I pray for opportunities, and when the opportunities come, I take them.” So Valerie was praying for opportunities to talk to somebody about the gospel, and I think the very next day, she said, three times she had conversations that just happened to open up into gospel conversations. That does not just happen. You have to be ready, just like the apostle Paul here, looking for those things and praying for them. We have a young man, Jacob, in our discipleship right now. He works at Circle K, and someone just gave him a tract at the Circle K and invited him to church, and he read it and came to church. We still do not know who gave him the tract, but I appreciated that somebody was ready to take the gospel to whoever needed it. Brother Sai in our church has performed lots of weddings, a few of them recently, and he said, “I just share the gospel at these weddings. I am ready for it anytime. If there is an open microphone, I am ready to preach the gospel.” He is always ready in conversations. He gets the conversation around to the topic of eternity, or perhaps death, and asks, “Man, if you died today, are you sure you would go to heaven?” He is ready, as quick as that, eager to find opportunities to preach the gospel.
Not Ashamed of the Gospel
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” Not embarrassed, not ashamed of the gospel, this pure gospel, this unadulterated, unmixed gospel. We are not adding anything to the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is not a false gospel we promote; this is the gospel of Christ, and it is the power of God unto salvation. It is dynamite power, the mighty ability, the miracle strength God gives for us to be saved. I am not a Calvinist, but Calvinists are definitely right about this: God is the One who saves. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. We have no argument with the statement that God is the One who saves. We place our faith in Christ, and He is the One who saves. We cannot add a thing to the power of God to save. There is not an ounce of power in us to save ourselves. The new birth, passing from death to life, is only by the power of God. But it says it is “to every one that believeth.” So believe that Jesus died for your sins, and trust Him as you trust a parachute when jumping out of a plane. Some say, “Man, I am so mixed up about this. I believe in Christ, I believe the gospel, I have trusted Him and all that, but I am just not sure whether I am one of the elect.” Well, you are, if you believe. You do not have to worry about that. You just believe in Christ. You can trust Him for salvation. It is a belief with your heart. The Bible says this is “to the Jew first,” and I think in the next video we will talk more about that phrase and some of the powerful thoughts from verse 16. I am looking forward to diving more into verses 16 and 17 in the next video. God bless you, and we will see you then.
